Boswick the clown

He's funny!

Really funny!

Daisy gets in on the act.

That's funny too!

I'm back in the audiene now and ... it's funny!

Boswick balances a ladder on his face.

Crash.

Dolores Park, 9/20/08

Jaded youth

9/19/08

Madeline

9/13/08

Whatever this is

I'm playing with it.

9/7/08

New bikes!

Whoa, lookout back there, Daisy.

Whoa.

Let's try this way for a while.

You can ride these things anywhere. Almost anywhere.

Only crash of the day.

9/1/08

Election worker tampers with voting booth!

11/4/08>

Election Day

Mommy, can I come with you to America?

-- Daisy, to Jane, who had been talking about voting.

We explained that we don't have to leave San Francisco to vote.

Whatever's happening here

it's probably not real good for Daisy.

8/30

Lisa Loeb?

Our 3 kids

Buster, Daisy and Piggie.

Daisy's birthday

Ready for cake.

Presents. Miles and Buster helping out.

Piñata. The hockey stick is a family tradition.

Buster takes a whack. What form!

After-party BBQ. On the menu: Olive the Other Reindeer and some green shark.

Breakfast

Making Grandma's tea

This is a very funny thing that's happening right here.

Aaaaaand we're over it.

The right profile.

The left profile.

The kid who wouldn't laugh at anything

Who had the best Halloween costume at your school today?
Buster: There's this guy, and you can't make him laugh at anything. He had a ninja costume, and that was the best one.
He never laughs at anything?
Well, you can't make him laugh.
I'll bet I could make him laugh.
No.
I'll bet I could.
How would you?
I'd tell him a joke.
What joke would you tell?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Butt.
Butt who?
Buttsy McButtbutt.

Don't know if it would work on that kid, but Buster and Daisy have been laughing for two days, and Dad just stopped.

Halloween card

Kindergarten must be taking. In the last few days, Buster has been spontaneously spelling things. He asks for almost no help. He just sits down and figures out what letters to use by listening to the sound of the word. The only question he asked in the making of this card was, "What letter sounds like 'uh'?"

Front

"Welcome to space heroes Halloween space card." Note the false start, crossed out with black marker. Because it's so hard to find a blank piece of paper in our house. We only have about 10 packages of it.

I think the space man in the circle is Buster. The four blue things are the name patches the four of us wear on our space suits.

Back

I think that's our rocket. It's some rocket, anyway.

(Click for larger version)

The inside is a message to Mom about something exciting that Dad bought for dinner: "Dear Jane, Guess what. King bought toasted ravioli. Love, Buster." The little drawing is the four pieces of toasted ravioli in the little frozen-dinner tray it came in. Not sure what that is above and to the right of it. Both kids reported that the toasted ravioli was lousy. And Buster doesn't call us Jane and King.

Grampaland

There's ice cream there.

Very funny, Grampa, but the last time you tried that trick you almost lost your arm.

7/24/08

Jacket

At his baby shower, the as-yet-unborn Buster received a gift of a tuxedo jacket for a small boy. It sat in his closet for five years before he discovered it and decided he liked it. The first time he wore it he paired it with a Terrell Owens 49ers jersey and a Batman baseball cap and ended up looking like ...

Chevy Chase

7/23/08

Sunshine

girl

7/23/08

Gold country

Salon has an annual "retreat" on a family ranch in the Gold Country. You know, team-building, strategizing, blue-sky brainstorming, that sort of thing. Yeah, those aren't allowed. It's a great time, and because we were just barely back in the S.F. last year, this was our first year going with the kids, and their first semi-quasi camping experience. We slept in a house, but otherwise, pretty outdoorsy. It was two nights, and I figured there was a good chance the kids would be bored, unhappy, scared of various things or otherwise wanting to go home after about 30 minutes.

It took about 10 minutes for them to turn into Huck Finn.


Walking.

Running.

Eating lofa bread.

Being amused by Theo, daddy's former co-star, and Louis. Mostly Theo, no offense to Louis.

Helping Gary with the coooking.

Hitchin' a ride with Dad.

A little breakfast reading.

7/18-19/08

Plum patrol!

Our new house came with three plum trees in the backyard, and when we moved in it was harvest time. We'd have about 50 new yellow plums on the ground every day. Later, red ones dropped. They're good. Anyway, the kids volunteered for plum cleanup duty. The plums can get yucky, so they got some rubber gloves.

Got one.

Into the wheelbarrow, which has since broken from the heavy use. Sad day.

Transport phase.

Dumpage. This was accompanied by much mechanical beeping.

"Heh-heh. Work away, silly humans."

7/14/08

Bruise

Tripped, went head first into the base of a rocking chair. Ow.

7/8/08

When leopards attack

their daddies.

I'll wait in the jeep while the leopard tries to eat the giraffe.

She survived.

Pix taken late June

Buster's muscles

[Making muscle gesture]
Look at my strong heart.
Yeah!
It looks almost like a real man's.
Well you are a real man.
Nah.
You're a young man, and that's the first step.
Well, I am able to have a conversation with kids when they're not doing the right thing. And I use a quiet voice, and they're kind of long.

He means with his kids, Tiger Ethan the tiger and Lilka the rabbit.