Got it made

Furlined seats and lettered windscreen
Elbow on the windowsill
Eight track blazing Brucie Springsteen
Bomber jacket, dressed to kill

Siouxsie Sioux

Part 2?

Gotcha!

Snuck one past the don't-take-my-picture guard

More walking

Feet on the ground this time (mid-July)

Bath time

In the kitchen? Also note the new double pony tails (mid-July)

Bright

Paging Dr. Freud

Daddy, you're the daddy giraffe and I'm the baby giraffe and Mommy's the mommy giraffe. But Daisy's not a giraffe. She's a zebra. She lives in a different cage.

Aghghh!!

My hand is gone!

Ha!

Cal Buster

Fourth of July

Over the next few days, we will be presenting a collection of photographs taken at our Fourth of July barbecue, held of course on the First of July. All of the photos were taken by Rebecca Reardon, shown here in a self-portrait while in the process of becoming Buster's one true love. In the next week, everyone who asked Buster about his weekend was told, "We had a party -- and Rebecca was there!"

Just now when I posted this picture and looked at the site to make sure it was OK, Buster looked up from his breakfast and said, "Hey! There's Rebecca and me!"

Fingers

[Buster licking cookie dough off his fingers]
All my fingers were like, "Let me in there. No, let me in there. No, let ME in there."
[More licking]
The big finger ate up all the little fingers!

Happy-sad

"It's happy-sad. They're on the yellow brick road and they have to go to the wicked witch's scary castle and Dorothy's crying 'cause she's scared and then they melt her and they sing 'Ding dong the witch is dead.'"

Buster tells Uncle Peter about his favorite movie, while wearing his new favorite shirt, his fireworks shirt from Seattle.

Confession: I lost my scribbled note recording this conversation, so it's largely from memory, but he absolutely said "It's happy-sad."

Walking

at Grant's Farm. The camera caught a little cheat there. (7/4)

Morning

Daisy Lou

American Rococo

Strong

Sometimes we use Daisy to hold up a wall (7/1)

Party

Buster and his pal Matthew at our annual Fourth of July BBQ. (7/1)

Momma!

(6/24)

Increasingly

upright

Evansville

Lindsey is still Buster's best girl.

And here's Amy with Daisy, and special guest star Daisy's belly. (6/17)

Worker man

Buster helps Ms. Kathy wash the dishes at the Art Cafe at school. Regularly. He also helps her clean up the table, move the trash can and generally tidy up after breakfast.

Just like he helps out at home!

Riiiiiiight.

Conversations with my cousin

Buster: My mommy's in Seattle. That's very far away.

Talia: My mommy's in the kitchen. It's right there.

Sunglasses

First inaugural address

Hide and seek

Or something, with Grandad Jim. (6/17)

The firefighter

It really helps to picture Buster's half of these morning conversations spoken in his big, deep, firefighter voice.

After the party, when all the people go, you can carry all my toys back downstairs, because I have little hands, and you have really big hands.
Let me see. [Compares hand sizes.] Oh, yeah, my hand is a little bigger than yours, isn't it? I never noticed that. I bet my feet are bigger than yours too, huh?
Uh-huh.
Someday yours'll be bigger than mine. Can you imagine that?
Yeah.
You can? I can't. But I bet you will. You'll be bigger than me someday. You can picture that, huh?
Yeah. I'll be a big, tall firefighter.
Oh, OK.
Yeah. But I'll still just be Buster.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Firefighters have really good pencils.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I'm the firefighter, and you're the firefighter, and Mommy's the fire chief.
She's the fire chief? She'll be glad to hear that.

Mom: Good morning, Buster. [Kisses top of his head.]
No. The fire chief doesn't kiss the firefighters.

Daredevil

Daisy

C

L

I

M

B

S

Uh?

Whatchoo lookin' at?

Play-doh

What's this blue stuff?
Eggs
Blue eggs?!
Yeah.
Like green eggs? Like green eggs and ham?
They're blue jays' eggs.
Oh. Are blue jays' eggs blue?
Yeah.
I didn't know that. What about cardinals' eggs? Are they red?
[No answer]
Or are they blue? Or maybe white. I dunno. I've never seen one.
Yes you have.
I have?
Yeah. Remember? We went to the old Cardinals and there was a Cardinal bird there with pants on.
Yes! I do remember that.
Yeah! He was silly!

Whoop!

This is a game where Eula snatches the bowling pins away just before Buster can knock them over with his sippy cup. Owen and Buster agreed this was the funniest thing ever to happen in the history of the world. (6/3)

Playground

Daisy's new hangout: Under the table.

Big world

Little kid.

Dance party

Working it out to "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" -- we have a 45 -- with Owen Gastineau. Dad Jeff is only encouraging this sort of behavior. (6/3)
Here's Owen's front:

Buster explains the toolbox

These are pliers.
What do pliers do?
They ply.

Last Cali picture dump

Filbert Street near Washington Square in San Francisco. Buster thought that parking on this hill, which is way steeper than it looks in this photo, was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. He's from St. Louis. We live near a neighborhood called "The Hill" that he thinks is actually on, you know, a hill.


Some big bridge (5/7)


Family portrait, Sacramento zoo, Tom Double D Thumb and Veena's wedding. (5/6)


Big Stick Mick, aka Just Mick, aka Michael, with Daisy, and with his son Hank, aka Buster in a few years. That's Hank's sister Fifi in the background. At the wedding. (5/6)

No singing

[Singing] Hurry, hurry, get your socks on, hurry --
No! Don't sing that.
What do you want me to sing?
Nothing.
OK. [Singing] Nothing! Nothing-nothing, noth --
No! Don't sing that either!
Why not?
'Cause it's noying me.

Parent of the year

nomination photo. (S.F., early May)

Blurry

girl.

The cook

Very, very

Daddy, I wish I had some Scooby-Doo socks.
I wish you did too.
Well, Daddy, when you go to the store, tomorrow, let's go to the store. When you go, will you please get some Scooby-Doo socks for me?
Yeah, I will.
Daddy, if you go to the Scooby-Doo store and get me some Scooby-Doo socks, I will be very, very happy. Very happy.
I'll try to do that. I don't know if there's such a thing as Scooby-Doo socks, but if there is I'm gonna try to get them because that was really good talking.
Yeah. Daddy, when your little boy does something good, you should do a nice thing for your little boy, because that's very, very good. And the good thing I did was change my poopy pullup.

Ball

Forest Park, late April.

Travelin' Man

Lambert Field, early morning, 4/29/06.

A-need confusion

Asleep in the high chair.

New dimensions

In Scooby-Doo, thanks to the new portable DVD player, bought for the trip to San Francisco. This was the trial run. As it happened, it wasn't needed on the flight out. Buster was a model of comportment and a fine traveling companion. But it sure eased the stress level knowing the big gun was waiting under the seat if needed.

Baby

Buster, is Daisy the cutest baby in that baby room at school?
Daisy is the cutest baby in the whole baby world.

Uncles

Peter and Jeb get to know Daisy. We're backing up a little here to late April.

Customer service

Here's some money, and here.
Oh, a credit card. Can I take this to the store?
Well, this is the store.
Oh, then I'd like to buy something.
OK.
I'd like to buy some gramupples.
We don't have any gramupples.
You don't have any gramupples?!
Well, we do. These are gramupples.
OK.
These are gramupples.
OK, I'd like some.
Well, actually, this is ChapStick.
Oh, you don't have gramupples, then?
No.
Oh. Well, do you have any whizzenpuffs?
No, we don't have any whizzenpuffs.
No, gramupples and no whizzenpuffs? What kind of outfit are you running here?
[Slowly, as to an idiot] This. Is. A. Store!

She bends over backwards

To take a cute picture. (S.F. ~5/3)

Tourists

On the cable car. We stayed at a flat in Noe Valley. Buster was really into the street cars, especially our home line, the J Church. One morning, we got on the J Church, rode it to Powell and Market, got on the cable car, rode it up to Fisherman's Wharf, bought Buster his own toy cable car, walked over ...

to Pier 39 to say hello to the sea lions --

or play with the new toy cable car, as the case may be, for a few minutes, then got on the F car and rode it down the Embarcadero and up Market to Church, where we got the J Church and went home. It was about a three and a half-hour trip, about three hours of it on public transportation, and we had a fabulous time. Who'da thunk.