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.