Family

Here’s Clara’s outstanding robot costume, manufactured with a case of Pacifico and a box of Annie’s Mac and Cheese, plus some silver spray paint, a bit of flexible dryer conduit, a Sharpie, and plenty of duct tape — assembled entirely by Karen yesterday evening. It was all Clara’s idea, though, insp

I’m sure Karen will soon have more pictures of the chaos going on here, but here’s a sample. The big project for the past few days has been stucco removal–like flaying the house alive, actually, since it leaves everything still standing and more or less intact, but … skinless. It’s creepy. And a bit

After months of work, Karen’s plans for our remodel finally got the green light from the planning department yesterday. We celebrated by sabering a bottle of champagne last night, and this morning Karen — together with a neighbor she hired — started stripping stucco off the outside walls of our hous

This is a picture Clara drew last week at preschool. Teacher Sheila wrote down the story Clara told to go with it: It’s a person. It’s my Daddy. It’s an angry Daddy. Because I did something bad that he didn’t like. I was throwing things at him. I threw markers at him. They had a […]

Clara’s musical interests have shifted to Aretha Franklin — and now it’s “Respect” that she wants to hear, over and over again. “I want respect!” she says. Most of the time I’m able to bite my tongue, but once I couldn’t help myself: “Respect has to be earned, Clara.” Actually, I’m glad she’s demand

Clara heard “Walk This Way” on the radio last week, and asked to hear it again yesterday. Karen says they listened to it about 18 times yesterday morning (including both Aerosmith and Run DMC versions) before preschool. After she got home, all Clara wanted to do was sit in front of the computer and

Yesterday Clara and I went to the park. I was unshaven (almost no time for personal hygiene in our nonstop weekend schedule), unshowered (ditto), baseball cap pulled down over my messy hair, clothes slightly splattered with food from one of Clara’s meals earlier in the day, shoes still stained with

By popular demand: Clara’s “bad face” costume for Halloween. Here she is with Mara, the purple princess.

A Tablet PC, with its direct stylus-to-screen interface, is ideal for toddlers. Just make sure you keep the spray bottles hidden away.