Diary...

Not for me. I'm not much of a diarist myself - apologies to Samuel Pepys, but they always seem a bit pre-teen girl to me. However, Finn is really trying to read these days, and his two favorite books are "Diary of a Wombat" and "Diary of a Baby Wombat." It's not hard to see why he enjoys them so much; they are filled with short, declarative sentences, most of which end in mayhem, destruction or the consumption of Wombat treats (largely carrots).

Still, if I were to keep a diary, I'd probably note with some mournfulness the rapid passage of time, especially in light of Finn's first day of school tomorrow. I've packed his lunch and tried to keep as closely as I could to his request (hotdogs and strawberries, with strawberries and cookies for a snack), got out his clothes for tomorrow (he'll probably pick a BART themed shirt) and planned his special breakfast. Today was about the best day the day before school can be. We biked to the farmers market (note to new readers: while we don't live in Berkeley, we're pretty Berkeley), played with friends on the street (hoses and water balloons featured prominently, along with some ant slaughter), and barbecued before being shuffled protesting to bed. I'm sure there will be many days like this to come, but this one took on nostalgic sepia tones pretty quickly. So, in keeping with the theme of the blog and also with Finn's entrance into the hallowed halls of academia, below is a picture of some graduation cupcakes Lisa made for some friends, as well as some photos of Finn - one recent, one less so.



Graduation Cakes



Finn at Gilroy Gardens



Finn at his most corpulent

Poke-somethings

Some people probably find my sporadic blogging schedule charming. "Will there be an update this month? No? Perhaps in 2011?" I feel that it gives the hoi polloi something to look forward to and chat about on these dark and chilly bay area evenings. Unfortunately, my wife is not one of these people. I have largely myself to blame, as her expectations on the speed of content generation and her consumption of said content have been set by her iPhone, a birthday present that she has taken to in the same way that lab rats take buttons that they can push to send a quick zap into the pleasure centers of their brains. My usual response after being asked if I only updated this thing annually is that I'd write more if she baked more. However, she's been quick to point out that there's somewhat of a backlog of items that for one reason or another (indolence, and some sort of synonym for indolence), I've failed to post on.

With that in mind, here's a Pokemon cake that she made for Conor's friend Oliver late last year. Even at the best of times, I'm not too sharp on these guys names. Add ten months from baking time and the sleeplessness of new fatherhood (throat clearing from Lisa on that point), and I'm afraid that I'm quite useless - the yellow one is Pikachu. I think the one that looks like a turtle is called Turtwig. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess. Well, anyone, unless you are a 5-7 year old boy, in which case I'm quite sure you can identify them all, and then smirk that they're not nearly as powerful as some of the legendary Pokemon that you have in your card set.

Look what she made!

I never really played a lot of video games. We never had a Nintendo or anything of that ilk when I was younger. By the time I was in college, my younger brother had somehow managed to persuade our parents to get him a Sega Genesis, but we only had a couple of games. At that point I was in my late teens, and having not banked the necessary man hours to become a Gladwellian expert, and being the possessor of rather slow thumbs, I didn't play that much because frankly, one can only get killed on level one of a game so many times before finding it both uninteresting and a little humiliating. Still, I do have fond memories of Mario. I don't remember where I played it, but I think that everyone in America did. And I certainly remember where I played Mario Kart - in the living room of my law school basement apartment, with my roommates and various friends and usually several bottles of malt liquor covering the thrift store coffee table. So when Lisa said that the mom of one of Conor's former pre-school friends had asked her to make a Mario cake, I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe the kid is a retro-chic hipster who's only going to appreciate the cake ironically, but sincere or not, it's way cooler than Bakugan.



As awesome as the Mario cake is (I'd like one for Labor day please sweets), I think it's safe to say that Lisa's talent for cake decoration has been passed on to our kids. As proof, I'd like to present the cake that the boys decorated for my birthday. It has all of the things that are most important in their lives - candy and legos (OK, not the most important things but pretty important, not to mention books would get ruined by the frosting, and I came down firmly against Finn's plan to cover the cake in garbage). Conor's original concept was to have two lego figures playing soccer, the soccer ball being portrayed by a jawbreaker. Beyond that, the rest of the plan involved testing the adhesive powers of Lisa's buttercream frosting by sticking as many candies as possible to the top and sides of the cake. However, in a moment of creative genius, Conor decided that there should be another Lego guy on the cake, but this guy would be face down in the frosting, having tripped over a grape skittle. After a bout of pratfall-humor induced hysteria, Finn decided that the cake needed a several more faceplanted Lego and candy stumbling blocks. This was actually a pretty ingenious plan, as it ensured that there were large parts of the cake that the parents would refuse to touch, as god knows how many filthy and improbable places I've found little lego men.



Oh, and besides cakes, look what else Lisa made: