KJ

Tonight We Brushed Krypto Originally uploaded by kjda Seriously. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone

Less lush butterfly quarters Originally uploaded by kjda It was a thing sheets came in. The one that hatched is the cocoon we had given up on, it fell-the monarch looks pretty stunted. Then the one rolled up in the leaf is about to hatch. I think the third one has a few days to go. Sam wants to take them to school. He says they will tag them. I have no idea how. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone […]

Free Range Children Originally uploaded by kjda I keep waiting for someone to come tell me to make them get off, but no one has. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

One of the contenders in the Republican primary may well be our next Senator, and I’m willing to bet you care which .

Kids on Bikes Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Kids on Bikes Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Kids on Bikes Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Tour de Taste Originally uploaded by kjda Better pic! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Tour de Taste Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone — KJ Dell’Antonia Twitter.com/kjda

I am on strike. Dinner has been provided; it was tasty. Children have been suitably entertained all afternoon and are now semi-appropriately occupied (2 children coloring: check. One child legos: check. Child making repeated thumping noises, followed again and again by by “ouch” from the playroom I am not so sure about, but hey, she’s not bothering me). Dinner has not been cleaned up. The kitchen, likewise, is a horrendous mess. Atrocious. Apparently someone failed to clean it last night […]

Caterpillar Poop Originally uploaded by kjda It’s not a new cuss phrase. It’s what we do around here in playdates. These are our caterpillars. We found them last Friday. They were all the size of that tiny one. We put them in jars, because that is what you do here in late fall; if no one in your family is not in some way involved with the life cycle of the Monarch, then you are not having a full Upper […]

But minor ones… Let me first say, as an aside, that Blueberry Shrub, a drink I made after reading a wildly enthusiastic description of it in the NYT magazine, tastes very much like something you would make Easter Eggs in. I don’t know why I’m surprised…I think I will try using it in salad dressing. That said, I am sitting here drinking it and having Paz flashbacks. Mistakes: first of all, we allowed I sufficient prep time last night between […]

I’m not exactly ready for school to start. It’s just that, given that it’s going to start, that the inevitable march of time will draw us inexorably onward, I would just as soon things START ALREADY. There’s this whole processing and adjusting and sorting thing coming at us like a freight train, and in my head, I’m already on it. But in reality, of course, I just have to let it spin out. Tonight we nibbled at it. Sam and […]

Lily, about to ride pandamonium Originally uploaded by kjda It twists, it spins and Dory and Sam won’t do it. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Wiggled world Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Long day here. Lots of shuttling and shuffling, a little dose of art camp, the brilliant idea to take all kids to the beading store. All of which went fine, it was just–after all my happy post yesterday, I have to say I felt overwhelmed. The day started with me breaking yet another glass milk bottle, this time in the garage, just as we were leaving to pick up our poor carpool-ee. Got that cleaned up, forgot Sam’s bike for […]

Lily lost a tooth! Originally uploaded by kjda Alert the tooth fairy!!! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Any mother who wasn’t at the top of the social pyramid growing up (and maybe even those who were) has meditated about what we’d like to tell our own daughters as they head into middle school and beyond. Don’t make everything a drama. Act confident, and people will be happy to be around you. Relax. Say what you mean, don’t apologize, don’t back down. We know, of course, that those aren’t lessons that can be taught by your mother, but […]

If you’re a golf fan (and even if you’re not) Dustin Johnson inadvertently provided you with a great “teachable moment”during Sunday’s PGA championship. If you missed it (or just don’t do golf), Johnson was leading the field on the 18th hole when his tee shot fell slightly to the right of the fairway, into a “bunker” (that’s a sand trap) that had been “walked on, kicked and trampled by thousands of fans over the last week,” as HuffPo’s Nancy Armour […]

It was one of the rare goals of summer that I actually pulled off at our house: last night was the peak of the Perseid meteor showers, and my 9-year-old and I stayed up for it. In all honestly, it neared being a bust, clouds drifted overhead frequently, and he was so sleepy (I actually let him fall asleep outside, then went out and woke him at midnight for viewing) that I think he only clocked one or two meteors. […]

Today we rocked. Originally uploaded by kjda I have been wanting a garden gate, instead of a flap of deer fence, all year. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

What we did today Originally uploaded by kjda See below… KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone — KJ Dell’Antonia www.kjdellantonia.com

First we drilled Originally uploaded by kjda Well, first we went and bought a couple of things, like hinges, at our friend Seth’s hardware store. But this is why I am more fun than Daddy. I let sam do all the drilling.

Then we hung it up Originally uploaded by kjda I think I have these backwards.. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone — KJ Dell’Antonia www.kjdellantonia.com 917-647-6600 Contributing Editor, Kiwi Magazine Read me on Slate’s XXFactor blog www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor and Babble’s Strollerderby blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/ Twitter.com/kjda

We got back from vacation so late last night that there was no bedtime rountine, only bed. Tonight we had routine, only I decided to switch it up a bit: on vacation, I started reading them nightly chinks of a chapter book (The Four Story Mistake). Everyone liked it…on vacation. But now that we’re back, Rory wanted…well, I don’t know what she wanted, exactly, but suffice it to say it was not the chapter when Oliver brings out the sleds […]

Jess, I love that women over 40 are dominating on magazines covers and, even better, in the movie theater. I noticed it too—and I also noticed Laura Linney (46) on the cover of last week’s New York Times Magazine, that More magazine’s circulation is increasing (cover girls have to be over 40; this month’s Kyra Sedgwick is 44), and that the inside of Elle magazine, not just the cover, offers articles clearly aimed at women past the ingenue stage: recovering […]

There are one or two minor things I don’t like about this parenting gig. The early rising, for example. The midnight sheet-changing. The diapers weren’t my favorite (past that!) and the Sisyphean dishwasher and laundry moments do get me down. But there is one thing, one single thing, one thing that’s somehow fallen to me in our house (all of those other things were or are shared tasks) that really pushes my buttons. One thing that looms over my head […]

One notable thing about blogging is that people frequently send you things to try out, review, or just read and possibly relay to interested readers. We don’t do much of that at Strollerderby. We’re more scoop than stuff. But then again, it’s not often that someone sends you a link to a website that does exactly what you’d always wished there was a website to do, and tosses in an iPhone app for good measure. A Day’s Outing is the […]

If we truly want equality among races, we have to talk to kids about racism. Fortunately, there’s an app for that.

A Rory-ism Originally uploaded by kjda "I got see that." "I got look." "Let me see!" Rory never believes us. There’s no more, we say, as in no more chips in the bowl or no more tea in the pot. No yogurt in the fridge. No chocolate milk. She never, ever takes our word for it. She trusts us in every other way: dress her, lift her down from the counter, jump into our arms from a brick wall, but […]

From this month’s O Magazine, perhaps the most off-base advice Dr. Phil has ever given. To a SAHM unhappy without her career, Dr. Phil says, in essence, tough. “Bloom where you’re planted” has never sounded so patronizing. A mother of two writes in, saying that she and her husband agreed, before having kids, that she would stay home until they were in full-time school. Now that the kids, aged 2 and 4, are actually here, demanding snacks and generally absorbing […]

At the NYT’s Motherlode blog, Lisa Belkin is reporting a follow up to a study that came out several years ago reporting that the children of working mothers were “cognitively delayed” compared to those of stay-at-home moms. Five years on, those same researchers followed those same kids and found those slight delays in some areas were outweighed by benefits in others, meaning that “the overall effect of first-year maternal employment on child development is neutral.” (No word on whether the […]

Last week, Sierra and Carolyn were discussing the places where kids just don’t belong. Bars. Comedy clubs. Nightclubs (I sense a theme here). I’ve got one more spot to add to the list, and it’s not even a place where you’re there to drink: Spas. No one who isn’t old enough to pay for her pampering with her own hard-earned cash belongs in a spa, and no 6-year-old needs a pedicure. As for spas actually meant for tots, I’m appalled. […]

What Really Intellectual Familes Originally uploaded by kjda Do on Vacation

It’s August. Do you know where your summer’s gone? I don’t. Some of it’s gone to the pool, for the kind of lazy afternoons spent on towels eating popsicles that I remember as a kid. Some of it’s been whiled away by my nine-year-old’s determined statement that it was The. Most. Boring. Day. Ever, which, if you ask me, isn’t really a bad thing. It’s in the garden, sure, it’s in our newly cleaned out garage. But what I want […]

Vacation begins Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone

Annals of Useless Gadgets Originally uploaded by kjda Makes breakfast effortless! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Affluent families are having more children. Some working moms have “six, seven, even 14 kids,” according to Forbes. Movie stars like Angelina Jolie? More children. Reality television stars: having more children. Actually, that’s why they’re reality television stars, but you can see the trend. More children. Bigger families. Four is the new two. Why? In the same Forbes piece, David Hacker of the State University of New York at Binghamton says kids are now ” ‘luxury goods’ which people believe […]