Want more KJ? Sign up for #AmReading

My aspirationally weekly, realistically more like monthly email of books and enthusiasms will keep your #tbr full and make sure you know what's next.

KJ

Not the Day He Meant to Have

By KJ / Monday, October 10, 2011

Sam is grumpy, and I know why. He had the day off school, and he really didn’t do anything. Which is partly down to him: he didn’t try to do anything, didn’t look for a friend or set out to build a LavaMaster 5000 or anything like that, and partly down to me. He is ten, after all, much of the really fun stuff he gets to comes from me planning really fun stuff, and today, I didn’t. I was […]

Read More

Come visit me at Motherlode

By KJ / Monday, October 10, 2011

For today, I offer you two topics: School lunches: Fix ’em from the top down, or the bottom up? And: Middle School locker bling: a harmless outshoot of too much igloo decorating on Club Penguin, or consumerism run amuck?

Read More

That Perverse Pride We Take In Our Weird Families

By KJ / Sunday, October 9, 2011

This could end really well. Or—let’s be honest here—it could go really badly. Lily requested cheeseburgers for dinner tonight on this, a fantastic day for grilling, and cheeseburgers she shall have. And, she said, those french fries you make, by which she means the Yukon Golds in cold peanut oil from Cook’s Illustrated. But I stopped by the farmstand on the way home for the potatoes, and they are unquestionably not Yukon Gold, but some type of russet. And when […]

Read More

Stepping in for Lisa Belkin at the New York Times’ Motherlode Blog: Because I’m Good Enough, I’m Cool Enough, and Gosh-Darnit, People Like Me!

By KJ / Saturday, October 8, 2011

Should I play it cool and tell you that of course I’ve been asked to take the first week in what will probably be a rotation of writers filling in for Lisa Belkin at the New York Times‘ Motherlode blog? Should I say that after all, I do already cover parenting, culture and policy issues for Slate‘s XXFactor blog—already a position to be proud of, with a rightly respected publication? Should I tell you that the Times won’t find anyone […]

Read More

Good Girls, Sinuses and Antibiotics

By KJ / Wednesday, October 5, 2011

This always happens. I go to the doctor, knowing, as I did today, that I have a sinus infection. This one is a whopper, a horrible, painful, miserable, ear-popper. Moving my head is agony. Blowing my nose, worse, and of course I only have to blow my nose oh, every forty-seven seconds. Plus, you really don’t want to have a sinus infection if you’re going to change altitude by 600 feet or so a couple times a day, and here, […]

Read More

I Want Teee!

By KJ / Saturday, October 1, 2011

I Want Teee! Originally uploaded by kjda It’s very important to be able to ask for what you want. It’s also very important to listen. When we got to the pizza place, Rory had to go potty. She was jumping up and down, and I told her to run, but– "What do you want to drink?" "I wan’ tee." "Really? Tea?" "I wan’ TEEEE!" "Ok! Fine! Go!" I ordered–pizza all ’round, three fountain drinks, and one bottled drink–tea, but I […]

Read More

Always the Mom Who’s Behind

By KJ / Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Tonight was “open school night” or “back to school” night or something like that at Sam and Lily’s school. No kids, just parents in the classroom. Don’t tell Lily, but because we’ve been second grade parents before, we defaulted more towards Sam’s class, although Rob went to her teacher’s main presentation, and I rolled in for the tail end and to ask a key question. In Sam’s class, though, I focused. I listened to the lovely, lovely teacher. I copied […]

Read More

Harry Potter and the Mother Who Kept Her Mouth Shut

By KJ / Monday, September 26, 2011

I love Harry Potter. I love Harry Potter so much that I am awaiting entrance to Pottermore for both Sam and me. I love it so much that I pre-ordered Book Two from Amazon UK, back when Scholastic didn’t realize you could do that. I was Harry Potter for Halloween before more than a handful of kids knew who that was. But I am VERY FRUSTRATED with Harry Potter just now. (And no, not because we don’t have our “Welcome” […]

Read More

Happy Birthday Rory!

By KJ / Sunday, September 25, 2011

Rory’s birthday was Friday, actually. (I think I begin to see why that word showed up in my wordle.) And it was also a little bit Saturday, when we skyped with Grandma Jo and opened HER presents, and then it will be a little bit Monday, when we take treats to class because you cannot take treats to class on muffin day, seriously, people, what are you thinking? It’s muffin day. And then even more NEXT Saturday, which is her […]

Read More

A Cake for the Cake-Hater

By KJ / Saturday, September 24, 2011

I’m really, really proud of myself. I made a birthday cake that even my cake-hating Rory, she of the licked-off-frosting on the $3 cupcakes, loved. I’ve noticed lots of kids are like that—they’re either cake kids or frosting kids. (Me, I was and still am a cake kid, so I do sympathize.) And I’ve noticed that our China-raised kids are often really not cake-eaters. So I’m pretty excited to share this: It’s the perfect cake for Rory. It combines three […]

Read More

Sam! Lily! Wyatt! Wordle!

By KJ / Friday, September 23, 2011

Sam the fantastic. Sam the wonderful. Sam the kid so easy, relatively speaking, that I do not HAVE to blog about him. Sam, the child who was the topic of this blog long, long ago. so long that all of the posts have been horribly corrupted my spam and need to be somehow rescued. Sam, who would really appreciate the above if he only knew what I’d written about him. What are you DOING, KJ? I’m trying to game Wordle. […]

Read More

Plastic Wrap, Socks and the Good Life

By KJ / Thursday, September 22, 2011

Look! It’s my plastic wrap! I love my plastic wrap. My mother gave it to me for my birthday. In, um, 2010. I finally get to use it, because we finally used up our old plastic wrap. We don’t use much plastic wrap, especially if it doesn’t really stick, and I have, as I invariably do, punched it open wrong and it doesn’t want to cut. So it took us more than a year to go through the box and […]

Read More

Nothing Slips Past Us, Here

By KJ / Wednesday, September 21, 2011

I didn’t actually buy new slippers for anyone. Rory and Wyatt need slippers for school, and I must have bought the ones we found in a closet today on sale at the end of the year last year. Then there was a larger pair for Lily that I vaguely remember buying in the distant past, on the theory that she would grow into them eventually, which she has. The problem, of course, is that Rory’s new slippers look like this: […]

Read More

A Very Good Reason to Love Me

By KJ / Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Tonight Rory wanted to write me a note. To surprise me. I heard her, at the table, drafting carefully away. “I … Love … You…” “How you write ‘because I’m your Mommy?” I interpreted that she wanted me to write “because YOU’RE my Mommy,” and so I did, on a scrap of the holiday pad she was using, for her to copy. A few minutes she appeared at my elbow. “I have something for you! Surprise!” And she handed me […]

Read More

I’m HERE! HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE!

By KJ / Monday, September 19, 2011

Rory is loud. I have written about this before, but I feel that I cannot possibly have really conveyed what I meant by loud. When I say Rory is loud, I mean LOUD. I mean loud at every single thing she does in nearly every moment of the day. Loud and vigorous. When Rory says “I love you,” she shouts it and then barrels into you at full speed, and at that moment, she’s irresistible. And the she stomps loudly […]

Read More

Chase Me! Don’t Chase Me! Chase Me!

By KJ / Sunday, September 18, 2011

Who doesn’t like to be pursued and desirable? No one! Pay attention to me! Chase me! Want me! I just wish my children wouldn’t take it so literally. Wyatt has a friend over–actually, it would be more accurate to say that both Wyatt and Rory have a friend over. A very good friend. Always a success. Rory wants him to chase her. When he does chase her, she will run and shriek NO! NO! She will dodge. She may even […]

Read More

Greetings from the Tunbridge World’s Fair

By KJ / Saturday, September 17, 2011

Greetings from the Tunbridge World’s Fair Originally uploaded by kjda The Tunbridge World’s Fair is old school. There were pigs, cows, horses, oxen…And rides, of the kind that come by truck and move on on Monday with the carnival. And BBQ, run by a bunch of guys in leather who look like the Sons of Anarchy gone straight. We are sticky with maple cotton candy, maple ice cream, maple candy and a maple donut with maple icing. It’s been a […]

Read More

Well, We Totally Look Alike In Our Bike Helmets

By KJ / Friday, September 16, 2011

This past weekend, we rode in the always fantastic local “Tour de Taste) (pictured a few posts down). 6 miles, 6 stops for food. Who couldn’t appreciate a ride like that? One stop had some very tasty grilled cheese sandwiches and an amazing tabboleh salad (and that is so not something I would usually eat, seeing as how it had neither bacon nor chocolate in it, and I can’t even spell it). They were also promoting their own farm products […]

Read More

When Does It Feel Like They’ve Gone Back to School and I Have More Time?

By KJ / Thursday, September 15, 2011

Let’s see: they’re back in school. They’re all full day four days a week–not the same four days, but four days. I should feel like I have more time, right? Or at least more time than I did this summer. When does that start? After I make that trip in to Lily’s class midday for her “unique week,” probably. Or maybe after the three multi-hour midday meetings for the community ski program I run, because I was apparently, in one […]

Read More

Annals of Lily Jekyll, Lily Hyde: Lily Lies.

By KJ / Wednesday, September 14, 2011

This morning Lily looked straight at Rob, and lied. Not about anything big. Rob said, “Did you do breakfast hokey?” (One of her jobs this week, running the hokey over the rug tiles under the bar where they eat breakfast.) And she said, “yes.” And she hadn’t. I knew she hadn’t. I knew it by the half smile, and by the fact that I’d been in the kitchen all morning. Rob said, “really?” And Lily said “yes,” again. “She’s lying,” […]

Read More

A Perfect Afternoon; or, Why Activities Are Bad; or Spaghetti Zucchini Carbonara: Yum!

By KJ / Monday, September 12, 2011

Did I say it was a perfect afternoon? It was a perfect afternoon. All children were successfully picked up after what must have been a successful day at school. Wyatt needed a few minutes of snuggling, which no other child objected to my granting. Music Teacher extraordinaire arrived, and music commenced. Homework was voluntarily embarked on. There was some bickering over the homework table, where the children without homework were doing mazes, loudly and competitively, because some children can do […]

Read More

Conquering the Tour de Taste

By KJ / Sunday, September 11, 2011

Conquering the Tour de Taste Originally uploaded by kjda Two years ago-quite-today, the Tour de Taste conquered us. An exhausted Rory either, at mile 19 of a 20 mile ride, fell asleep on the trailer bike and fell off or threw herself off the trailer bike in a fury at being forced to continue riding (back to the car) when she really wanted to be napping. Sam, riding after Rob to bring him back to where Rory and I were, […]

Read More

Get Up! Get Up!

By KJ / Saturday, September 10, 2011

It really bothers my children to see me sit on the sofa. This may be because for many years, I did not have any opportunity to sit down. I kept us so busy that we were rarely home, in part because I was a little afraid to be alone with all of these kids, who might want me to play Candyland. I hate Candyland. And then when we were home, it was all very active. We were baking! We were […]

Read More

My New Secret Weapon in the Tantrum Wars

By KJ / Thursday, September 8, 2011

Let me just go right ahead and quote from yesterday’s post: …every day he will shout “I hate school! I don’t want to go!” and then when I pick him up he will shout “NO! I am NOT READY TO GO HOME!” Wyatt does poorly with transitions. But for a blissful 7 hours a day (which really seems like rather a lot) that will be someone else’s problem. Today, oh sin of sins, I was early. And it was popcorn […]

Read More

The First Day of School I Didn’t Photograph

By KJ / Wednesday, September 7, 2011

My mom is going to kill me. I kind of want to kill me. Sam and Lily went off to their first day of school last week and I did not take a picture. Sometimes I just kind of WANT to let these milestones in late slide by. Because time has sped up a bit, and if you don’t acknowledge it, you can just kind of pretend that everything is the same, and always will be. That this is not […]

Read More

The Unexpected Dividends of Switching It Up

By KJ / Tuesday, September 6, 2011

On this rainy Labor Day, books were read, games were played, video games were played, Lego models were built and various and sundry this and thats and whatnots occurred, and suddenly it was 5:30 and no plan had been made for dinner (which, of course, really means that I hadn’t thought about dinner.) There were boxes of fondue in the fridge, and already sliced fondue bread in the freezer (from a party that took place last November, but it’s the […]

Read More

Monday GoodReads: Sideways on a Scooter

By KJ / Monday, September 5, 2011

Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India by Miranda Kennedy My rating: 4 of 5 stars The cover of Miranda Kennedy’s Sideways on a Scooter, with its lanky Western woman walking, Abbey Road style, between two women in bright pink traditional Indian dress, suggests the all-India version of Eat, Pray, Love. So does the subtitle: “Life and Love in India.” In fact, there’s a blurb on my copy assuring me that “if you liked Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, […]

Read More

Fall is Apparently Here

By KJ / Sunday, September 4, 2011

Corn maze! 85 degrees in the corn maze, but: corn maze! Rory is alone in the picture because the last time we went to this farm, I apologized to one of the people who works here after overhearing him tell her not to touch something, and he came over to me, and I said I’m really very sorry, again, and added that if he had one thing on the whole farm that she shouldn’t touch and he hid it under […]

Read More

Lily’s Project

By KJ / Saturday, September 3, 2011

Lily loves a project. I suppose there are a couple ways in which being so much like me won’t work totally to her disadvantage (although I still think she inherited all of my very worst characteristics), and maybe this is one of them. She had an idea about marshmallow popsicles. Her vision was, I think, that we would melt marshmallow and reshape it into, well, different shapes. I’m not sure how she planned to hold the shapes together, but somehow […]

Read More

Mama Time

By KJ / Thursday, September 1, 2011

Rory has a playdate tomorrow. And Sam and Lily have school. That means I get Wyatt all to myself for a couple of hours. I’m planning on some legos, some coffee, and some snuggling. I’ve been realizing lately just how little solid attention I lavish on Rory or Wyatt. They’re such a pair! They play together nearly all the time, and even when it’s not entirely amicable play (I really wish Sam had not shown them how to shoot a […]

Read More

The Respected House

By KJ / Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Two weeks ago or so, I posted about how we (I) cleaned an organized our hall/entry/mudroom to get ready for school starting. This past Sunday, with all of us trapped at home staying out of hurricane range, I called Rob into the playroom/family room. How, I asked, do you think the sofa would look turned sideways? Well, he said, let’s try it. Yes! Sam shouted. I demurred. If we moved the sofa we had to move the train table. Move […]

Read More

One last summer picnic

By KJ / Tuesday, August 30, 2011

One last summer picnic Originally uploaded by kjda Sigh. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Read More

The Kid Who Gets It Wrong

By KJ / Monday, August 29, 2011

If you don’t try, you don’t get it wrong. If you don’t try to answer the phone, you will never accidentally hang up on your daddy. I felt like I got things wrong today, too. Tactless in a couple of instances, inattentive in others. Not present. Bothered by the echoes of flooding and loss that are all over, here (we’re right on the Connecticut river and unscathed but surrounded). And bothered, as I think I always am, by a beautiful, […]

Read More

Moshi Moshi Moshi!

By KJ / Sunday, August 28, 2011

First thing this morning, the visitors started. “Can I play Moshi Monsters?” “Can I?” “Can I?” “And me too!” Weekend mornings are for wallowing in technology and television. Weekend mornings when every available activity has been cancelled by hurricane, even more so. (We sustained no greater damage here than that done by Rob and me when we decided to move the couch; it was a good day to live on the side of a mountain.) Anything the kids can do […]

Read More

Moshi Monster Surrender

By KJ / Saturday, August 27, 2011

My babysitter’s daughter has been going online occasionally with the three younger kids to play Moshi Monsters. I’ve staunchly refused to let them do this at home, largely because I do not want to play Moshi Monsters, and I suspected that was what it would be. Plus, I’ve had my doubts about this entire genre, which seems to promote shopping and decorating as the only fun activities available to our virtual and real selves. But I’ve always secretly thought–who wouldn’t […]

Read More

Admitted

By KJ / Friday, August 26, 2011

Admitted Originally uploaded by kjda I love Lily’s new shoes so much, I checked to see if they come in my size. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Read More

Not Me!

By KJ / Thursday, August 25, 2011

IMAGE REMOVED DUE TO COPYRIGHT FEARS, BUT IT WAS A FAMILY CIRCUS CARTOON FEATURING THE “NOT ME” GHOST. When I was a kid I thought these Family Circus comics were so funny! Can you imagine a bunch of kids all saying it wasn’t them? That would be so crazy! I was an only child, and only once, once in my entire life was I ever not responsible for some transgression I was accused of. Left the oreos open? Me. Milk […]

Read More

Captive

By KJ / Thursday, August 25, 2011

Captive Originally uploaded by kjda Food, water and shelter. At least Lily, Rory and their two friends are complying with the Geneva Convention. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Read More

Will Wishing Make it So?

By KJ / Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I really don’t want Rory to have a language issue. I go back and forth on whether I think the things I posted about yesterday–her srtuggles with nouns, her mixing up words within categories–mean anything more than, as Gina said yesterday, that she’s “just a girl trying to learn SO Much. Yes, she wasn’t only learning language but learning social cues, learning how to be in a family, learning so much more than kids brought up here at an earlier […]

Read More

Can Your Adopted Child Name that Fruit?

By KJ / Tuesday, August 23, 2011

I need help. Rory has been with us now for two years and two months. And she came speaking English–about 2-year-old English. Her language is still behind in some expected ways–she struggles with “he” and “she” and verb tenses–and that’s cool. She gets speech therapy for that, and for leaving off the final consonants of all her words (speech therapy doubles as ESL in her case, since its not really her second language–they know the history and work with it). […]

Read More

Reading Material: Good Eggs and Someday My Prince Will Come

By KJ / Monday, August 22, 2011

Good Eggs: A Memoir by Phoebe Potts My rating: 4 of 5 stars I love a graphic memoir, and I loved this one. I adore how tight and condensed the words of the story become, while the story itself, through the drawings, sprawls out as wide as any story can. I had a hard time putting this down to sleep. If you’re not a graphic novel reader, but you like memoir, you might be surprised how easily and thoroughly you […]

Read More

We are READY (for School to Start)

By KJ / Sunday, August 21, 2011

If you’re one of those people (like me) addicted to organizing shows and Real Simple and all of their ilk, then you will understand why I had the most fantastic day: We are ready for school to start. Except for the little matter of Sam having one more paragraph of his summer reading assignment to go (that would be “summer writing assignment,” if you ask me, but they didn’t), school could start tomorrow and the kids could walk out the […]

Read More

A Stompin’ Flickerin’ Good Time

By KJ / Saturday, August 20, 2011

I’ve written before about how loudly Rory walks. My theory is that she’s afraid if she can’t hear herself move, no one knows she exists. Like a lonely tree on the forest or something. Tonight she stomped so loudly across the upstairs that the lights downstairs flickered. This surely says something about our wiring, but that aside, I need this to at least ease up–so I have an evil plan. No, it’s not the destompinator (that may be next). I’m […]

Read More

The Witches!

By KJ / Thursday, August 18, 2011

Sam’s teachers call him an “avid reader.” “I’ve never had a child love to read like Sam,” one said last year. You’d think my heart would ring with pride–that’s what my teachers said about me–but you’d be wrong, because I know the truth: Sam is an avid reader of Harry Potter. And nothing else. He’s reading them through for the third time this summer. I cheer that, I really do. But eventually, you have to read something else. Right? Right? […]

Read More

The Pattern Trap

By KJ / Wednesday, August 17, 2011

I’ve been re-reading some old blog and journal entries from our first weeks home with Rory. Mostly, I’m seeing how amazingly far we’ve come (and how painful it was to get there). But then there was this, taken from an incident just two months after we came home from China. (Because of her foster home, Rory spoke some basic English when she first arrived.) I decided to make Rice Krispie Treats with Wyatt. I read Rory a book first. When […]

Read More

Resurfacing

By KJ / Tuesday, August 16, 2011

First we went to the Cape. This we shall universally regard as having been a good idea. Rob and I actually had a relaxing vacation. Periodically he would turn to me and say “you know what I really love? The sound of crying babies.” And I would sigh blissfully back “And screaming toddlers…” And he would reach his hand out from his pool lounge chair and take mine, and we would listen to other people’s babies and toddlers while our […]

Read More

Cheerio Art

By KJ / Thursday, August 11, 2011

Cheerio Art Originally uploaded by kjda Both entertainment options and the dining situation on the Island have palled a bit. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Read More

The iBasket

By KJ / Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The iBasket Originally uploaded by kjda Note the tshirt. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Read More

Gone Islandin’

By KJ / Saturday, August 6, 2011

We are off–we, as in me and four kids, to one Star Island, a rocky crag off the coast of New Hampshire (New Hampshire’s only island!). I’ll be attending a writer’s conference, while the kids go to a half-day camp. It’s the kind of thing that will either go fantastically, or … not. And it’s the kind of place where there’s very limited mobile phone access. Rugged, back-to-nature sort of stuff. I only hope we have a plug in our […]

Read More

Wear Your Picture Clothes Please!

By KJ / Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Wear Your Picture Clothes Please! Originally uploaded by kjda This morning I hauled everyone out, dressed us up (me and Rob too) in blue and white and played photographer. I assaulted people on the beach and asked them to take our picture. I delayed breakfast. I made people wait to walk in front in front of us. I did it all. They’ll thank me later, I swear. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Read More