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

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 […]

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 —

Best $8 I Ever Spent Originally uploaded by kjda Rory is in love. His name is Sea, or possibly Fast. If you let go of him, he “run away” in the wind over the pool, and you have to swim after him. You can wear him to jump in. You can wear him to climb out. And he is only for Rory. She saw another little girl in one at the pool today and asked, just oh so very nicely. […]

Babble’s editors (who were, when I was one of their bloggers, my editors) just started a fresh new Twitter hashtag: #neverinamillionyears. As in, as a parent, never in a million years would I: put a 6-year-old in a bikin (my contribution) put a TV in their room (@mychildPsych) post bathtime pics of my kids on social media (good one, @perpetuallykate) become THAT parent at a kids’ sporting event (ooh, yeah, @OWTK) punish my child by public embarrassment (oops, @mymomfriday, think […]

The Gift of the Matchy Match Originally uploaded by kjda All the matching stuff is corny. I never thought I’d do it. But they LOVE to match. Even Sam. They all, intentionally, chose the coolest matching shirts they could find on our last trip. They dig through drawers to match. I never ask it any more, except at, say, Disneyworld. It’s all down to them. But it has an unexpected benefit. Matching shirts mean no one ever says "THAT’s your […]

Immediate Gratification Originally uploaded by kjda Sam has been saving. And this weekend, he found that he had enough for the lowest end iTouch, the 8G. Of course we have, as a family, a reasonably large quantity of iThisandThats. With EXTREMELY limited access, Partly because I don’t want them wired up during the week, and partly because of the competition allowing one to play the iPad entails. Everyone has accepted that the iFamily is for travel only. But if he […]

There was much confusion surrounding my new version of make-your-own-pizza night. We’ve been into make your own pizza every since I spent an evening standing in my buddy Jess‘s kitchen while she rolled out pizzas and I ate all her pepperoni while thinking, “this is a really good idea for dinner.” I think we’d had pizza weekly since, BUT (and it’s a big but) we have no air conditioning. You really can’t cook pizza in your oven with no a/c […]

It is really hard to let you wear tights and eat oatmeal when it is 100 degrees and we have no air conditioning, but I will stay cooler if I just let it go.

Wyatt popped out of the pool with the traditional summer blue quivering lips and begged for his towel. “Can I sit on your lap?” I beckoned him in, and he settled, warm and damp, with me in the deck chair. I turned to the friend I was with and sighed. “Twenty seconds,” I said. “What?” “Twenty seconds. You’ll see. Give it twenty seconds.” Within fifteen, Rory–who just minutes earlier had been happily going off the diving board with Lily and […]

I have a really awful cough. It’s a really awful contagious cough, because Lily had it first, and now I have it. But it’s worse for me, because I have given birth four times (once things went very badly), and when I cough… well, let’s just say I really don’t like to cough. Every night for the past couple of nights, I’ve been taking this Mucinex stuff to loosen things up, with a cough suppressant too, so I don’t wake […]

Child A is reading on its bed. Child B is irritated with Child A for some reason and appears mournfully in the doorway. “I’m too tired for quiet reading,” wails Child B. “I want the light off!” “OK, sure.” Child B has a flashlight on its bed, and, history suggests, plans to use said flashlight once the lights are out. I take the flashlight and hand it to Child A. “Here you go! Now you can read, and Child B […]

Can I Sit By You? Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone — It happens at every meal we eat out. We enter. All is calm. Approach the table with a small, preliminary flurry of activity. There is, perhaps, a little jockeying for position and then: “Can I sit by you?” If nothing else, this post should convince you that no child in his or her right mind should WANT to sit by me. Because I don’t […]

Do you, at the end of the school year, when all the binders and the art and the whatnot come home in the various bags, do anything appropriate with them? I’m trying to make sure that Sam and Lily understand that their school work is VERY IMPORTANT to us. But those piles have been sitting in the hall for weeks. So this weekend I piled them up on the dining room table, and tonight Lily seized on hers and sat […]