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.
The power went out this morning, for all of about 20 seconds. How badly can this throw us off? You’d be surprised. First of all, many clocks no longer functioned, but the real issue was the alarm clock that announces that it’s time to brush teeth–or rather, time to shift gears. You cannot argue with an automated bugle. You CAN argue with mommy, or at least you can try. You can’t win, but you can burn a lot of energy […]
Read More
I’m the quintessential reformed Tardy Mom, Parenting Magazine’s poster child on the subject, and it’s true–our mornings, while not particularly resembling clockwork in any way, are now calmer, cooler and vastly more timely. Â Setting a load time and sticking to it, of refusing to serve breakfast to any child not already dressed, of setting up an actual alarm clock to ring when breakfast is over and tooth-brushing time has arrived–those have worked wonders (thanks, Mary Caroline Walker! I’d link to […]
Read More
You’re all absolutely right. There are many reasons for a rosy blog– picture. One, which no one mentioned but I’ve thought of often, is that sometimes complaining lets a negative attitude fester and breathe, and no one–least of all me–needs that. As for the comments from the peanut gallery–and by that, I mean friends and family, not real commenters–oh, I do get that. I have had to remind a couple of people that the first rule of reading the blog […]
Read More
The book I posted was Biscuit’s Halloween. Many of the Biscuit books include the Asian cousin, or whatever she is. Don’t forget I warned you that they’re also inane…harmless, and with nice big flaps, but you won’t WANT to read them. Without going into too much detail, because I’m tired, I just want to say that I get a little tired of what sometimes feels like everyone else’s happy happy adoption blogs. It’s not that anything in particular has happened […]
Read More
Happy Halloween Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
Read More
On the way out Originally uploaded by kjda Now that she grasps what trick or treating is, she may never come back. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
Read More
The Bat heads out Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
Read More
A ghost and Blossom, the Powerpuff Girl Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
Read More
And they’re off… Originally uploaded by kjda Trick or Treating: Not My Department KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
Read More
And they’re off… Originally uploaded by kjda Trick or Treating: Not My Department KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
Read More
Just in case you wonder why I’m not posting (on my fresh and changing website): Here’s what I’m up to tonight: The Third Annual Spooky Trail! I wrote about it for Wondertime last year if you’d like to check it out.
Read More
Because I Love Halloween Originally uploaded by kjda And because I love Sam. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
Read More
Lily, Rory and Wyatt are devotedly and cooperatively playing an enthusiastic game of family with Rory’s doll house. (“Special for me!” but she lets them play. Sometimes.) So far I’ve heard the children go for an airplane ride, someone prepare dinner and ask how a school day was, a very convincing crying baby (that caused Rob to worriedly consider a rescue, but I was pretty sure it was faux, and I was right) and now, some kind of building. The […]
Read More
There’s been a shift again. Emotion is nothing if not seismic in this family, but this has been a nice, gradual drifting of continents. Rory likes to perform, but sometimes I have felt that she was putting on a father frantic show for us–a show of happiness, a show of belonging, as if her performing it would convince us all. Sometimes she’d be just sitting there, kind of expressionless, and I’d look at her, and I’d get this frantic grin—not […]
Read More
A Halloween Book that looks like us. Originally uploaded by kjda I know my kids’ books–I co-authored a book about them, and I review them for DoubleX–but I have to admit that the advent of Rory has made me more aware of race in the pictures. That’s not really true–I was always aware–but more appreciative of books that look like us, and the Biscuit books–while not always my favorite, because they tend somewhat towards the inane–are good that way. The […]
Read More
Last night was windy–and where we live, that means it sounds like a freight train is coming over the hill. We lay in bed, listening, and began to hear, periodically, another sound: BANG BANG BANG. Or sometimes BANG. Or BANG BANG. It was not rhythmic, or constant, as you would expect of something the wind was blowing. And it not eventually result in the reappearance of a child, as you would expect from a kid-created noise. It just kept periodically […]
Read More
Periodically, I vow to just tell them what I want them to do, rather than yelling at them for what I DON’T. In the interest of not complaining–or at least not complaining without making an attempt to change things–today I instituted a couple of improvements. Every day I come in with a big pile of things from the car–hats and mittens (so sad, already) and lunch boxes and bits of trash and sundry. Today I took along a single bag […]
Read More
Two DoubleX friends are embarking on a month-long attempt to quit their kvetching that they have dubbed the Whiners’ Guide to Not Complaining. In it, they agree that although their wry, sarcastic style has led them to great personal and professional success, they could perhaps consider altering it just a tad–just a smidgen, perhaps–in an attempt not so much to alter their own black-humored, cynical personas but just to be more mindful of what’s hipster veneer and what’s becoming more […]
Read More