Posts

I’m having a moment. Summer is over, it is oh so very much over. Sam is back at school, and the others go back next week, and the luxury of having so many days stretch out before us with little planned is utterly gone, and I am feeling like I wasted so much of it caught up in my own stuff. Sam will turn 9 next year–nine!–and time is passing. I should have spent the whole summer holding his hand. […]

Send a letter, help a family: Friends over at Guo Ji Famiglia have been working to bring their little girl home from Guatemala for over three years now (yes, you read that right). She’s legally theirs, and in every way–they’ve been taking care of her from afar for years. Guatemala has been all over the case, and the biological mother has come to court to say, in person, that yes–she wants her daughter to be adopted by this family. A […]

First, there was ice cream. Originally uploaded by kjda And now–a moonlit playground. How are things going? Brilliantly, actually. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a family like this? (that’s not even sarcasm, I add, mindful of the day I wrote something like "I love reading trip trap trip trap in this version of the Billy Goats Gruff" and and my editor said whoa, that’s a little too snarky even for you and I said oh, no, actually I […]

Because Wyatt Takes "Twinning" Very Seriously. Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone

At the end of the next post I talk about a tough question posed by a friend (and maybe it shouldn’t be a tough question–more like a tough one to really think about). I said I thought I shouldn’t even ask myself that. I was wrong. The tough questions–even the ones that won’t change–are exactly the ones we should always ask ourselves. The short answer to mine is no. I’ll try to get to the long answer later this weekend.

Today’s Double X post actually has to do with parenting and kids–something I usually don’t talk about there. Anyone else notice that people responded to the suggestion that the CDC might recommend circumcision for boys in a VERY different way than they responded to the recommendation of the HPV vaccine for girls? To vent about the double standard, head over to Double X.

After we went to Cape Cod, I had this whole post in my head about how, when you were young, you always imagined you’d go on vacation and come back changed, and now I had–I’d come back fully accepting and loving Rory and happy with our family. And then the last day had its ups and downs, and I lost the feeling, and since then, it’s gone wildly back and forth. It’s scheduling time, and change time, and as much […]

So, below a couple of pictures we have a lovely picture of the candy-smeared Rory. I haven’t figured out her relationship with food yet, or what I should be trying to do for her. She’s got some oddities–for example, she sucks down any sugary drink she’s given, from Sprite (thank you, China) to chocolate milk, before eating. Some foods she just mainlines–any snack, for example, or the little boxes of cereal they serve at a breakfast buffet. Either you take […]

Taking Beauty Very Seriously Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone

Rory’s first haircut (with us) Originally uploaded by kjda And the last time all three littles get their hair cut on the same day. Whew! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone

Tomorrow’s dinner! Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone

The Candy Addict Sleeps Originally uploaded by kjda Everyone chose something at the Chatham Candy Manor for the ride home. Rory’s choice–a long twisty lollipop. Which she did not lick–she ate. Bite, crunch. Three minutes into the ride, we turned around to find this. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone

On the "Holly" Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone

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

Tonight we sent all four kids to the kids’ dinner at the hotel where we’re staying on Cape Cod. All together, all in their matching striped shirts. Lily and Sam went when we were here once before, so they were into it–Lily especially–and that brought Wyatt along, and Rory just know of got swept up. I’m honestly not a hundred percent sure that she understood that Rob and I wouldn’t go too. But she went. We sat on the veranda […]

The pool here is a gradual entry pool, and when Rory decided to swim without her life jacket today I thought I’d better keep a close eye on her–as in, no magazine, real watching. It’s so easy to start swimming where you can touch and end up where you can’t. And she did, about three minutes after she got in. I was pretty far away, and I saw her some up a couple of times, looking a little desperate, and […]