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.
See What I Mean? Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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How Lucky We Are Originally uploaded by kjda Four kids, so far, is surprisingly not orders of magnitude more difficult than three. (of course, we cheated by not adding a baby). Things I expect to be difficult–like taking two three year olds who are asleep in the car to the grocery store, or taking them all to the pool–so far have underceded my expectations. (Is that a word? It should be.) If the difficult days are yet to come–the teenage […]
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We’re discovering a pattern, and it’s a good one. Once something happens once–she meets someone, we go somewhere, someone leaves the house and comes back–and nothing dramatic happens, then it’s ok. It’s worthy of interest, and possibly comment. One thing that’s important is that I notice what’s happening. Mama, come see. Come see Heather. Come see Eli’s daddy. Once I’ve seen—Yes, it’s Heather! Hi Heather! Big deal greeting…. Then we can all go on, somewhat hesitantly. Today is the third […]
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I’ve got a post up at Double X. If the Lives essay in last Sunday’s NYT magazine made you want to slap the young writer around for her own good, it’s for you.
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Worst. Parent. Ever. That’s me. Flat out worst. Which is a pity, because the day had gone rather well. Kids playing together, birds singing, sun shining, whatnot. I went out–promising Rory I would come back–and i did, which she seemed to see as a good thing. Better yet, I went for a bike ride with a friend, and every hill just felt good, because it was just so great to be out on my own. And then… I miscalculated dinner. […]
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But I’m going to assume those are happy noises until somebody comes and tells me otherwise.
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Was Friday a low? I don’t know. We’ll have to get a lot further along in life to see where the lows are…But Friday was not a good day. Today, on the other hand, was and is. Everyone got a mostly good night’s sleep, although not necessarily in their own beds. We rode the 20 mile route in the Prouty (the shortest, and not what we’d planned to do, but we haven’t been on our bikes in a month!) Rory […]
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On the way to a better afternoon Originally uploaded by kjda She played outside for a while–some fun, some howling and fighting over bats and swings–and now, a nap. This seems to be a usual nap time for her, so we’ll hope it bodes well. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Some of my publishable thoughts on arriving home: Whoa. We got in at 11:00 night before last and the kids were up until 3. We hauled them through yesterday, even taking Sam and Lily to a tennis lesson and getting the boys a haircut–and put them to bed at a relatively normal time (when Rob and I were nearly asleep standing) but at 1:30 the first of them–Rory–appeared. And this is where the fact that they all sleep in the […]
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Alcohol Ocean Originally uploaded by kjda I meant to offer up this odd little bit of China yesterday, but other events intervened. It’s right next to the White Swan hotel, and I can imagine a few adoptive parents needing it. I particularly enjoyed the stunned-looking older couples wandering around with the ten-or-so- month old babies. Every one of those truly new parents needed a drink. We are home, and happy to be here, brushing out teeth with water from the […]
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You won’t believe this! Originally uploaded by kjda We are delayed…. Because they are quarantining the plane in Shanghai! At least we aren’t on it. How many ice creams do you think my sleepy wants a nap Rory can eat? We are having a really good day, but Wyatt’s growing pains are showing… KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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What is wrong with that child, you ask? What are you people doing to her? Well, it’s like this. If Rory has one single, stand-out, non-endearing trait, it is (and this is SO PETTY) that she pretty much has to go potty every single solitary second of every day. Is she nervous? Unable to complete, shall we say, with relative strangers? Does she have a UTI? Dunno. Doesn’t, in the context of getting out of China, matter. But there it […]
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Full disclosure: Lorelei Rebecca Seelig, fka You Wan Rebecca, has had more sugar in the past week than in her entire previous 3 year, 9 month life. She has had candy. She has had lollipops. She has had Sprite, Coke and Orange soda. “I like tandy,” she tells us, helpfully, before meals. “I like Sprite. I like cookies. No dinner, just cookies.” We have no routine, of course, no set rest time, no set bed time, no ability to have […]
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I overheard our guide explaining that each of the 500 Buddhas represented a different emotion, and that if there was a particular state of mind you were struggling with, you were supposed to do–something or another–with that Buddha. I didn’t catch what, nor am I sure what the significance of some of the more mustachio’d Buddhas would have been, emotion-wise. But whatever it was, I should have done it with the impatient looking Buddha, and the Buddha who couldn’t enjoy […]
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Shamian Island is best described as the place the British took over, back when tea and opium were in constant traffic across the sea, and although I am sure there was razing and looting involved in its creation, the result is extraordinarily pleasant. Shady verandas. Palm trees. Wide park-like walkways. Few cars. We are staying at the White Swan. It used to be right next to the consulate, so everyone stayed here. Now it’s right next to an entire cottage […]
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Regrouping Originally uploaded by kjda The easiest number of children to deal with is always one fewer than what you have. It’s been true every time and it’s true again. Rory had to go get her tb test read, so I had breakfast at the buffet with just these two, which last week I would have considered a chore. But they know what they want to eat. They know to walk to the table. They can be left eating by […]
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So we’ve agreed: Fuzhou, not set up for tourists. On the other hand, we are seeing a real China city, and not just one like Beijing that’s sort of set up to show itself off in the same way that Manhattan is–there are clearly tons of Chinese tourists–although once we let the guide start taking us places, we saw Western tourists too. I can tell you that Fuzhou-ers, rightly, do NOT go out between noon and three. I don’t know […]
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The real trouble with the whole quarantine thing is that it sucked a lot of the adventure right out of us. We’re tired. We’ve eaten a lot of things we might not otherwise have eaten. We’ve hung out together. We’ve talked to people. We’ve been stared at. And now we are ready to resume our normally scheduled programming, but we still have a week of travel to go. Rory is adjusting well. She kind of collapsed today and took an […]
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We are one sleepy family–what a day. Rory came to the hotel with three women she’d never met before today, and no one from her foster home. When we came in she was wailing–in English–I want to go home! I knelt down and started whispering in her ear–I knew her foster mother had told her that this was ok, that she could go with us and we would take good care of her, and she let me pick her up, […]
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Here she is Originally uploaded by kjda Utterly fearless. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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