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.
At Dinner, again Originally uploaded by kjda This time she’s out for the night. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Apparently Lily Needs Another Little Sister Originally uploaded by kjda During Rory’s time out. Can’t cure the tantrums in one day after all! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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This may be an exaggeration. It may be wishful thinking. It may be putting too much weight on one good day… But I think we’ve crossed some kind of line. Yesterday was a pretty good day. The parts that weren’t good were mostly in…my head. Today was a totally good day, and I’m looking at Rory with fresh–and more loving–eyes. I’m hearing her differently. Every hug isn’t an attempt to steal my attention away. Her little family recitation–that my Nini, […]
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I was trying to work through Rory’s tantrums last night–well, not the tantrums, but the way I react to them. And I was getting all fancy about her need for control, and how maybe I could understand that, as she’d had no control over being abandoned, and adopted, and yadda, and so I shoudl be more tolerant of her need to choose, say, which of the three potties in the pool bathroom she uses, every single time, and maybe if […]
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Just a Little Reminder from the Poison Ivy Fairy Originally uploaded by kjda Not to take life in the woods for granted. I can’t get the picture to look as bad as it does in real life…it hurts! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Lily Swam Across the Pool! Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Imagine if we’d had to leave without Rory. It just happened, to this family. Here, in a nutshell, is the United States’ new plan for China adoptions: 1. Complete masses of paperwork. Travel to China. Adopt and become responsible for child. 2. Have child tested for TB. 3. If child tests positive for TB, stay in China for 2-6 months, as child will not be allowed to travel to the US, but is no longer the responsibility of anyone in […]
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Loving the Pool Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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The Pack Swims Originally uploaded by kjda Lots of togetherness today at the pool by the fearsome foursome. And if you’re far enough away, you can’t hear the happiness level–but it sure looks good! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Ok, so I sent Rory to her room today–probably for a slightly lame reason, but there it is–sometimes I give one or the other the “go to your room” line and then I think, well, that wasn’t really a big deal–but once I’ve said it, there we are. They’re used to it; they march. Rory has marched, but today she didn’t…I had to deliver her. I went up to release her pretty quickly. The point is, unless there’s some dramatic […]
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Everyone enjoys themselves in their own way Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Actually I Was Wrong Originally uploaded by kjda They found a way to totally enjoy this thing together. Rory likes being tipped over. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Idyllic. Can’t last. Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Things That Are Unlikely to End Well Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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At the pond Originally uploaded by kjda I forgot my swimsuit and Sam isn’t in yet, so inevitably someone is going to go out to far and get scared…can I use a rake to haul them in, or is that too heartless? Our friends, the owners of the pond, are also the possessors of an enormous water trampoline that Sam and Joey are pouting because I will not get out…it just seems too difficult and painful, and once it’s out, […]
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Rory told me she “no like you” for the first time today. It was totally ok, because at that moment, I didn’t like her much, either. She’d thrown a massive, all out temper tantrum at the swimming pool–the kind people date from–remember that time the naked kid screamed in the grass for 20 minutes? Oh, yeah, that was the day they had adult swim… Ah, adult swim. I mocked it at first–who wants to haul their kids out of the […]
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I have always relied on my ability to sleep. I drop off the minute I hit the pillow, regardless of circumstances, and I sleep solid–even that ever-present alertness that comes with a baby and a monitor only threw me a little off my stride. Until…this. I honestly don’t know if it was Rory, or China. I’d doze, but I couldn’t sleep, not really sleep, not the deep velvety stuff with the dreams you don’t know are dreams, and it was […]
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I was just reading Brain, Child, and came across a little offhand comment from a mother of three: Another child would … tip us over into another category: that of the Big Family, the sort that, dispite how well-behaved the children are or how fantastic the wife’s guacamole she brings over, simply entails too big a crowd I hadn’t exactly thought of Rory as a social liability… I really do make good guacamole.
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Today’s activities included a chanterelle hunt, an activity that required a high tolerance for mud, bugs and failure, as we certainly didn’t find enough for dinner. The kids petered out early when one required the bathroom, but the dog and I soldiered on, finding…zilch. Our only stroke of luck came early, and each child was able to pick one mushroom. Dinner, though, was mushroom free–it just didn’t seem worth the bother, although in retrospect I could have served the one […]
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I love summer. WInter is hard, where we live, and it’s long, and it’s cold, and then it’s long, and did I mention it’s long? The sheer amount of gear involved in winter life…I could cry just thinking about it, and I love to ski and ice skate. Sigh… But this is summer. The pool has become easy. The biking is fabulous. There are only three and a half more weeks before Sam stuarts school, and then while the summer […]
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Things That Make Me Happy Originally uploaded by kjda This is on our road home. I see it every day, and every day I think of that road crew, goofing around with the tar, and I laugh. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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All night I’ve been thinking–who can I get to hang out with us tomorrow morning? No babysitting Thursday mornings, see, and I’m faced with three hours alone with the dynamic duo, waiting to pick up Lily. Alone, in the house, with Mr. Mario Cart and Miss I Want Scissors I Want Painting I Want Coloring. Actually, both of those activities are fine, as they are individual and require nothing from me except, you know, something about every ten minutes, or […]
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Everyone needs buds. MIne come in, um, human and online form. Physical and online? Ok, that sounds better. I couldn’t parent without mine, and I couldn’t write without my crew of fellow writers, too–a couple of whom, today, totally offhand, provided me with complete inspiration when I really needed it. Writers (like parents) tend to work alone. I’m lucky enough to have a couple of editors I’m in regular contact with, and a couple of steady gigs that mean I […]
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Actually playing together. Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Two Months Ago Originally uploaded by kjda I sat on this bench, in this museum, with another adoptive parent and her recently at home daughter…and never really thought this would happen. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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When I think about it, all of my kids have had a totally different mother. They all had certain traits in common–overwhelmed, low on patience, mildly irritable–but in terms of permissiveness, we–the four mothers I have been–have run the gamut. When I was Sam’s mother, and only Sam’s mother, I made all of his baby food. I can tell you precisely when he had his first lollipop (Easter 2002–thanks mom!). Salty snacks were limited, and fell into the faux-good-for-you category. […]
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How weird must it be, to talk to your kid’s new mom about what she was like as a baby? Is it akin to giving your husband’s new wife a call to tell her what he likes in bed? Only Rory’s other mother knows, and she’s not telling. Because she is a kind person, and because, I suppose, we both know it would change nothing. The way it is is the way it is. She belonged with her first family […]
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On June 6, I completed the squishing and flipping and baking project that is Amish Friendship Bread–which I know for a fact is slowly conquering the country, and may be nothing more than a ploy to get us all to buy at least one package of vanilla pudding this year–baked my two loaves, and froze one. June 6 was just a few days after we got our travel dates. Rory was still pictures and an idea. We were thinking packing, […]
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Rory ran off in town today, just shot merrily off down the sidewalk and around the corner. We were on a block with no crosswalks and a sort of little plaza, and she was going right back to where we’d been a few minutes ago, before we went to–you guessed it–the potty–so it wasn’t that bad, and I almost let it go. I wasn’t angry or even worried–even if she’d gone a little farther, we live in a small town […]
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I tend to feel so different in the morning that I think maybe I ought to look into lithium. Or possibly electric shock therapy. Today’s plan is to let Wyatt and Rory duke it out. I have tried punishing him every time he touches her, and it doesn’t work–and the truth is, most of the time, he’s not actually doing anything he doesn’t do to Lily 62 times a day. It’s jsut that Rory has this deeply, deeply annoying screechy […]
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Sam and I are just back from a preview of G Force (and, for the record, your kids will love it and so will you). We took the whole afternoon together, had dinner, got there just as it was starting–only to find them turning away a line of a hundred-plus people. But I am “press” and we got in–and it turned out Sam never doubted that we would!
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I would post, but how many times can I say that this is hard? How many times can I detail the ways I’ve failed today, or the ways I’ve taken my frustration out on my family? How many times can you hear, again, that I have simply got too many small children…too many to take to the bathroom. To many to cut up fruit for, too many to mix chocolate milk for, too many to watch in the swimming pool, […]
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The thing I like best about the swimming pool is that they can all touch. Not that this means I am off in my plastic adirondack chair licking a Jolly Rancher icepop (the biggest vice available at the pool, sadly–where is my mojito?). But I can sit on the side, in primo splashing territory for all the horrible little splashy children in their swimsuits, shoving the ones that don’t belong to me aside and saying jeez, kid, don’t get between […]
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I’ve been thinking lately about one particular internet friend, known online as kittymama, and I’ve been thinking about her because the child she brings home will be her first. And I want her to know, in advance, one thing: You hate them sometimes no matter what. Babies, biological, adopted, I’m guessin’ any way you bring them into the family, they screw things up. And I mean that in the most loving, actually dealing pretty well way. When you have your […]
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Adopting a three-year-old is not very much like having a baby, except in the level of shock to the system. One does not, for example, have to nurse, or wake up every three hours, or carry the baby around for hours on end in the hope that it will somehow stop crying. But the wow factor–the shock and awe and the what have we done–that’s there, in spades. Tonight was a wall-punching night for me. I was congratulating myself on […]
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Rationing health care: gotta be done. (Psst…we already do it.)
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So. It’s 9:15. I’m bitterly exhausted. Tomorrow is…another day, another day, another day. Another day feeding them, talking to them, tending them, wiping them. Another day. If I go to bed now I’m likely to get some sleep. I will be more rested for them. But the day will come…sooner. And there I will be.
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Being a Good Sport Originally uploaded by kjda I squeezed her cone trying to peel the wrapper off, but she can take it. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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I don’t understand. Not that Lily and Wyatt don’t touch one another, or bug one another occasionally–but Rory they feel compelled to constantly poke. If she is sitting on a barstool, one of them is touching her feet. If she is on the couch, one of them is on top of her, prodding her. If she is wandering around, someone is following her–touching her. They poke her in the car, they prod her in the stroller, they nudge her at […]
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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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