Connecting the Dots

On this rainy Labor Day, books were read, games were played, video games were played, Lego models were built and various and sundry this and thats and whatnots occurred, and suddenly it was 5:30 and no plan had been made for dinner (which, of course, really means that I hadn’t thought about dinner.) There were boxes of fondue in the fridge, and already sliced fondue bread in the freezer (from a party that took place last November, but it’s the […]

Corn maze! 85 degrees in the corn maze, but: corn maze! Rory is alone in the picture because the last time we went to this farm, I apologized to one of the people who works here after overhearing him tell her not to touch something, and he came over to me, and I said I’m really very sorry, again, and added that if he had one thing on the whole farm that she shouldn’t touch and he hid it under […]

Lily loves a project. I suppose there are a couple ways in which being so much like me won’t work totally to her disadvantage (although I still think she inherited all of my very worst characteristics), and maybe this is one of them. She had an idea about marshmallow popsicles. Her vision was, I think, that we would melt marshmallow and reshape it into, well, different shapes. I’m not sure how she planned to hold the shapes together, but somehow […]

Rory has a playdate tomorrow. And Sam and Lily have school. That means I get Wyatt all to myself for a couple of hours. I’m planning on some legos, some coffee, and some snuggling. I’ve been realizing lately just how little solid attention I lavish on Rory or Wyatt. They’re such a pair! They play together nearly all the time, and even when it’s not entirely amicable play (I really wish Sam had not shown them how to shoot a […]

Two weeks ago or so, I posted about how we (I) cleaned an organized our hall/entry/mudroom to get ready for school starting. This past Sunday, with all of us trapped at home staying out of hurricane range, I called Rob into the playroom/family room. How, I asked, do you think the sofa would look turned sideways? Well, he said, let’s try it. Yes! Sam shouted. I demurred. If we moved the sofa we had to move the train table. Move […]

One last summer picnic Originally uploaded by kjda Sigh. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

If you don’t try, you don’t get it wrong. If you don’t try to answer the phone, you will never accidentally hang up on your daddy. I felt like I got things wrong today, too. Tactless in a couple of instances, inattentive in others. Not present. Bothered by the echoes of flooding and loss that are all over, here (we’re right on the Connecticut river and unscathed but surrounded). And bothered, as I think I always am, by a beautiful, […]

My babysitter’s daughter has been going online occasionally with the three younger kids to play Moshi Monsters. I’ve staunchly refused to let them do this at home, largely because I do not want to play Moshi Monsters, and I suspected that was what it would be. Plus, I’ve had my doubts about this entire genre, which seems to promote shopping and decorating as the only fun activities available to our virtual and real selves. But I’ve always secretly thought–who wouldn’t […]

Admitted Originally uploaded by kjda I love Lily’s new shoes so much, I checked to see if they come in my size. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

Captive Originally uploaded by kjda Food, water and shelter. At least Lily, Rory and their two friends are complying with the Geneva Convention. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

I really don’t want Rory to have a language issue. I go back and forth on whether I think the things I posted about yesterday–her srtuggles with nouns, her mixing up words within categories–mean anything more than, as Gina said yesterday, that she’s “just a girl trying to learn SO Much. Yes, she wasn’t only learning language but learning social cues, learning how to be in a family, learning so much more than kids brought up here at an earlier […]

I need help. Rory has been with us now for two years and two months. And she came speaking English–about 2-year-old English. Her language is still behind in some expected ways–she struggles with “he” and “she” and verb tenses–and that’s cool. She gets speech therapy for that, and for leaving off the final consonants of all her words (speech therapy doubles as ESL in her case, since its not really her second language–they know the history and work with it). […]

I’ve written before about how loudly Rory walks. My theory is that she’s afraid if she can’t hear herself move, no one knows she exists. Like a lonely tree on the forest or something. Tonight she stomped so loudly across the upstairs that the lights downstairs flickered. This surely says something about our wiring, but that aside, I need this to at least ease up–so I have an evil plan. No, it’s not the destompinator (that may be next). I’m […]

I’ve been re-reading some old blog and journal entries from our first weeks home with Rory. Mostly, I’m seeing how amazingly far we’ve come (and how painful it was to get there). But then there was this, taken from an incident just two months after we came home from China. (Because of her foster home, Rory spoke some basic English when she first arrived.) I decided to make Rice Krispie Treats with Wyatt. I read Rory a book first. When […]

First we went to the Cape. This we shall universally regard as having been a good idea. Rob and I actually had a relaxing vacation. Periodically he would turn to me and say “you know what I really love? The sound of crying babies.” And I would sigh blissfully back “And screaming toddlers…” And he would reach his hand out from his pool lounge chair and take mine, and we would listen to other people’s babies and toddlers while our […]

Cheerio Art Originally uploaded by kjda Both entertainment options and the dining situation on the Island have palled a bit. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

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 […]

A post most emphatically NOT from France (as you’ve probably gathered, I wasn’t posting directly from vacation, due to technical difficulties). The whole point of the last two years plus of my life has been to realize that I control both everything–and nothing. Nothing, in that what happens outside of me–external career stuff, traffic, other people’s emotions, quarantine, illness–I can’t control any of that and I never will. Everything, in that what I do control, completely, is my own reaction […]

More from France: The bike shop in St. Chinian where we rent our bikes is a very small bike shop. And in France, they take their biking very seriously. So it is a small and serious bike shop. Which means we were able to rent bikes for me, Rob and—barely—for Sam, but not for anyone else. This is what comes of vacationing in a place where, at least from the place’s perspective, no one in her right mind would vacation, […]

Another post from France… We’ve done the drive from Barcelona to Cazo before. As we headed into Narbonne, Rob reminded me that we’d missed the turn in some way last time. “That’s how we ended up at the Carrefours, remember?” I did, and although we’d liked the Carrefours, with all four kids asleep in the back of the car in the middle of the day and Rob and I each running on about an hour’s poor sleep on the plane, […]

A post from France… Ok, I’m making a vow I probably won’t keep in honor of our vacation in France, generally considered a relatively hedonistic country and one where people, and especially women, know how to put themselves first. Have you ever read an old school French feminist on the subject of attachment parenting? It’s, um, refreshing. My vow: I’m going to stop martyring myself in the name of everyone else’s fun. What do I mean? Well, how about yesterday’s […]

Today we were in an airport, which is either the best or the worst place to see Rory’s and my mother daughter dynamic, depending on your perspective. I’m still thinking about the fact that I am at my worst with Rory when she doesn’t follow social cues, and there are a whole lot of social cues to airports. Even putting aside the weird ones (I don’t fault anyone for not realizing you have to take off your shoes), I’m left […]

We went to an outdoor cafe today, and the kids ordered ice creams–like, Dove Bar kind of stuff-and Espresso. And the waitress was all seriously? And I said, oh yeah. Really, they mean it. Espresso. And she brought it, with one sugar each, and disappeared, and that’s how they drank it. Except that they dipped their ice cream bars in. Affrogato on a stick. Why not? It’s summer, after all….

Rory is still lousy at picking up social cues. And I’ve realized that this, above all things, is what she does that pushes my buttons. It’s part of what happened at the Aquatic Center (in the below post). I’ve realize that when I overreact to her, its often at one of those moments. I don’t care if she makes mistakes. I don’t care if she misbehaves (I do, but I don’t–you know what I mean.) I react in a normal, […]

It should have been a perfect afternoon. Rainy first day out of school, end of last week, but some brilliant parent has scheduled a birthday party, not outside (as suckers like me invariably do for June birthdays) but indoors, at the aquatic center. I figure I am guaranteed happy children, because generally the aquatic center is the biggest of treats for them, and we’ve reached the point where I don’t even have to get in the pool. I’m toting my […]

It all started when I read this book. I no longer remember the name of this book, but suffice it to say that as my co-author and I (Reading With Babies, Toddlers and Twos) are to reading with small children, this author was to small children and art. She was for it. She was for lots of it. Unfettered access to art supplies, lots of room to create, paint galore! But even she probably would not have given a six-year […]

We were at Sam and Lily’s “Move Up” ceremony when the next utterly unfair event took place. Rory, ten minutes into the event, says “lappy.” I say, no way. You’re a wiggling, squiggling ball of pointy bones that kick, and there is no way I’m holding you on my lap for however long this is. And it is long. Not really, in the grand scheme of things, but long enough. Rob is seated one row in front of us and […]

Oh, hell. What’s “fair,” anyway? Who came up with that concept? I hate fairness. This morning, in the car, we had something like this: Wyatt: That’s MINE! Give it back! Rory: [silence] Wyatt: MOMMY! She has my motorcycle! Give it back. Rory: You didn’t say please. Wyatt: PLEAASE give it back! It’s mine! Rory: [silence] Wyatt: Roo-RYYY! Rory: You didn’t say it nice. Wyatt: Pleasegivemebackmymotorcycle. Rory: I’m not gon’ give it back unless you ask me nice. Wyatt: GIVE IT […]

I’m torn. Here I am, having my lovely evening all nice and quiet in my quiet empty house. I have eaten a dinner of junk food (a little ironic, given that my XX Factor post today was on the perils of fake food–but it wasn’t fake, just junk). And I am about to get some writing done, although clearly, given the hour, not as much as I had hoped or expected. I am a little lonely. I miss the pressure […]

What’s in a name? Everything. Every thought your parents had about who you might be. A goodly dose of who your father’s family was, and possibly, depending on your circumstances, your mother’s as well. If you’re adopted, what’s in a name? Maybe everything, maybe nothing. Casually (as in the non-legal name you’d give, say, a gymnastics class), Rory’s name says nothing much about her except that she’s the child of two people who liked the name Rory. Her name is […]

Who doesn’t know that the true reason we drive our kids all over to activity after activity is that we ourselves wish we had had these opportunities or these skills? To be someone who, if the chance arose, would surprise everyone by, say, sitting down at the piano for a sing-a-long, executing a perfect dive into the lake, shushing down the narrowest of ski trails or jumping a horse over a fence? (Apparently I have a secret desire to be […]

You Never Walk Alone Originally uploaded by kjda There’s an audience for everything in our family. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —

If I was trying to punish him for not telling me he needed a purple shirt, I failed miserably. (Happily, I wasn’t.) Because apparently it was a big hit.

Tomorrow is “field day” at Sam and Lily’s school. Lily broke down when she found that she was on the “yellow” team. She did not, she felt, know anyone on the yellow team! Or have a yellow shirt! After some digging it developed that because tomorrow is also her birthday, she wanted to wear something special. Which would not be an old yellow t-shirt, or even a new yellow t-shirt. I wish, she finally said, I had a shirt like […]

Every night, right around this time, we hear it. Stomp stomp STOMP STOMP STOMP Click-squeak-slam! STOMP STOMP STOMP. Pause. Stomp stomp STOMP STOMP STOMP Slam- squeak-click! STOMP STOMP STOMP. It’s Rory, getting up to go to the bathroom, slamming open the bedroom door, then returning and slamming it shut. She doesn’t need or want help. She feels fully confident in making her own way on this. Doesn’t turn on a light. Her siblings could sleep through anything, and they sleep […]

The City Slicker and the Snapping Turtle Originally uploaded by kjda We found this guy (actually, I think it’s a girl) on the road today. I wasn’t actually SURE it was a snapping turtle, and I figured Lily could outrun it in a pinch–plus, I needed some scale. So I made her get in the picture. Which the next person to pull over clearly thought was CRAZY. My plan was to cautiously approach the turtle from the rear, pick it […]