11 months

Once again we've arrived to the 29th. How time is flying! I'm 11 months old, and although I'm still fighting the ear infection etc. I'm enjoying myself immensely. You can gather from the list from the previous blog that there is never a dull moment in Oscarlandia. And actually, my parents have found out that when things are calm and quiet, there is a reason to be worried! Yesterday, for example, my mum was changing my bedsheets and I was playing by myself. Suddenly my mum realized that I was awfully quiet, so she went to check what I was up to, and found me chewing on the moon from my goodnight-book -with the book nowhere around! She was not happy! Another classical example is that I'm playing around the entrance door and my mum is bizzying herself in the kitchen, happy for every moment that I'm not playing some music on the radiator. Then I let myself disappear behind the corner, and before I can count to ten (which I would do if I knew how to count) my mum comes running Nei nei nei, not the electricity! For she knows that when I disappear like this I'm off to study the electricity-cables in the bedroom -well, the only chance I get to study them is when she is not there to forbid me to touch them!
Today we wont do much to celebrate. My appetite is not yet completely back so there is no use to celebrate through the stomach (although at lunch I did get to taste my mum's kjot ì karry, which was delicious), my dad is away for work, so we can't do something all three together. In the end I decided that the best way to celebrate was to do something I have recently discovered. Something that my mum has been trying to do with me since I was born, but I've never liked very much. Something that I've found out is warm, cozy and a great way to express emotions. Something so simple and yet so great. It's to hug and being hugged. Who thought that I would need a month of buggedybugs to learn to appreciate it! Today I have craved an overdose of it from my mum (being ill and all, I'm allowed to). In the end she had to make a sling out of an old scarf so that her arms wouldn't fall off from excessive embracing with me. What a perfect way to celebrate my 11 months.
Bearhugs to all of you...

Bugged by bugs

November will be remembered as the bugged-by-bugs month. After the fever, cold, and running nose I'm now down with ear infection. Is there no end to this? When they say that kindergarten gives you so much, I didn't think they were referring to diseases! I went to the kindergarten yesterday (monday), but already in the afternoon I was ill. My mouth and my ear were hurting so much that when I was going to drink my mum's milk it was as if my mouth was full of broken glass that was cutting me. I refuted the milk crying, which happens very rarely and so my mum started to suspect things. Then she found out that my ears hurt (it's always the first thing she checks when I behave in a strange way) and off we went to the doctor who prescribed antibiotics for me. I already feel much better. The appetite is back, and although I'm still a bit weak, I've got a lot of energy between my naps. So now that I'm home from kindergarten I play all day long with my mum. Here is a list of the top ten things I like to do.

1. Make noise by throwing or hitting things. The best of all is throwing something heavy like a metal teaspoon to the radiator which makes a super hollow sound (and my mum goes banana!)
   
2. Hide things under the sofa/bed and then go fetch it.
3. Fill and empty any container/box with whatever I have at hand. My favourite is the box with the (plastic) building bricks and the top is to empty the box over my head
4. Play hockey with the cooking spatula and a building brick (or any other object around)
   
5. Give my parents and Bjalla a big hug
6. Play hide and seek, with my parents or with Bjalla (who is very good at hiding)
7. Study all the "remote corners" of the flat, like behind the cooker (not allowed)
8. Read my books. I alternate on what is my favourite, but at the moment it's "The green hat" a very very simple story about a green hat that is tired of the hat-store where it is on display
9. Let my parents chase me around the house
10. Play the "tunnel" game with the big pillows on the sofa
    

The estetics of parking

I got my first parking ticket the other day. The reason was lack of beauty in the way me and my mum parked our car! Well, I know that Italy is known for style, fashion and architecture and that beautiful things are appreciated here as nowhere else, but I didn't know that it also extended itself to parking! Now I know!
I had gone with my mum downtown, it was raining, and we had some problems finding a parking place. Finally we found one along the Ticino river, and my mum parked between another car and a tree. When we had run our errands (which basically consisted in me washing the floor of the Minerva bar with my hands and trousers while my mum chatted with some friends) we found a parking ticket under the windscreen wiper.
The car DJ832LZ was not parked paralell to the right margin of the driveway.Please pay 36 € within 10 days or we'll do something nasty (ask more money i.e. !!).
I don't think it was even the vigili urbani that wrote the ticket, but the vigili of parking estetics. We would like to underline that the car was not protruding onto the street, it did not arrive to the sidewalks or block the passage of people in any way, and the damn right margin of the driveway was under a 30cm thick layer of fallen autumn leaves. When we drove home, we passed at least 25 other cars parked as our car along the river -probably all with a parking ticket surprise for their owners. Is it possible that the vigili get a percentage of the tickets they write?

CDs

I mentioned my favourite CD in the previous blog (it's a CD for babies by Ragga Gisla). Well, I've got several CDs, from Mozart for babies to lullabies from all around the world (the one of the pigmies is a bit scary!) and we listen to these CDs quite alot. I even know how to ask my mum to play them for me, I just have to fix the CD-player with my eyes and mumble something and she chooses a CD to listen to. Among my CDs there are some plays for children written by Torbjorn Egner. My mum says that she listened to them alot when she was a child, and I can tell, for she knows all the songs and much of the rest by heart. But I've started wondering if she has actually ever LISTENED to these plays. She says these plays are so good for children, but I have started to have some doubts. Let's take Kardemommubaerinn (FOLK OG RØVERE I KARDEMOMME BY) as an example and let's sum up a bit the character of Aunt Sophie (on the picture), which is the major female character in the play. She is unmarried, but is the custoder of her niece Kamilla. I'll fill you in on some of the things she does in the play.

1. Kamilla does not get to go to the annual festival in town, for although it's a festival for children and family, Sophie thinks it's unappropiate that Kamilla goes there and she doesn't go herself, for she can't leave little Kamilla alone at home.
2. When the oldest man of town invites her to the festival, she goes, although reluctantly and takes Kamilla with her. At the festival, all Kamilla gets to do is sit and make sure that no one takes her seat. The major of town Bastian convinces Sophie to sing a song for everyone, and she sings a song about how much better she is to everyone and how terrible the young people and the whole town actually are since they are not like her.
   
3. When the 3 thieves of town rob Aunt Sophie one night (they wanted a female to do the housework for them) but then want to send her back home for she is really a slave driver and orders them to do things by themselves, she doesn't want to go home. Not even when the local police comes to free her does she want to go home. But she thinks nothing of poor Kamilla that is at home by herselfall alone -now it's ok for her to be alone!
4. When one of the three thieves, Kasper, just out of jail is made the director of the new fire brigade of Kardemomme-town and then asks Aunt Sophie to marry him (they'd only met the one day when the thieves robbed her) she doesn't even wait for him to finish to pop up the question when she is all eager to say I do!
   

Now you tell me, is this something for young children? You just wait until I take one of these characters as a role model!!! And don't get me talking about Lille the climbing-mouse, for if there is an annoying little creature in any of Torbjorn Egner's plays, then he is one...!

Update

The picture that I've added to this blog shows what would have happened if I hadn't started kindergarten recently! And it tells you a little bit about what me and my mum are going through these days. Last week, on monday, when I'd just got better from my cold, I went to the kindergarten where the good ladies said to my mum: now you just go out for a walk or something! and then I got to play with the good ladies while my mum went heartbroken into the autumn breeze. I heard her say to my dad later that as she walked outside she felt that the umbelical cord had finally been cut and she had to fight the tears. I didn't do much better and cried a good bit even if I got tons of toys and babies to play with and the good ladies were really nice to me. The day after the same scenery repeated itself. When I got back home around lunchtime I played a little bit, then I fell asleep but when I woke up it was if the end of the world was happening to me personally. I cried and yelled for about an hour (53 minutes to be precise, but then, who's counting!) and my mum held me in her arms and explained to me everything about the kindergarten and told me that she loved me and then she sang a bit for me and we read a book, and then I cried some more and then she played my favourite CD and finally I calmed myself. Now I'm starting to get a bit more used to the kindergarten and I know that my mum always comes back when she leaves me there. I'm still not accepting the place completely, but mainly because I'm not used to having 17 other babies running around me while I'm playing, it does disturb a bit my poetic being. I'm also the youngest one in the group. All the other babies are 4-12 months older than me, they all know how to walk and many also how to talk. My parents find it strange that I didn't get to be in the youngest group of the kindergarten, where there are 6 babies, 3 of which are 1-3 weeks younger than me. I would have fitted in there just perfectly, but I was born 2 days too early to be in that group so there is nothing to say about that. Fortunately my mum has not started working yet, so we have all the time to take things slowly with the kindergarten. If I could just get around to learn to walk without holding something I guess my situation in the kindergarten might improve alot!

A thought!

I was just wondering why somone hasn't thought of making non-slip socks that DON'T actually slip off your feet when you wear them?

HAPPY
40 (forty!!!)
YEARS
WEDDING
ANNIVERSARY

to amma and afi in Iceland

I'm thinking to you

Kindergarten

This week my mum brought me to a place that she calls kindergarten. It's a really really warm place that is full of toys and other babies. In fact there are so many babies that I wonder why they want me there! But they do, so I went there with my mum monday morning. In the entrance hall I met Filippo, a big white soft teddy-bear. We made friends immediately and he told me a bit about the place. Then one of my girlfriends arrived, it was also her first day at the kindergarten. Her name is Alice and we meet regularly when she is out for a walk with her grandmother -she is really really sweet. Me and Alice went with two nice ladies, Giovanna and Letizia to a room where there were several other babies and we got to play with all the toys. Vow!!! On monday and tuesday my mum got to play with me, or stay in the room with me, although she is no longer a baby, but on wednesday she had to leave the room for some time. I cried a little bit when I realized that she had gone, but then I got distracted by some toys and I forgot about her until she was back. Yesterday, thursday, I didn't go to the kindergarten. That's because after lunch on wednesday I had 39°C fever and did not feel so well. My mum said it might be related to the immunization that I did early wednesday morning, but when my nose started running last night she had to think again. My parents tell me that all kinds of diseases pass easily between babies at the kindergarten, but I think I've made some kind of a record, for after only 3 hours of kindergarten I've got my first real cold! Today I got to go back to kindergarten, for I had no fever, and the nice ladies that my mum call teachers say that it's no problem going there with a running nose. In fact there are so many children there with the nose running at any time, that they are considering putting a turbine under their nose and use the mucous-flow to produce energy to keep the lights going at the kindergarten! Today my mum left the room where I was playing with the other kids for almost an hour. It was ok for me in the beginning, but be it the cold or the fact that I didn't sleep so well last night because of a blocked nose, but in the end the nice ladies called my mum and said that it was enough for today! Lets see how things proceed next week! Now I'll just concentrate on get rid of the cold, for kindergarten is much more fun when you fell good.
I also hope that tonight will be better than last night when my nose continued to congest so I felt that I couldn't breath and woke up many times. My mum always took me in her arms and tried to let me blow my nose, but I don't know how to do that. She said: how does the dog say? for one of my latest animalsounds is my own invention of how dogs do when they meet you out for a walk and sniff at you. But I was too tired to "do the dog" well, so I didn't blow my nose hard enough and in the end my mum had to use some solution to clean my nose. That was awful!! The worst thing I've tried!! But it did help, and I managed to fall asleep again...until my nose blocked again! Now my mum has bought also an equipment to suck the mucous from my nose. It's rather horrible as well, but it does help a lot. But now I have two days to cuddle and be cuddled by my parents, and if that doesn't scare away the virus then what will...?