Breakfast

Guess what I just had for breakfast...?

Able

One of the things I get to hear more than others is Irene will be able when she gets bigger! Every day, actually many times a day, this phrase is filed into my parents conversation with Oscar. When I get bigger I'll be able to eat pizza, brush my teath, chew the meat, drink milk from a cup, walk, talk and whatnot! The list gets longer every day and I basically can't wait to be able to do all these things! But I'm able to do a lot of things already (and I'm not that lazy as Oscar hinted at...I'm just different from him, which is quite another thing!) and actually I'm able to do several things that my parents are not able to do, but they sometimes forget all about. I'll name 3:
1. SCREAM without loosing the voice! You just try screaming for about 5 minutes, as loud as possible (imagine trying to call the attention of someone that is deliberately ignoring you)...then repeat it several times in one day (if you are afraid that your neighbours will be worried about you, then just go to see a soccer/hockey/handball game and live it!) and let me know how much will be left of your voice in the end! Screaming without loosing the voice is a very underestimated ability of infants like me - and one that is very important for our survival, for we have no other way to let know that we are wet, cold or hungry! I myself didn't value this ability in it's fullness until last week when I caught a virus (from mum) that sent my voice away! Now if I scream, the only thing that can be heard is a low whistle, as if you could hear a steam-whistle kettle boiling 3 blocks away! Instead of taking me to the doctor to have this fixed, my parents arefamily is just enjoying the silence. Parents!!!!!
2. Squeeze milk out of the milk tanks! Most of you wont have had the chance to latch on to milk tanks for quite a while so maybe it's difficult for you to appreciate this ability in it's full. But I gained mum's full respect yesterday when she decided to leave me at home with dad in the afternoon and had to leave some milk with me as well. My parents had bought a simple handheld pump when Oscar was born, but had hardly ever used it, and now mum found out that it didn't really create good vacuum, so she only managed to squeeze a few drops out of the milktanks that way and in the end she had to use her own hands to milk herself! Muuuuuuu. To think that by instinct I knew the right technique to let the milk flow and was able to drink from the milktanks less than an hour after I was born, but mum had a hard time squeezing out enough for me to drink for merenda yesterday (she blamed it on small milk tanks, ergonomy and back-pain!) and dad had to supplement my meal with my first ever yogurt!
3. Eat unsalted food and enjoy it. Did you ever think about it how salt has become important to you? How, little by little, you've lost the ability to enjoy food without amplifying its taste with salt or even sodium glutamate? Try not adding salt to your food for one day and be sure that the food wont taste of anything and you will be craving for salt by the end of the day. Whereas I'm perfectly happy with unsalted food, and think that vegetable soup is awsome!

I can also fall asleep over lunch, and I bet you envy me a lot for that!

Arithmetics

I was wondering: if today my dad reached age that is his shoesize minus 1, and if in August mum will reach age that is her shoesize plus 1, then which one will be older in september? Arithmetics arithmetics... !
Anyway, I've already sung Tanti aguri many times for him today, and if you join in with me I'll continue to sing it until I fall asleep.
Happy birthday dad

Spring

Lately, after a period of what seems endless rain, we've been so lucky to have good weather! Mum says it's the spring that is arriving, and if it's always like this I wish there was spring all year long! We are still waiting for the trees to blossom and the temperature to pick up also in the morning, but now we wake up to singing birds that are merrily going about building their nests, and the people of Ponte San Pietro have woken up from their winter-long hybernation and have come out of their caves to let the sun warm their blood a bit. This also means that suddenly we are no longer the only ones going to the playground in the afternoon -now it is full of kids that are happy to run around and play in the sun. Mum can't resist comparing them to the cows that are let out of the stalls for the first time in spring -there is something primitive and wild about them!
While Oscar goes to kindergarten me and mum also go for long walks. Most of the time we go around our town, but yesterday we joined my friend Amalia and her mum Rachel and walked to an 11th century Roman church on a nearby hill that you can see in the background of this picture. The place is beautiful, the weather was great and the company was perfect, and for once the smog/mist was not hiding the mountains so we could also enjoy the wonderful view. No wonder our hearts are still smiling :)

My big brother

He is funny. He sings and dances and makes me laugh and sometimes he imitates people or animals or characters he's seen somewhere and there is nothing I like more than watching him play!
He's caring. If I cry he feels sorry for me and comes to caress me or kiss. Sometimes he gets a big urge to hug me, and his embrace is always warm and tender. He let's me play with his toys (as long as he can decide which!) and he likes to show me things and explain what they are.
He's my role model. Everything he does, I'd like to do too. When he is playing I like to play like him and when he is singing, sometimes I join in with my baaabaaaabaaa! My parents had to anticipate the start of the weaning, for I didn't want just to sit around watching Oscar eating and get nothing myself, and actually the best way to stimulate me to eat is to have him right before my eyes.
He distracts me while I'm breastfeeding. He likes to stay around when I'm drinking from the milktanks -reading a book, playing with Hvati (my dog), singing or doing whatever he comes up with at the moment. When I hear him coming I stop drinking and bend my little body in an arch to see him. Then maybe he comes and tickles me and I laugh so much that the milk spills out of my mouth. First mum was a bit upset about this, for it meant that she was never sure if I was drinking well or not, but then she decided to lean back and enjoy these magical moments for they are only here now...
He can be mean. He is sometimes angry with me and hits me or grabs the toys I'm playing with. He does this on purpose, I know, but his purposes are always noble, for he thinks that I want to take away from him the love of our parents -when in fact all I want to do is to share it with him!
He is the best, and he is my big brother...

Playstation..

..has got a different meaning in my family...!

6 months

Half a year has passed since I left mum's belly and started exploring the world! And what an adventure awaited me!

To celebrate, mum brought me out for a long walk. The day had started out gloomy, but at lunchtime the sun managed to melt a thick layer of clouds and me and mum jumped out to enjoy a prelude to the spring. We walked around town, through the center, and down by the river. We stopped for a long while on the pedestrian bridge over the river Brembo, letting the sun caress our faces while we watched a lady feeding a big group of seagulls that are unfaithful to their name and have decided to hang around Ponte San Pietro -which is as much inland as it gets in Italy. I guess we should call them river-gulls instead!
Once we came home mum gave me some prunes to eat, but don't be fooled to think it was to celebrate my 6 months...it was just to soften you know what, which has become a bit "different" after I started on solids! I merrily spit it all out, so mum had to really use her talent to get me to eat half a jar! For the rest of the day I was busy with all the things that the life of a 6 months old baby eveolves around, watching Oscar, hugging mum, giggling with dad...!

cindarella...fiskinn minn!

Over breakfast this morning:

Me: Mamma kona (mum woman)
Mum: en Oscar? (but Oscar?)
Me: Oscar maður (Oscar man)
Mum: Hvað með pabba? (what about dad?)
Me: pabbi maður (dad man)
Mum: en Irene? (but Irene?)
Me: Irene öskubuska (Irene cindarella)


And at lunch today, every piece of the tunafish-steak that entered my mouth was accompanied with: fiskinn miiinnnn, namminamminamm!
Live IS good!