Blog-break

Dear friends, I have decided to take a blog-break...I don't know if it will be a permanent break or if I'll be back, since I'm suffering a bit from lack of inspiration (not that there isn't a lot of things happening in my life), lack of feedback to my writing (does anyone read anymore what I write?), and soon I'll also be without internet -or until we manage to get connected in the new flat (we'll move next week). Take care all of you,
Oscar, XX and parents

The less you blog...

...the less you blog! I know it sounds like a tautologia, but it's really just a simple fact of life -and the main reason for why I've not been blogging so much lately. And since I've started this blog in such a philosophical way, I thought I'd share with you a few advice.

Well, if you have just learnt to drink water from a big bottle, like the one the grown ups drink from. And if you are quite happy with yourself for the new acquirement and thus insist on drinking from any bottle you see "lying around the house", then make sure NOT to overdo it if you have just been changed for the night. If you still decide to go ahead with it, then don't be surprised if the diaper literally explodes early in the morning, and you'll get all covered with the gelling material that absorbs the pee -which makes you look as if it has just snowed on you, and your mum will get quite desperate to clean away the snow before you started to try and eat it.

Another practical advice is NOT to bring your favourite teddy bear with you when you get changed. Ever. Especially not if your parents haven't understood that you are only half way through a heavy production and you're forced to let the rest out as you're lying on the changing table, just after the diaper has been removed and your parents have started cleaning your butt. If you're so unfortunate to have your favourite teddy bear with you in such an unlucky circumstances, do keep him in a close embrace position and not get tempted to let him have a look at the disaster zone -or your parents, that might not have very clean hands, will be forced to things that they will not be very proud of later!

If you live in a very small house, with a tiny tiny kitchen, and the top of the washing maschine -which cannot be placed in the garage for then its tubes will freeze during winter- is the only available working place that you have in the kitchen, and you find yourself mincing chicken meat in a blender to make chicken burgers as you and your baby are tired of the same old chicken-breasts in a pan, then do pay attention to the following advice. If the washing maschine happens to be centrifuging (and therefore making a lot of noise) while you're operating the blender, then do NOT open the lid of the blender until you've doublechecked that you've turned it off! But if you do open it, allow yourself be surprised by watching how far halfminced chicken meat is able to travel!

If you like climbing and the furniture in your home is the only mountain-chain you have available for such a thrilling sport, and if you like these challanges especially when your parents are busying themselves with something else, somewhere else in the house (and therefore not there to grab you when you fall), and if you've decided that the next peak to conquest is the microwave oven which is irresistably placed on a chest just behind your pile of toys. Then do pay attention to the direction in which the microwave-oven-door opens, before using it as a grip on your way to the top!

If you tend to drop your food, accidentally -or not, on the floor while dining, and your mum is absent minded and doesn't clean it up right away and your house is leaky like a sieve and therefore prone to invasions of a tiny black army, then do not get tempted to use the dropped pieces as emergency food later on. Especially not if the tiny black army got there first -which you will understand from the black dots covering the piece of food and the fact that the food seems to be travelling very slowly across your dining-room floor.

If you live in a different timezone from a little boy like me, and if you do appreciate a good nights sleep, then please remember to turn the volume of your phone off while sleeping for you never know when a little boy like me gets his hands on his mum's mobile phone and feels a strange urge to make a phonecall using the address-book saved on the SIM-card to randomly selct a victim. And if you are a little boy like me, and do like to make phonecalls when you get your hands on your mum's mobile phone, the DO use the address-book saved on the SIM card to choose the victim for all numbers you happen to dial by yourself are answered by a boring lady that doesn't want to talk to you and keeps repeating that this is no-mans number -in which case I don't think she should be responding at all!

If you do love your parents very much, and would like to have the same privileged (or monopolic) access to them for many many years to come, then do not act the role of a sweet and lovable child but try let out the rougher side of your self, in order to avoid giving your parents the idea that they can handle the situation so well that it is safe to add the number two...!

Love you all, Oscar

time for blog

I'm sure you're all thinking: It's a long time since Oscar last blogged, but he is excused for he is probably just busy helping his parents moving to the new house! But that's not true, not because he's not helping them, but because the moving-business has been delayed by undetermined time because of, let's say, some technical problems that the seller has! The thing doesn't depend at all on us, and all we can do is wait on the sideline that things get resolved. We just hope that we can move before mum's belly becomes too big and before the quicksilver starts boiling in the thermometers! The good side about the delay is that Oscar can continue to go to the kindergarten and "make antibodies" as italians love to say -and to learn to play with other kids, as is my parents' point of view.
Now you might be wondering if I've started to talk about myself in third person, Oscar can continue... But no, I have not, for I'm not Oscar. He has been so busy lately that he has had no time to blog, so I thought I'd step in for once and update you a bit on the situation. I myself am also quite busy, but my errands are more primitive than his, such as swimming, learning the amniotic rhumba (my brother was a master, and now he has become a dansfifl as they say in iceland!), and growing. Oscar on the other hand has been busy fighting an ear-infection, allergic reaction to the antibiotics, learning new words, passing the no-no-phase and playing all day long. I love to hear his voice, and especially I like his laughter. When he laughes it is as if all my cells are laughing as well and I start shaking and kicking so hard that my mum starts wondering what is happening in her uterus. But when he cries it makes me sad, for there is nothing I can do to soothe him. The best time of day, however, is when he is going to sleep and I get to hear his lullaby-toy, that always makes me want to swim around, and soon I fall asleep just like him.
One day a couple of weeks ago Oscar behaved a bit strangely, he didn't want to do his afternoon nap in his bed as usually, but wanted to cuddle with mum and he basically slept from 1-6 in the afternoon wrapped around mum's belly. It was the day before the outbreak of his allergic reaction to the antibiotic, and later my mum thought maybe his sleepiness and longing for an embrace was due to the reaction -but no. That morning, Oscar finally got to know the truth!!! As he had been ill all week, he didn't go to the kindergarten, so when mum and dad went to see the person in the white coat they were forced to take him with them. But since mum had had problems when bringing Oscar with her to the gynecologist a couple of weeks earlier (basically he insisted on sitting in mum's lap while she was being examined!!), they called a friend to stay with Oscar in the waiting room while mum and dad took a look at me through an amazing mirror in the doctor's room. The friend, not knowing that Oscar did not know, started telling him how exciting it all was, what a responasbility it would be to be a big brother and so on...! First he didn't understand anything...it took some time for him to absorb all the news. Then he thought about the cannibalism, the live baby he had seen in mum's belly, and then, adding 2 to 2 he finally got the right answer. Eureka, so that's why mum's belly is growing! Now you can all figure out why he wanted to embrace the belly for the rest of the day!

big hugs to all of you, and many greetings also from mum dad and Oscar
Miss XX Sergiosdottir

Thanks Hàkon

Yesterday was Christmas for me!!! I got a big big parcel from my cousin Hàkon in Iceland. I was really excited when I opened it, and to my great pleasure, the parcel contained loads and loads of icelandic books (which I could have guessed from the weight of the parcel). I was overwhelmed and pulled out the books one by one, each and every one accompanied with an "oooooooooo"! I already had about 50 books, most of them in Icelandic, but I know them all by heart, and it will be nice to dive into the reading of some new stuff.
So thanks again a million times to Hàkon (and to Marìa and Erla and their parents that also contributed to this generous gift).

It's the "NO"-phase, mum!

Mum, don't worry. I know you've been wondering if you have a changeling in the house, but I'm still the same old lovable me, it's just that I'm passing a phase that you might have expected me to pass a bit later. I can't help it -it's here, and maybe it's just better to get it over with. So when I answer NO to all your questions (Oscar, shall we take a bath? Neineineinei; Oscar, now it's time to go to the kindergarten Neineineinei; Oscar, would you like some yogurt Neineineinei...and so on, you get the picture) it's not because I don't want to do these things, it's just that I'm growing up and things happen in a way that even I can't control, as if they'd been written in my program, and all I can do is letting it run and hope for the best. The program that I'm going through now is one where I've started to express my own longings and need to become more independent, and the only way I know to do this is by saying neineinei. I know it can be frustrating, especially when the neineinei is accompanied by crying -desperate crying, or shouting or hitting things with my hands or throwing food around the flat. Even more so when this crying-chorus continues for a looonnnnggg time and in the meantime my supper has become cold and your patience is drying out. But remember that indeed with patience, this period is going to pass, and if you continue to treat me with calm and to reason with me and explain things as you've done so far (I'll forget a couple of episodes when your patience really dried out, e.g. when I bit you in the thigh), it will pass even faster. I've heard the good ladies at kindergarten say that I've changed from their little jewel that was the sweetest kid around -the only one always to eat everything and often asking for a bis, to a birichino capriccioso, so could you please assure even them that I'm not a changeling, and tell them that if they look down under the surface, they can see that even I am suffering this period a bit. I know that all of you can see the same old lovable me between these intense episodes of independence-demostrations. I'm still fun to be with, I laugh and I joke and I never get tired of playing. And when this period is over, I will (hopefully) have learnt to express my longings in a peaceful way and you will forget the whole business.

I always feel that the blog is somewhat naked if I don't add a picture, so here is one, taken a few days ago, and it shows a democratic ending to a war-scene that developed during my neineinei-demostration of independence at dinner. I had been crying a lot (my mum says for half an hour, but I'm not so occupied by the passing of time), and only eaten a few pieces of meat unwillingly and without any gusto. But when my mum turned away one second to reheat my dinner in the microwave, I manged to grab the piece of bone left on her plate -and that's when I started eating with gran gusto! There wasn't even a microscopic piece of meat left on the bone (nor on another bone my mum kindly gave me when I'd finished this one) when I let it down, and later I threw myself over the rice-bowl -until then left to get cold on a corner of the table. In 5 minutes I ate the average one-week's supply of rice for a chinese family of four. I've given you the short version of the happening, but the lesson my mum took from that dinner was: he wants the food presented in the same way as it is presented on my dish, and by the way, it is better if the dish is also the same (I'm too big for these cartoon-decorated baby-dishes), and if you try to interpret well his longings, all is going to go much better. I know my mum isn't going to give into just anything I ask for, she has a bit of a german discipline loaded with rules and good-manner-advice, but she is learning that sometimes the rules can be bent just a little bit to meet my longings -without loosing the principle behind the rule! And so everyone can be happy!
Don't you just love these good endings?

A great feeling!

I thought I'd share with you a great discovery that I've just made. After months and months of walking around in socks or shoes (I'm too young to remember that I passed more or less 6 months last year barefoot!) I decided to take off my socks one day when I was playing at home, and walk barefoot around the house. It wasn't possible to do this during the winter, for the tiles in our house were always far too cold, but now I really wanted to see what it felt like. It was amazing. First it was like when you bite an orange, and you think "my god, can anyone eat something so sour?", the tiles were a bit cold, but once I got used to it, I felt great, and in the end I couldn't stop running barefoot around the house. When you try this, just make sure that you haven't been holding your water-bottle or cup up-side-down and spilling water around the house, for even small pools of water can make the floor more slippery than the ice rink.
This suggestion was offered to you by Oscar

Warning

To you, mums and dads of little babies or future babies, here's an advice: Do not feed your little ones with asparagus while they are still using nappies, especially not at dinner! If you still decide to do it, don't forget that I warned you!
Big hugs, Oscar

War of independence

Lately I've been fighting a war -a war of independence! Actually I've fought a war of independence since the day I was born, and my motto has always been "I'll do it on my own or I wont do it at all!" e.g. when I was learning to walk, I didn't accept being held by the hands while walking, either I walked on my own, or I'd rather just sit down, or crawl. But I've sort of known my limits, and not asked to do things that I knew were far too difficult for me. The past few months, however, I've felt that I've become more and more able to do things, and so I've come to think it's time that I do things on my own! First of all I've learnt to eat on my own with a fork, and although I don't always manage to fish my food with the fork, I don't mind, and just use my fingers instead with the difficult bits. I find the spoon slightly more difficult to handle, things tend to spill out of the spoon before it reaches my mouth, but I insist (rather loudly) on eating e.g. the yogurt or the breakfast cereals without help, and if my parents so much as try to hold the yogurt-box I litterally freak out. The first few times I tried using the spoon by myself were very messy, but I'm getting the grab of it, and here you can see one successful session that my mum managed to catch with her camera.
Later I found out that it was easier to just drink the yogurt, and here you can see how happy I was with this discovery! I'm still perfectioning the method, but I think I might be able to spread it around the world as the new trend!
Here I've only given you culinary-examples of my independence war, but the war goes far beyond this. I'll give you two more examples. First of all I've learnt to clean my nose by myself. I know this sounds trivial, but imagine the benefits for someone that has had a running nose for approximately 5 months! I never blow my nose when my parents are cleaning it, but when I clean it myself I give it a thorough cleaning and blow my nose for at least 2 minutes with a lot of noise and necessary coreography. I've also started blowing the nose of all my stuffed animals, so there can be a real nose-blowing-concert at home.
The last example I'd like to give you is from the playground. At the playground I love the slide, and can use it 10 times in a row and never get tired. I mainly go to 3 different playgrounds in Pavia, and there are slides of different sizes and steepness. The small ones I can climb and slide quite well on my own, but I insist on doing all of them, even the biggest and steepest ones on my own. If my parents try to hold me, I brush away their hands and tell them angrily that I'm a big boy that can handle these things. By some miracle, however, my parents always show up on the right moment when I accidentally sit on my feet or slide down on my stomach, and save me from any major injuries.
I'm wondering if I should soon ask to dress myself as well -but as all my attempts so far to put on my shoes and socks have failed, I think I'll wait just a moment before launcing myself into the getting-dressed world.

Bissybissy

Sorry folks, but I've been far too busy lately to blog (well, that, and the fact that the net has been playing more tricks on us -maybe because we went away for easter and didn't smile to the anonymous neighbour). I have so many things to do that the day doesn't last long enough to do them all! First of all I'm busy learning new words. I'm still quite parsimonic on the pronounciation and if I can get by using only one syllable to say a word (and my parents understand me), that's all I say. But my vocabulary is increasing day by day, and although the majority of the words are icelandic, there are some italian words in between. I must remember to keep them separate though -the italian and the icelandic words otherwise I foresee a lot of confusion (try cacca and kaka for example!!). I've also started learning the alphabet. At the moment I'm concentrating on Y, which is easy to do by just raising the hands -and has the wonderful effect that my parents (or grandparents or the good ladies at my kindergarten) take me in their arms!!!
Secondly I've been very busy replacing misplaced stones and sand! It is a huge project, and strangely nobody seems to be interested in it except me, which makes things more difficult for me, obviously! It all started when I noticed that the stones on our car-park outside the house are all randomly distributed, so I threw myself down and started moving them by hand, then my eyes started to get exercised and I could see that sand and stones on the playground were all miserably badly placed, so I've got myself involved in this project to putting things back in order. This involves a lot of rolling around in the sand and sometimes my mum has to put me and my clothes in the washing-maschine when we come back home after a day out in the field.
Lastly I've been very busy going with my parents to see strange houses. In our house there is only 1 kitchen (well, better to say 1/3 of a kitchen), 1 bed for my mum and dad and 1 bathroom (well, lets call that 1/2 a bathroom) but in the houses we go to see there are maybe 10 kitchens, 20 beds and 15 bathrooms and no walls between them to separate different families!!! You would maybe expect that such a house was always full of people, but that is not the case. Sometimes there are only a few people there -so the other must either be at work all the time or maybe the people just like having so many beds and kitchens. What is more, nobody seems to care very much that my parents just walk around their houses, sit on the beds and sofas and open all the cupboards and drawers. My parents say that they want to buy one of these beds and sofas and stuff, but I can't see why the people in these houses don't just give these things to them, for they don't seem to be using them at all! I'm bored to death by these strange houses. Just as good that some of them have got stairs (one of my greatest passion at the moment), for while my parents go around sneaking around at least I can keep myself busy doing the stairs, well or moving labels and stuff -which always gets my parents running. So good people, that's why I haven't had so much time to blog.

Happy easter

I just wanted to say happy easter to all of you, enjoy hunting for the easter egg...or the easter bunny...whichever you prefer! Tonight I'm going with my parents to Arezzo to stay with my grandparents over easter. We will probably have a lot of fun. I'll be back next week.

Oral geology

While studying geology at school, did you ever wish that you were able to see a geological phenomena, such as the dividing of the continents or the forming of the Alps, in fastforward -and then I mean a fastforward so lightning-fast that you can enjoy it in half an hour, from a air-balloon for example? Well, what would you say if I told you that this IS possible –in a miniature scale, and not from a air-ballon, but sitting comfortably in our sofa for example. Hm, saying that you would be comfortable would be exaggerating, not because our sofa is so bad (although it’s not exactly the “incarnation” of comfortableness), but because you would have to fight with me (or tickle me) to get me to open my mouth! Yes, that’s right. MY mouth, -for in this moment, the Alps -or maybe it’s the Himalayas, are pressing through my gengives and forming a beautiful, snow-covered chain of mountains, I call them Mont Blanc, Mont Everest, K2 and Aconcagua. In addition there is a Hvannadalshnjúkur erupting through the gengive in the front, it is less spectacular than the big mountains, but no less of a scene! When I write this (which is not necessarily when this is added to my blog, for our net-connection is on a holiday at the moment) you can see about half of each of these mountains (call them 4 molars and front tooth if you prefer –and have no fantasy). This activity doesn’t pass entirely unnoticed, neither for me, nor for my parents for it can be so painful to chew the food that mealtimes often end in tears, but my parents are really patient with me, which is just as good for I’m not pretending to suffer and it doesn’t ease my pain when they get angry with me, so their only worry is that I get enough nutrients. Well, and I’ve seen my mum cheer in silence, not for my suffering, but because during this activity I’ve scaled down the daily use of bibs from 12-15 to 2-4, maybe I will stop drooling completely one day!

Several weeks have passed since I wrote the part here above, and since then the 4 molars have appeared in their full beauty and my mum has stopped cheering for the diminished use of bibs, for now she can see that my eye-teeth are about to arrive, and drooling is definately back!

Back.....but don't know if I'm staying!

Since I haven't been blogging for quite some time, I'm sure that many of you have been worried about my mum (who normally lends me her hands to blog) -maybe you imagined that her cannibal-business had gone out of hands and she had been arrested or something. But nothing of the kind has happened (surprise, surprise), and none of you have come to rescue the poor creature that she ate (which would be far more educative than sending congratulations as some of you have done!) so I'm not so sure what to think about your conciousness and moral values etc. But the real reason for my silence is that internet has been down for almost 4 weeks. How can that happen, you might ask. Well, my parents incidentally found out a couple of years ago when they'd just bought a new computer, that they could connect to a free wireless net at home (thanks to an anonymous, good neighbour), and since they were always planning to move "soon" (geologically speaking at least), they decided that they would subscribe to internet only after they moved!! Most of the time this has gone quite well, but lately the net has been OUT. I have had loads and loads of things to tell you, but since there has been no internet I've been forced to remain silent. A couple of times my mum has connected to internet through infrared connection on her mobile phone (and that's how last blog was added to this site). But besides being as slow a connection as delivering mail on horses was in the old days (or as the italian postal service is in modern times) compared to lets say ADSL and DHL respectively, it also finished my mum's phone-credit in no time. One day, out of pure desparation, my mum even took her computer out for a drive!!! She said that she was making a scientific mapping of free internet-service in Pavia, and although she found several hotspots without protection, the only one she managed to connect to was TIM-wifiarea at the Maugeri-hospital, where she would have had to pay 3€ for one hour connection -but since she doesn't have a credit-card (the only time she asked for one in italy she didn't have a solid enough income to substain it -they said!), and was too ashamed for her weakness to call my dad to ask for his credit-card information, she decided that she would not fall for this temptation, and went home and ate some chocolate instead! But then...all of a sudden, the net came back today! Tomorrow, me and my mum are going to try to understand which of our neighbours has just come back from a holiday, and then we are going to smile extra warmly to him/her until we will move to Ponte San Pietro. If the net is staying with us for a while I will be adding some post in the very very near future!
Hugs to all of you, Oscar

Misfiled

There is a new blog-entry but it has been misfiled below the Dancing-blog...sorry for the confusion.
Yours truly, Oscar

Dancing

As I told you in a previous blog, I simply love dancing. It's enough that my parents put on a CD, or that I press a button of one of my toys that make a sound, and I start dancing or turning around until I get all dizzie. I also told you that I might add a video of myself dancing to the blog and, well, guys...here it is! Enjoy

P.S. Don't hesitate to join my dancing if the beat of the music starts shaking your hips...

My mum -the cannibal!!!

I’d like to share with you a secret. A very dark secret. The other day I found out that my mum is a cannibal –a man-eater!! I didn’t actually see her eat anyone –thanks god for that, but she probably ate him at lunch when I was at the kindergarten. So how do I know? Well, she is not really trying to hide it, nor is she ashamed of it or anything. One day when I sat in her lap and she was reading a book to me she simply told me so herself. She was very illustrious and pointed at her stomach as she went on and on about some friend of mine that was in there. I got really shocked, and didn’t hear half of what she was saying. Afterwards I thought I might have misheard but she repeated it again later, your friend, she said, in there –finger on the tummy. I didn’t sleep particularly well that night and my dreams were a little disturbed. Next day at kindergarten there were 3 kids missing, Davide the rumba-dancing south American, Gaia with the emerald-green fairy-tale eyes and Sofie the fountain that never stops crying. I got really worried and thought my mum might have eaten all of them, but then I heard the teachers talk about that they’d all got some bad cold and were staying at home. What a relief! But it also means that I still don’t know whom my mum actually ate. The next day she tried to cheer me up telling me a story about a big bird that will fly from a far to come and see us next autumn. She knows I love birds, so this was a nice surprise to me. But then she started again talking about that friend that I don’t know who is and her stomach and I got all confused and lost the thread.

A few days later I got confirmed that what she’d told me was really true. It was Monday, and I should have been at kindergarten, but I had just got over a really bad flu, so my parents were forced to take me with them on their errands. They went to a big house somewhere on the other end of town. We had to wait a long time in a small room, and judging from what I saw there, my mum is not the only cannibal in Pavia. There were lots and lots of other women there that looked as if they’d also eaten a baby -or even two, for their stomachs were sooo swollen -and they seemed just as much at peace with their conciuosness as my mum. Finally a woman dressed in white (just like the butcher -come to think of it) called my mum’s name and then we followed her into a small room where my mum was told to lie down on a strange bed on wheels. Then they started to scan my mum’s tummy with a probe and I could see on a small screen that this friend that she had been going on about for some days, was really there. The lady in white pointed out hands and legs and head and all on the screen, so I don’t think my mum had gone very far with the digestion. Then the lady congratulated my parents (for eating a baby?) and patted me on my head and said it was nice for me to have a little friend in there. I don’t think that was very responsible of her –she should have called the police instead to tell them what my mum had been up to! I wanted to ask her if she knew who this friend of mine was, but I didn’t know how to phrase the question and before I knew of it we were back home. Some time has passed now, and I continue to watch my mum closely. I think that her stomach has swollen a bit, so maybe she has eaten just another baby, although she has said nothing about it. I just can’t help thinking that it would be better if she just gave into her chocolate-cravings instead of continuing this dreadful dreadful thing!

Confession

One of the things that my parents are trying to teach me is the difference between right and wrong, between things that can be done and can't, between good and bad. I'm a quick learner, but even if I understand things, and remember them well, it doesn't necessarily mean that I put them in practice! For example, there is a series of things that I'm not allowed to do at home: I'm not allowed to touch the radiator because it's hot, I'm not allowed to play with the toilet-brush because it's dirty and I'm not allowed to kiss the TV because it will ruin it. I have no difficulty in understanding this, and remembering this, so when I find myself e.g. in front of the radiator I know I'm not allowed to touch it, and I know why (for the other day I actually touched it while it was warm like the sun, and I did get a bit burnt!!) so I start to say nei nei nei, waving the index finger in the air. But because I like to provoke my parents, and to challange myself I also get ready to touch it. Then my parents have to jump up from whatever they were doing and come and teach me a lesson about why I cann0t touch the radiator. Sometimes I can even foresee that certain things are forbidden, so I start to say nei nei nei before my parents can even open their mouth!
One of the things that shouldn't be done, according to civilized people's division between right and wrong, is to play tricks on people, I understand this and remember this, but I wouldn't be the son of my mum if I didn't sometimes get tempted to play, if not just tiny tiny tricks on some of the good people I know. But I wouldn't be her son either if it didn't make me feel a little bit guilty when the trick is not eventually revealed. So here's my confession.
Dear friends, in one of the previous blogs, I asked you to guess which of two photos presented was of me and which one of afi-Lalli. Many people took part in the competition (some even offline), maybe it was the promise of homemade biscuits that tempted the people, or the spirit of Christmas that made them so playful, whichever the reason, they took part in the competition in good faith. Now, to this good people, I must say sorry. Sorry, sorry sorry sorry sorry (how many times before you forgive me?). The truth is that although one of the photos looked extremely similar to my dear grandad, both photos were my photos, taken the same day, maybe 3 minutes apart one from the other. Now the hoax has been revelead...well, I just hope you'll accept my apologies -and find a way to smile at this confession. And since it's all in my genes, be reassured that I will strike again....!

Flat

As most of you know, me and my parents have spent most saturdays since September going around looking for a new place to live. It has basically gone like this: my parents wake me up early saturday morning (if I didn't manage to beat them to it) and before I know of it I'm in the car, going towards Bergamo. If we're lucky, the trip takes just over an hour, but if there is some jam on the road, accident or men at work, we get a bit delayed and my parents start swearing a lot. Once we arrive to Bergamo we go from one flat to another, one agency to another, put on the jacket, take off the jacket, sit in the car, out of the car...you get the picture...! At lunchtime we normally go to a bar in Almenno San Bartolomeo, where the waitresses know us by now -and are willing to warm my lunch in the microwave! After lunch I get to sleep a bit in the car before we're off to see yet another flat with another agency, put on the jacket, take off the jacket, sit in the car, out of the car...the same circus over and over again. When we get really really exhausted we start driving towards Pavia. I don't remember most of the flats we've seen. But I do remember the comments and disccusion my parents had about them in the car on the way home. Some were too small, some too expensive, some had the bedrooms too close to the common entrance of the house, some were too old, some were too badly organized, some were unpractical, some were last floor no elevator and some were basically not our taste. It was like the quest for the holy grail, we thought we'd never arrive to a conclusion. But then, suddenly BINGO. We found the flat. Maybe not the flat of our dreams, but it had all the basic elements, was relatively new, perfectly localized in regards to all services and trains/buses and and most of all, we liked it :)
The flat is in Ponte San Pietro, which is a small town (<10.000 inhabitants) 7 km west of Bergamo in a zone called "the Bergamo Island", and which you can see highlighted in white on the first picture. PsP is close to the upper right corner of the white triangle on the map.
Our house is in the centre of Ponte San Pietro -but don't think that means that the street below will be crammed with cars, buzzling with people and outdoor cafe's and noise and the smell of garlic, dogshit and pizza -remember, 10.000 inhabitants is small on italian scale, so, yes, there are some shops there, but they do leave something to be desired and the neighbourhood is rather calm and quiet! The town is a bit cosy though, and our house is close to the river Brembo which passes through the town, and which at christmas-time hosts one of the most beautiful presepe of northern Italy. Our house is marked with a yellow label on the second picture, and the center of town is all around it. There is a kindergarten (for >3years) across the street, the trains that bring you to Bergamo in 5 minutes stop close by (but far enought so that we won't wake up to the trains at 5 o'clock in the morning), and we will be comfortably close to my dad's work.

The flat is in a relatively new house of about 20-30 flats, and we will be on 3rd (and last) floor (you can see it on the last picture, it is marked with a yellow label). It's a 3 rooms flat with a balcony and there is an elevator that brings us all the way down to floor -1 and -2 where the carpark is. We will move in, around the end of April, and I just can't wait. Think, I'll get a room all to myself to fill with toys and books and whatever I like -that will be amazing. We can expand ourselves a bit, and floors and corners of the flat wont be filled with books, brochures and other things that we now have no place to put. And best of all, when my dad wants to go home early from work, he can come and play with me immediately or we can go out to the close by playground, and he doesn't have to sit in his car, stuck in a traffic-jam on the ring road around Milano, swearing out loud for the time lost playing with his wonderful son.
We are planning to buy a sofa-bed for the living room, and I hope it means you are coming to visit us soon :)

Update

I see that time continues to pass faster than I imagine, so I guess it's time that I update you a bit about my life.
First of all, I've had a haircut. This time my mum decided it was time to leave the business to a professional (she got worn out the last time she tried to cut my hair, hehe), so she brought me to Gianni, the guy that normally cuts my dad's hair. When he saw me he said that I was to young to have my hair cut there, but my mum managed to convince him to give it a try and so I got to sit in my mum's lap in a funny chair while Gianni got the scissors. Then I started to see my hair fall to the floor like leaves in autumn and my look started to change. Gianni made several attempts to cut off my ears, but I was quicker than him and turned the head before he managed to close the scissors on my earlobes! When there was almost no hair left Gianni finally gave up and I got to go home. This is how I look now. My mum says that there is some resemblance to Sinead O'connor (as she looked like when my mum used to listen to her), but I think that I just look like a balder version of myself!
To complete my new look I broke a tiny piece of one of my front tooth. It was not easy, I had to fall face down on the kitchen tiles, and the result was that a 2mm of enamel left one of my tooth permanently, my lip bled (and became double for a while) and my mum had to comfort me in her arms until I overcame the shock. But I was successful, and think I look rather cool with my new smile :)
The talking business is going better and better. My mum recently made a list of words that I can say (or that I try to say and she manages to decipher), and this list is growing day by day and the way I say the words is advancing at the same time. Today for example I upgraded the moon (tungl in icelandic) from a ttt to tuu, yesterday buxur (trousers) advanced from ux to bu and I also made the first attempt to say kex (biscuit). As you may have understood, most of my new words are in icelandic. The only exceptions are ciao and mela (apple), which I pronounce with a beautiful mmm (the same way I say flower, blòm, in icelandic) but I sometimes say eu, for epli! The only words I pronounce in full length are mamma, pabba and the very useful nei nei nei, which I underline by shaking the index finger in the air!
The last update I wanted to give you now is about my latest passion. Dancing! As soon as I hear the first beats of a song I start moving about, shaking my hips, clapping my hands and turning around and around until I get all dizzie and fall down. If my mum can get around to it she will show you some videoclip of one of my dancing-performaces.
well folks, it's time to go, but before I say goodbye, I must share some good news with you: WE'VE BOUGHT A FLAT! I'll tell you more about it in my next blog, but until then...live, love and laugh

History

As you've noticed, I passed the 13 month's line a couple of days ago. But what you didn't know was that there was a big change in my life that day. Something that's been an important (even if it's importance has diminished little by little with the passing of time) since the day I was born is no longer there, something is missing from the daily routine and it will take me some time to adjust to the changes. I'm talking about the milk tanks! Suddenly I'm no longer offered the milk tanks when I wake up in the morning -my mum tries to offer me something she calls milk in a cup as a substitute, but I'm not entirely convinced. But I don't ask for the milk tanks. Not because I wouldn't want them, but because I can see that it is not less difficult for my mum than it is for me to stop breastfeeding, so I try to make it as easy for her as possible! But if you think that end of breastfeeding means end of intimacy, then you're wrong! It has just changed. Now for example we can pass hours every day sitting together -me in my mum's lap, on a huge pillow on the floor, and I bring one book after another to read. This is my greatest past-time at the moment -well, after throwing objects that bounce and make a noise, on the floor! I've become quite good at pointing at objects that my mum names in the books. Can you see an apple, she says, and I point at an apple, -and then I say eup, can you see the lion, and I point at the lion, -and say hllll, the sun ssss, the moon ttt (tungl in icelandic).....and when we've finished a book -we just start all over again! So life can be wonderful -even without the precious milk tanks!

Me as...

There is a great site on internet, you can find it here, where you can change you face in many different ways. So here you can see the prognosis from this website of how I'll look like a young adult, what I would have looked like if I was afro-caribean or asian, and how Botticelli would have painted me...if I'd had the luck to be contemporary with him..!
I guess my current looks are the cutest!