Shocked!

Mum is so speachless that she has to try and put it in words! The reason is that she just found out that one cannot bring a home-made cake to the kindergarten!!!
Today is Iceland's national day, and since we didn't celebrate my birthday in kindergarten, and since I've been asking when it's my turn to have a tanti auguri day there, mum asked the kindergarten-teachers if she could bring cakes for Iceland's national day so that I could have my party! Not a problem, they said. Bring a cake! So mum prepared a cake for me. Actually she prepared two, for there are many babies at the kindergarten. She made a nutritious carrot cake, with no white sugar and no butter and then she decorated it with a car and train-theme! By pure coincidence she mentioned it to a friend yesterday that she had been preparing the cakes
Oh, are you allowed to bring home-made cakes to the kindergarten? said her friend
Why not, said mum and was honestly a bit puzzled.
A call to the kindergarten this morning confirmed the fact. I'm sorry, didn't we tell you, no you cannot bring home made cakes to the kindergarten, did you already make them? said the teacher. Of course she already made them, why else would she call to ask 10 minutes before I was to leave for kindergarten? And just as good that mum found out BEFORE she actually brought them to the kindergarten!!! As mum had already mentioned to me that I would have a cake at kindergarten she couldn't just skip the whole thing as she was tempted to do, and was forced to go to the bakery to buy a cake. Maybe if mum had known before, she could have chosen a bakery or ordered a cake that was suitable for kindergarten, but instead we had to buy a cake selecting from those on display. So, rather than a nutritious carrot cake I brought two uninspiring pasta frolla and crostata with jam on top.... loads and loads of butter and white sugar and nothing at all to indulge the babies' fantasy. But the cakes are GUARANTEED, they are of KNOWN ORIGIN and so the director of the kindergarten can safely feed the kids with it.

My mum was a bit shocked, a bit sad and very very sorry, and she can't help but asking herself WHY it is not allowed to bring home-made cakes to the kindergarten!

Have there been many cases where babies have got food-poison from eating home-made cakes?
I can't remember hearing about it -and that kind of thing is bound to make the headlines!

Is it so that the parents cannot deliberately add poison to the food (as if the couldn't add it to a bought cake if they wanted!). I can't remember hearing about that kind of thing either, but we have become so terrified of just about anything that it wouldn't surprise mum if there was a mention of cakes and kindergarten in the anti-terrorist laws!

Searching for the answer on internet, mum found two contrasting information, both from ASL (the local sanitary agency), one that says that cakes brought to kindergarten have to be preconfectioned or made by bakeries that follow the hygenie-standards and the receipt has to be shown to proof their origin (my ass!). The other encourages parents to give babies home-made cakes rather than commercial ones. So parents are encouraged to risk to poison only their own kids but contibute to fattening and making the life of other kids if not slightly poorer -at least from the fantasy point of view! No wonder that many italian kids seem to grow up with commercial merendina and snacks, that birthday-parties are thrown in pizzerias or at MacDonalds (would parents have forbidden their kids to come to my birthday-party if mum made a cake for it -I wonder). Mum always thought she could blame all this on too little time, too busy parents...but now she has to rethink it all!
As you might guess, mum is eating the cake right now (the one that she didn't freeze for later use) -can I please ask you to check on her soon to see if she is still OK!

The "NO" epidemy

First there was the bird-flu and half the human population went ga-ga. Tv and newspapers were full of stories of dead birds (suspected to have died from the flu) and of the few people who actually did have problem with it. Whoever dared sneezing in public was looked upon with suspect and the prize of chicken-meat was so low that it was basically irresponsible for any economically-minded family not to cook chicken for every meal. Then the epidemy "evaporated", we stopped hearing about it and we have no idea if birds are still dying from it or if humans have suffered it in the past couple of years. Recently we got the swine-flu, which got much less publicity, nobody cancelled their trip to Mexico and pork did not get cheap enough to be chewed on every-day. The media didn't talk enough about it for the stock value of the farmaceutical industry to pick up and in the end it sort of evaporated as the bird-flu. I don't know if the media has just been saturated with flu-news, but no one seems to have gone into panick with the "NO"-epidemy, even if it seems to be so contagious that all my family is severely affected!
First there is Oscar who has basically got a no written on his forehead. His day can go like this:
Oscar shall we go and have breakfast? NO
Oscar, let's go and get dressed! No
Oscar, it's time to go to kindergarten! NO
Oscar, lets go back home from kindergarten! NO
Shall we go to the park. No
Shall we go back home from the park. NO
Oscar, it's dinner time. NOm I said NO!
Oscar, do you want icecream for desert? YESSSS
Oscar, come and brush your teeth. NO
Let's go to bed. NO
Goodnight Oscar. NO....eh, notte notte

Then it's me. I've learn't to say neineinei and shake my head and it's really amusing doing that during meals. First mum gives me my pappa. I eat a few teaspoons and then I start shaking my head and say neineinei. Mum can get quite desperate trying to get me to finish my food or trying to find out what I can eat if the baby-pappa is no longer wanted by me. I make sure that whatveer she comes up with will only work for a very short while! What a fun.

Finally there is mum and dad who recently have been attacked by the NO-bacillus. Before the were smitten, I only got applause and praise for whatever I did. Now it's just the opposite: No Irene, don't play with the toilet-water. No irene, don't chew on the electricity-cables. No Irene, don't eat dad's shoes. No Irene, don't touch the disaster zone while I'm changing the diaper. No Irene, don't wake up at 5 o'clock every morning! No Irene, no no no!

So no doubt, we are all affected by this flu. But the question is, who got it first and who contaged whom! Did I get smitten from Oscar's NONONO, or did he get it from mum and dad, or mum and dad from me? And has anyone else got it from us? There are many unanswered questions!

Dictionary game

One of Oscar's favorite games these day is the dictionary game which goes like this:

Mamma segir hestur (mum says horse), pabbi segir cavallo (dad says horse),
mamma segir hàr, pabbi segir capelli
mamma segir kjöt, pabbi segir carne
mamma segir sofa, pabbi segir dormire
mamma segir leikskòli, pabbi segir asilo
mamma segir borða, pabbi segir mangiare
...and so the days pass...

origin of body-language

Sometimes when mum watches me and Oscar she she can't help but wonder where the way we move our body or body parts while playing or speaking, comes from. And she asks her self what the origin of our body-languagemay be ?

• Physical: When I'm tired I rub my eyes, and so does mum actually, and Oscar and dad. Nobody taught us to do it, we just do it, and when I do it, my parents know it's time to put me to bed. I'm sure the reason why we do this is physical, although I have no idea what exactly it is, maybe it's because we tend to fix our eyes when we get tired, so they become more dry, and so we have to rub them to get them moist again...or something. Another example is how we stick out our bump and lean forward the upper part of our body when we are about to pee or poop in our pants -a great signal for mum that she should bring Oscar to his potty in order to avoid a small accident.

• Imitation: When Oscar particularly likes his food he will point his index-finger to his cheek and pretend he is fixing a screw into it. In italian body-language this means: MMMmmmm very good food! There is nothing physical about this movement, and I have no idea what's the origin of it is, but for sure Oscar learnt this by imitation, from dad, from the other kids in kindergarten or somewhere else. A wonderful way to enrich the spoken language I would say!
  

• Natural: If mum ever wondered why we nod our head when we say yes and why we shake it when we say no -she can now stop wondering. The origin is so primitive and natural that it surprised even mum when she realized it! Have you ever tried to feed a baby that doesn't want to be fed? Try to feed me the last few spoons of my pappa when I've just had enough. I'm too young to say noooo (although I'm quite getting it) and therefore all I can do is avoiding to get another spoonful in my mouth. And how do I do that? If I bend forward (nod my head) the food will end up in my eyes (I've tried that and don't recommend it). But if I shake it to the sides at most it will leave a trail of food on my cheeks (just don't shake it so much that it will end in your ears that are difficult to clean).

• Invention: Gestures of all types come in very handy for those who don't yet master the speaking skill perfectly and much of them have to be invented along the way -sometimes in a desperate attempt to be understood. Many of those are used only once, but the more clever ones might find their way into common gestures. I guess that this is actually the real origin of most of the gestures we learn by imitation.
  

• Genetics: When Oscar has finished his food he will say FINISHED and then he will raise his arms (elbows bent) a little bit in the air and shake the hands around the wrist. Now where does that come from? I find it hard to believe that there is a physical reason for this (but if someone does I'd like to hear about it). No one around him does this, so it's unlikely to be imitation, and I don't think nature teaches us that this is the best way to signal that we've finished the food. Did he invent the gesture? We can't exclude it, but then it would be a strange coincidence! Mum was actually quite startled when Oscar did this for the first time, not because it seems such a ridiculous gesture to do, but because she had actually seen it before. Afi Lalli in Iceland does just the same thing. But had Oscar seen it? Maybe so, but he would have been very little, and although he does pay a lot of attention to things around him, it is unlikely that he'd picked up this unusual gesture when he was just 1 years old. So the only plausible explanation is genetics!! Not only has Oscar inherited much of granpa's look but also some of his gestures. Maybe somewhere on the long arm of chromosome 1 there is a gene encoding for this trait!!

Irene

When Irene first came home I didn't think much of her, she was just a crying-sleeping doll that took a lot of attention from me, and I wouldn't have minded that she'd gone back to where she'd come from! But the Irene of today is quite different and I've grown to love her very much. The turning point for me, when I started really liking her, was when she started smiling. Her smile is so warm and sincere and she smiles not only with her mouth but with her whole face and even her eyes can start laughing. She always has a smile ready for me: in the morning when I wake up, when she comes to pick me up at kindergarten (she actually jumps up and down in her kangaroo-bag (sic!) of joy when she sees me), even when I'm grumpy or crying she tries to cheer me up with her smile. She's also funny and laughes a lot, especially when I talk to her in her own language mamammabababadadada or when I tickle her or when I imitate her screams. Sometimes at dinnertime, when we are sitting at the opposite ends of the table, the devil goes loose in the two of us and we wind each other up in screaming and laughing. Mum just watches and smiles and her face tells me that she is living a moment of real happiness.
Since it is some time since we've updated you on Irene, here are some of the most important facts:

• After being a dark-haired Rockabilly girl for 8 months, with a curly fringe that took on crazy shapes after she'd taken a bath or when the wind had put it's touch on her hairstyle, Irene has now settled on a more simple and BLOND hairstyle! Mum finally decided to cut Irene's hair (which was so long that it had started to go in her eyes), and as she had conserved the first hair cut off my head, she had to do the same for Irene, and therefore she couldn't just cut away a couple of cm -and what do you know, under the dark curly fringe there was blond wool! We are still trying to adjust to her new look!
• Irene's gearbox has been fixed. For some times Irene has been able to move about, but for a long time she had no forward gear and would only go backwards or turn around. This made her very frustrated and she would scream when she tried to move towards e.g. a toy, but would go further away with every movement. About a week ago she got her gearbox fixed and started to scoot about on her stomach backwards, forward and turning around, much to her own delight. Then, a couple of days ago she started crawling. She's still a slow crawler, but she is perfectioning the technique, and I know that before long she will be racing around the house!
• More than a month ago, Irene stood up by herself for the first time. Combined with her newly acquired ability to move about and her endless curiosity, our flat has become an adventure park for her -and, in more practical terms, mum and dad have had to make the flat baby-proof -again! If Irene is not under constant surveillance she can be found chewing on mum's shoes, standing by the bathtub watching the water flow, or playing with my cars in my room! Read: DANGER!
• When I was little I started crawling and got the first tooth on the same day, a couple of days after I turned 7 months old. A few days later I stood up by myself for the first time. Irene stood up by herself for the first time when she was 7 months old, but she waited quite a while before starting to crawl -in line with the fact that she has (so far) been less interested than me in moving about (maybe because she was happy just sitting and watching me...!!!). But just like me she started crawling and got her first tooth on the same day, which gives rise to an hypothesis about the coinciding of the two events! Actually she added to the list of achievements in one day, by starting also to bat her hands together (she already did that weeks ago when holding two objects, but now she does it also with her hands only) -as if she realized that there was a good reason for applauding!
• Irene loves eating, and just like me she becomes very impatient when mum is preparing her pappa. She eats her food very quickly, and seldom leaves something (..but if she does I get to finish it, yummie!!). Lately she has started to show great interest also in what me and mum and dad are eating, and will scream and shout until mum gives her a piece to try -then her face becomes a big victorious smile, and she seems to love just about anything we let her try!,
  
• Irene is very expressive, and passes her day babbling. Her favourite sounds are mama-baba-dadadada, she also makes a clicking-noises with her tongue and says brrrrrrrrrr and much more! I don't understand a word of what she is saying, but she seems to understand everything. She starts looking for me when mum asks her where Oscar is, she gets happy and agitated when mum says that they are going to pick me up from kindergarten. She let's mum know when she wants to drink water during the meal, and understands when mum asks her if she wants water...and so on. Mum says she can't remember me understanding everything at such a young age, but then again, mum can't remember at all that I was that little once...
• Irene is a cuddling girl. She loves crawling into mum's arms and her favourite place is mum's neck (halsakot) where she buries her face and then hold around her so that she wont let her go for a while! No wonder I sometimes feel the urge to give her a BIG hug!
  
• Irene is just about to finish passing the separation anxiety phase. It was quite tense at it's peak: she wanted to be fed only by mum, only mum could hold her, or if she was fooled into staying with dad only she would start screaming as soon as she saw mum's shadow or heard her voice -only to calm down in mum's arms. She is now getting to terms with this phase, much to everyones relief, and loves to play hide and seek. She will pull her bib over her eyes making herself invisible and then laugh when she pulls it down again and becomes visible, and mum wil say CuCu!
• Irene is passing many other phases: e.g. the throw-everything-on-the-floor-phase, the destroying-towers-phase, the don't-stay-still-on-the-changing-board-phase, the love-to-put-my-hands-in-my-food-phase, love-to-play-with-the-swing-phase (see photo above) etc etc.

I'm probably forgetting something very important, but the conclusion is clear to everyone: Irene is simply wonderful and it's impossible to resist from loving her!

Open windows

One of the most underestimated skills that seem to be integrated in the Italian genome but had to be acquired sporadically by mum after she came to the boot, is the window-orchestring according to season!
Coming from Iceland, mum was used to small windows that would be kept open all through the year and through a mechanism of "settings" or the use of "storm-iron!!" they would be kept a bit less open in winter (except on december 23rd for obvious reasons), a bit more open in summer, and only closed during a really heavy storm (even then she would keep her windows just a little bit open, so that she could enjoy the sound of the wild storm trying to enter her house!).

In Italy this knowledge was immediately turned upside down. First of all, windows in Italy are huge and the opening mechanism is "all or nothing". Secondly, the concept of feeling the fresh air on your face while you're sleeping is alien to most italians. But despite the shortage of her preparations, it actually didn't take mum long (to be precise: just a single afternoon of almost coma-like feeling) to understand that keeping the windows open when it was >40° outside and the sun was boiling everything that dared facing it was pure madness, and soon mum was orchestrating her windows as a native: in summer the windows would only be opened when the temperature dropped outside (which during the summer 2003 hardly ever happened! and in general only happens late in the evening) to let the freshness in and then they would be promptly closed as soon as the quicksilver started to move upwards again -which goes far to explain why italian houses always look as if they have been abandoned during the summer, with windows closed and the blinds down! In winter, on the other hand, the windows are kept closed to keep the heat in (central heating DOES cost a fortune here) except for a brief moment in the morning or afternoon to let in some oxygen and drive out the foul carbondioxid-charged breath of the inhabitants. You might ask how the windows are kept in spring and autumn, and the answer is that most of the time we just jump from one extreme to the other and the in-between stage lasts more or less just the time for you to realize what is about to happen -so before you know it you are either on winter or summer schedule and therefore no real strategy can be followed.!
The temperature has jumped upwards in the past few days. Last week mum considered turning on the heating as the temperature in our flat fell below 16.5°C during the night, but only a few days later she was trying to creat current of air during the night so that we could breath with over 22°C in our flat. So as you can guess, we've been (0nce again) catapulted into the season where the windows are kept open during the night. And why am I going on about this? Well, as long as the windows are kept closed, it not only blocks the heat from leaving our flat and the cold from entering, but it also creates a sound barrier and we can imagine living in an isolated place far away from any other human being. But now that we have opened the windows the sounds from our neighbourhood filter in through the openings and enter into our subconsciousness. Before becoming our mum, mum would occasionally wake up to sounds from the neighbourhood. A dog barking, a train passing, an off-hour car-honking -well, or the cock announcing the imminent rising of the sun (in Pavia) -that sort of thing. But after mum became mum her antennas have been tuned into something different. She sleeps like a cat, one eye open and both ears alert and the sound that really gets her jumping from her bed is me and Irene crying. Sometimes she's even running towards our bed before we can finish the first uhuuuuuuuuuu! With the windows open it doesn't help for mum's good night sleep that me and Irene normally sleep very soundly and only occasionally wake up (I was e.g. fast asleep last night when mum woke up to "Panettone-panettone-panettone" -and started wondering what my dreams might be about) for mum also wakes up to the crying of the boy two floors down, the 8 months old boy next corridor that suffers from a skin disease and cries a lot, and the kids that live next street and probably just about any baby in our neighbourhood. Just as good that she doesn't automatically chase the sound and throw herself out of the open window to sooth the crying baby. The answer to the obvious question: is it better to wake up during the night because you suffer from the heat (windows closed) or when a baby (not yours) is crying (windows open) might just be: air-conditioning!
And if you are wondering what has happened to me and Irene in the past few weeks that mum has been busy remembering what molecular biology is all about and not been able to lend me her fingers, here are some keywords: blond, moving, singing, NO!

Yellow and blue -mainly yellow!

Yellow is my favourite colour. My absolute favourite colour. But I also like blue. For some time I've insisted to always wear at least one yellow item, a sweater or trouses (or both if possible) -and invariably my socks have to have stripes. If mum tries to make me wear e.g. all brown, I will protest until I get to wear at least one yellow item -or, in the worst case, a blue one. Sometimes mum says I can't wear anything yellow, for she is washing all my yellow clothes! Then I insist to see the laundry, for since she does not do colour coded washing I find it it incredibly imprudent and insensible of her to wash all my yellow clothes at the same time!
My love for yellow also goes beyond clothes. Yellow cars and yellow motorbikes are e.g. high up on my list of beloved things and I can get grumpy if I don't see at least one of each on my way to or from the kindergarten -sometimes I'm even more precise and insist the yellow car being a FIAT 500, which is my favourite car. Unfortunately there seems to be a shortage of yellow cars and motorbikes in the bergamo province, which can lead to considerable grumpieness on my behalf -and I tend not to believe it when mum says that all the yellow cars have gone for a picnic in the mountains (in the morning) or have gone to sleep (in the afternoon). Once I also insisted to stop on the bridge (THE ponte of Ponte San Pietro) for half an hour waiting to see a train pass on the train-bridge, then when the train passed and it was white and not yellow I demanded to stay until a yellow train would pass, but mum told me we would have to wait a loooong time and that it would get cold on the bridge at night and we would probably get quite hungry too, so I agreed to go home and draw a yellow train on my writing block instead -although it's not quite the same thing! Luckily though, our house is yellow, and my room is yellow...!

Of Panettone and Finland!

After months of wondering what would be the best moment to start, and after what seemed endless postponing of an important event, 10 days ago my parents decided it was finally time for me to start the potty-training. I've actually had a potty since last autumn, and sometimes I've asked my parents to take of my pants and diaper to try it, but always without being able to produce anything there. Mum had prepared for the event by buying a lot of cheap trousers which she then had to shorten and straighten so they would fit me, and a lot of underewear too and she would talk to me more than usual about diapers and poops and pees and how I was becoming big and stuff.
Then, one rainy sunday, my parents decided it was time. So in the morning I got the no-diaper-but-use-the-potty speach, then I was introduced to grown-up underwear (which I call nei-buxur) and I felt really important. Only half an hour later came the first surprise. I was playing with my cars when all of a sudden I felt something warm and wet crawling down my legs and before I knew it I was standing in a pool of water. Now where did that come from? I screamed out: Mamma, rennandi blautur! (Mum completely wet), and mum came running and explained to me that I had peed in my trousers, and that next time I should try and pee in the potty. The next few hours was a constant guessing game for mum, where she tried to decifre my body language to understand when I had to go, and I spent looong time sitting on my potty, reading a book or playing with my cars. To make a long story short the result of that first day was 7-0, pants to potty and if mum hadn't ran after me with a cloth, our flat would soon have looked like Finland with infinite number of little lakes. Next day after breakfast I asked to go to the potty and mum used the opportunity to change Irene and get her dressed. Before mum could come and check on me I was off the potty and wagged around with my trousers on my ankles, so mum just got me dressed and we went to the kindergarten. It was only after mum came back home that she noticed that I had produced my first little lake in my potty -she really wanted to run back to the kindergarten to give me a big hug and a lot of compliments. It was as if my mind had processed the previous day and now I was ready for the change. The next few days I would almost always tell if I was about to pee, sometimes mum wouldn't be quick enough to bring me to the potty and I would wet my pants, sometimes I was not able to relax myself enough on the potty to pee and would pee in my pants just after we'd spent 10 mintues on the potty, but a lot of the time I would be able to pee in the potty, so the daily washing of my waist-down clothes diminished alot after the first days. To help me cope with the potty-training mum went to Bergamo to buy me some potty-poop-pee books which I loved instantly and wanted to read every time I went to the potty (and actually also before going to bed) and soon we were off to the next breakthrough. On the 6th day of the trial I told mum I had to poop, then I trotted off to the potty and started reading my poop-books. Half way through the second book mum started to smell something so she pulled me off the potty, and there it was, resting on the bottom of my potty was a beautiful little brown pile. I had never seen my poop before so I had no idea what I had just made. Panettone! I exclaimed, but mum told me this was my poop, and then she called dad so that he could admire my milestone production with us. If Irene could have held the camera she would have immortalized this important moment of the three of us standing over the potty, proud and happy!
The training is still ongoing, it will take time before I manage to control my peeing and pooping properly -all the time! But it's been going better than my parents dared hoping and I love the diaper-free life. I've even started protesting when my parents put on my diaper for the night, and say Nei ekki bleyju, bara Irene bleyju, Oscar nei-buxur (no not diaper, only Irene uses diaper, Oscar uses pants)

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!

bits and pieces

It's strange how time can seem to pass fast AND slowly simultaneously! Each day passes with our small errands, playing and growing and learning a million new things, and before we know it months have passed and we don't know what has happened to all that time we had on our hands but that we have now archived in the past! We would like to think that we've used the time well but sometimes the thought nagges my mum that she could have been more efficient, she could have done more things, learnt a language, knitted a sweater, made a website about walking with babies in the province of Bergamo, written a book or decorated our house, but she tries not to let these thoughts trouble her more than necessary and continues her idle life...!

Last week mum learnt the important lesson that it's useless keeping your baby away from kindergarten for a week in order to escape a stomach-flu outbreak if the bug is a virulent one! On the evening of the second day after my re-entry to kindergarten I efficiently delivered half-digested broccoli-pie and blueberry-yogurt all over my bed, my teddy-bears, my mum, the floor in my room and..well, you get the picture. It took one night, two full washingmaschines and a lot of hugging my mum to get over the bug, but a day later I was ready to join my friends again at kindergarten as if nothing had happened! And mum couldn't help thinking: was I keeping him home for a week for THIS!
I got back to kindergarten just in time for the annual carnival-party! Me and the other kids got dressed up in ridiculous costumes and got some sweets to eat. Mum actually thought it was a waste of money to buy me a costume, she believes I might like it in a couple of years, but that at the moment dressing us up like that only serves the parents so that they can say "oh how sweet they are". But then she felt the social pressure on her and finally bought the cheapest thing she found, and then spent a considerable time convincing me to wear it! And I was cute...!

I have been busy lately adding to my vocabulary. I love to pick up phrases from the books my parents read to me and then use them in daily life. The other day for example I got my mum's heart smiling when I threw my latest construction on the floor (THAT actually didn't make her happy) and said "Brotnadi i thusund mola" (broke in thousand pieces), showing that I had understood and remembered a phrase that mum had read to me days earlier. And I've also started to try and sing along with mum. I particularly like "Litlir kassar" and sing "annar raudur, annar gulur, annar rondottur" until my mum's smile reaches about 360° around her head.

Irene is making alot of progress as well. She can sit upright and spends hours watching me play while she licks my toys! Mum says that she is a little bit lazy, which can also be read as "used to have things done for her". She is for example quite capable of doing the rollover both ways, but unlike me, she doesn't find it the least entertaining (I was unstoppable after learning the trick) and only uses it when it's strictly necessary -which means that first she tortures us with her high-pitch scream for a while, and only if mum doesn't give in and roll her around, does she do it by herself. But she can be quick if she wants to, and when she sees one of my toys lying around, but too far to reach with her hand she throws herself after it like superman. I don't even stand the chance of removing the toy before she has started chewing on it, so if the toy belongs to the category of my toys that I don't let her play with (yes, it's ME that decides), I have to rip it from her mouth!
One last thing...I think the spring is on it's way..and I can't wait! It's still cold in the morning here, but there is something in the air that tells me that soon we can leave our heavy winterclothes at home...

Email...

Mum sometimes calls me a name that sounds like email, and says that once I can hold a sharp knife without cutting myself she will buy a small hut to put outside our apartmentbuilding!

Irene's nights

If mum thought that being able to fall asleep by oneself was the recipe for problem-free nights forever, then she has had to think again!
Mum says I'm lovely, and that being able to put me to bed awake and counting on me falling asleep by myself has been one of the keys to the good times we've been having the past 5 months. But lately I've started waking up more during the night. First mum thought that the reason was that I was hungry! In fact I WAS beeing more distracted while drinking during the day, and so mum thought that maybe I had to recover the drops of milk lost during the day with some night-time sipping. But recently she got more of the idea that my night-time drinking was making me less hungry during the day and therefore more distracted during the daytime-breastfeeding. Then, when I added a couple of more wake-up moments to the night, accompanied with loud screams (NB. not cries, screams) that would fit more to a film forbidden to under 18yrs (and that scared the shit out of most of our neighbours (and our good guests from Iceland), than to the throat of a 5 months old cuty, then finally she added 2+2 and got the right result. I was waking up to socialize (whith whom, you may wonder since I called for attention by screaming). When mum decided that she was not going to breastfeed me 4 times a night she started to listen to the way I was screaming, and realized that I was not calling for the milk tanks at all and therefore, without further a do (and no warning whatsoever) cut the after-hour feedings to zero. Now I wake up happy as a bliss int he morning and feed well during the day, and mum wakes up with two bricks in her bra and a smile on he face. She thought it was about time to recover a good night's sleep.

Bugs are in the air...

2 weeks ago I stayed at home most of the week with mum and Irene because I had a bad cold. My nose was running and my ears hurt, but for the first time I managed without having to take antibiotics (quite a milestone). Last week we had a visit from Iceland. Raggy and Hakon came to see us, and I looked forward to busy days with them...but again I was forced to stay at home, for I got influenza, and was actually quite ill with body-temperature near boiling-point. This week I was looking forward to seeing again my friends from kindergarten. Monday morning I strawled with mum and Irene to kindergarten (it's about 6-7 months since we parked my stroller for good and took up good and healthy walking) but were almost run down at the door by one of the teachers who was going back home vomiting... leaving only one healthy teacher at the kindergarten, as the others were already busy emptying their stomach-contents into the WC at home! Needless to say we were sent straight back home, were we are still...hoping that the postponing of me going back to play with my friends, will let me pass the turn and not bring the stomach-flu-bugs home. We are also waiting for one-size-fits-all virus-proof overall that mum bought on Ebay and which should make me less appetizable for the bugs!