Mr. Bow

Dylan and Mr. Bow settling in for some Little Einsteins

Dylan's Carnevale costume from February no longer fits, but that doesn't mean that it is no longer getting use. Dylan has become particularly attached to it and he drags "Mr. Bow" around the house. At night, we have to tuck Mr. Bow into the expensive Norwegian crib that Dylan doesn't want to sleep in so he can spend the night with Dylan's transitional objects Freddy the dog and Roo the kangaroo. In the morning, he runs to "wake" Mr. Bow up and then drags him into the living room with his toys. At least the crib is getting some use and the transitional objects are keeping someone company in the night...

In other news, it has gotten incredibly cold here. I'm really worried for the winter as I have no idea what I'm going to do with Dylan when the weather is too bad to go to the park. As it is now, he goes twice a day and if he misses one of his park sessions, especially the afternoon session, he freaks out and says "park, park, park, park" ad nauseum. And then we pay for it at night because he doesn't go to bed because he didn't have the opportunity to burn off steam. The other night we missed the afternoon park session and at 11 p.m. he was still wide awake despite our having repeated his routine countless times and read him about ten books. Are all kids this active or is it just boys? Or just mine? I now understand the house with a yard or house with an extra play room concept. Sometimes I take him out and let him run up and down our incredibly steep stone driveway, which is not really the best idea. But it's the only outdoor space I have for him. I've found a couple of indoor play areas on the Web but they are almost all in Milan, and that means I'd have to pack him in the car and then deal with insane rush-hour traffic on the way home and sit stopped in smog with a hungry toddler ready for dinner. It sounds like such a silly dilemma, but I literally have no idea what we are going to do in this cracker box of an apartment all winter. (we are going back and forth on the preschool idea because we didn't sign him up for a state preschool in September and the private ones are incredibly expensive and will take a chunk out of our moving-to-America budget). He's too young for sitting at the kitchen table and doing crafts (not that interested in coloring or my homemade play-dough) and his main interests are running around like a maniac, kicking and throwing balls and climbing on things. Help.