Carnevale

Yesterday was "Fat Thursday" in Milan, and there was a Carnevale party with Dylan's play group. He went dressed as a dog - woof woof. Remember last year when he was just a little thing in his Boppy? I would say that he was more fun this year if he hadn't thrown temper tantrums the entire time!

We have officially entered into Terrible Toddlerhood. Dylan started walking about two weeks ago, and that seems to have thrown him for a loop. I think he's torn between being a baby and a "big boy" and he gets frustrated at being too little to do many things he'd like to do. He seems to want to go from crawling to running. Walking bores him. But he's too unstable to run. If he tries to tell you something and you don't understand right away, he has a meltdown.

He wants everything how he wants it, when he wants it - and now. And if things don't go his way, watch out! When he has these "episodes," I'm really at a loss for what to do. Some of the books say to hold them. Others say to "ignore" them when they get like this. Yesterday after Dylan cried and flailed for a good hour, even the two teachers (who have forty years of early education experience between them) were like, "Uh, what's up with Dylan? Do these episodes always last so long?"

Here's hoping they don't!

Last summer

This is a picture a friend took of Dylan and I last summer in New York. We met for lunch at Whole Foods in Tribeca, which is why my stained bag of soup is featured here. Dylan is his usual adorable self, if smaller and with less hair. I look tired and harried. My usual mamma self.

I think here my expression is telling my old friend, "Last time I saw you, we were 27-year-old idiots without a care in the world. Now I'm ten years older and perhaps just as many pounds heavier. Please don't forget I was fun once." Or maybe I was saying "I beg of you to push the kid around the block for a few hours and let me nap. I'll give you my soup." I was very tired.

I still am. The sleeping madness has returned.

Big Boy Breakfast

I bought a booster seat to take with us to restaurants and for when we travel, but I have also been using it at home so Dylan can sit at the table with us. It's so much easier than having to hold him on my lap while we eat. Also better than having him stand at my side like a dog begging for scraps. Here he is having his second breakfast (he drinks milk and then sits at the table and eats with us) this morning. His dad makes him a "cappuccino" (just the milk foam) and he gets a couple of cookies. Italian breakfasts are notoriously sweet but I am compromising on letting him have a few bland cookies. I've put my foot down on Nutella and snack cakes. Italians insist that kids need "a lot of energy" in the morning and that's how they justify feeding their kids sugary crap, but I am not buying it.

As soon as he hears the milk foaming, he starts anticipating the arrival of cookies! Here he is smacking his lips, saying "yummy, yummy" and banging his empty plate.

Dylan's "cappuccino" and cookies

Busy busy

In the mountains this weekend

We've had quite a busy period what with vaccinations, doctor's appointments and the like. This morning, we had an appointment with the head of the pediatric cardiology department at the hospital where Dylan was born. It took me four months to get in and I got in that "quickly" only because Cristiano's aunt has a friend who works in the reservations department. In any case, Dylan needed to be checked out for a potential heart problem that was detected when he was born. The day after he was born, he was rushed into an elevator and down to the cardiology department because the nurses thought his heart was "beating on the wrong side of his chest." Fortunately, I was too dazed to know what was going. Cristiano went with him and I was never given the full story of how scary it was until much later. In any case, they concluded his heart was "in the right place" (hee hee) but found that he had some kind of small opening in his heart that is fairly common in newborns. When we left the hospital, we were told to bring him back in a year, which is why we went today.

He has something called patent foramen ovale (PFO), which basically means one of the shunts in his heart has not fully closed. The doctor said it is incredibly common and in Dylan's case is not a congenital defect. It should close by the time he is three, and he should require no further treatment.

In other news, he's talking his head off. He probably says thirty words, half in English and half in Italian. His favorite word at the moment is "hot," and he likes to tell you when things are hot, from the radiator to the oven to a steaming cup of tea. The fact that he's speaking so much English means that now Cristiano's 80-year-old nonna has had to learn a few English words to be able to understand him. It's amazing how he can put concepts together. There's an ad on TV where a half-naked woman walks out of a flaming background. When he sees it, he screams "hot!"

Flashback

Early February 2008

Early February 2009

Both pictures were taken on the same section of couch. Cuteness and lovability factor remains the same. Fun factor has multiplied exponentially. Last year we were rocking and rocking and rocking Dylan trying to soothe his colic and get him to sleep. This year, Dylan "rocks" (and sleeps) on his own. Poor Dylan got his last round of vaccinations this morning until age five. It was a doozy, though, and he cried a lot: measles, mumps, rubella and a new strain of meningitis he hadn't been vaccinated before.

Random shots from this week

I was telling Cristiano the other day that "we only have 17 years until Dylan moves out..." (sad face). And he said, "If we stay in Italy, we have about 35 years until he moves out!" In the picture below, it looks to me like Dylan is saying, "Mom, papà, we need to have a talk. Some guys from play group and I have found an apartment and I'm going to be moving out..."

"It's not about you guys. It's about me..."

This is him today after play group. Destroyed.

The cow goes "moo!"

cowgoesmoo2
Originally uploaded by michellanea

There have been requests for longer videos but I've got a pretty crappy camera, so sorry guys! Here's Dyl doing his "moooo..." In Italian the cow is called "mucca" and says "muuuu," so it is one of the few animals that works for both languages. In Italian, the rooster says "chicchirichi." Weird, no?

Fun stuff

It's been a slow week for Il Dylan (the blog) because a) mom has been very busy with work and b) mom lost the memory card thingie for her camera meaning she can't take photos until she buys a new one. But Dylan the adorable little creature that is currently sleeping is full of exciting developments. He has been averaging at least a new word a day and even "moos" like a cow and "bow bows" like a dog. He seems to understand EVERYTHING now. It's crazy. I'll say something like "we need to wash our hands so we can eat dinner" (which before I just did to keep up a running commentary but not so much because I thought he could actually understand) and he will run to his little sink in the bathroom. He says "no" to just about everything from "Dylan, will you give mommy a kiss?" to "Dylan, let's put our toys away now." He responds "bye bye" to "ciao" and is basically all-around delightful and fun. I love this age.