No longer a baby...

Is this a boy thing?

Several people have commented recently that Dylan is super active but is not at all aggressive and has a really sweet nature. It's true! He's a wild man (witness photo above whereby he rams his tricycle into things), but he's also loving, caring and sharing. I realize more and more how much he is his own person and not at all putty in my hands. I can't take credit for all of the fantastic qualities he has and can only marvel at the little person I see developing before my eyes. He's happy, mischievous, silly, affectionate and creative.

He's come up with his own game, which is like "extreme peekaboo" meets hide-and-go-seek whereby he calls out "peekaboo" (actually he says "cuckoo," which is what they say in Italian) and then runs to find the craziest place he can hide and jump out of to scare you. He takes it very seriously and as soon as he yells "cuckoo," he gets a determined look on his face and crouches down like a ninja as he sets out to find the perfect hiding place. He usually signals you to crouch down too and go off to hide.

I love how communicative he is and how he can tell me exactly what he wants ("water" or "cookie") or how he is feeling. When he hears a lawn mower, he gets a worried look on his face and says "paura!," which means "scared."

My only major area of frustration as a mamma is sleep. Grr. I will never forgive myself for not having swaddled him as a baby. It's not done here and when I asked about it in the hospital (I don't even think I knew the name for "swaddling" in Italian), people looked at me funny. I am convinced that because I didn't swaddle, we got off to a horrible start with sleep and it will continue to be a struggle. He was a really restless sleeper as a small baby (major understatement - he didn't sleep day or night!), and he continues to be to this day. By the time he was about a year old, we were in a good pattern of getting him to bed at 9 p.m. and he'd sleep through the night. That lasted for a couple of (glorious) months but since we changed the clocks, he is all screwed up.

At 9 p.m. lately he is still usually bouncing off the walls. It doesn't help that just as I'm trying to get him to settle in for bedtime, Cristiano comes home, which gets him all riled up. In any case, I continue to try to put him to bed around 9 p.m., but he doesn't actually get to sleep until around 11 p.m. If I'm lucky. This is after letting him cry-it-out a bit, meaning I don't get to sleep until much later because I'm a bundle of nerves. I know plenty of Italian kids who go to bed at 11 p.m. and then sleep in in the morning. Not Dylan. He has been waking up at 1 a.m. wanting to play! He calls out for us loudly until we come and he's wide awake standing in his crib naming all the toys he can see in his room. We may get him back to sleep. Until 4 a.m. when the pattern repeats and he calls out for us loudly until we come. Then it takes about an hour to get him back to bed and he's up by 7 a.m.! In the scheme of things, it's not a huge problem, but if only he would sleep a bit more...

Toddler pool party

This weekend we hosted a toddler pool party. I am exhausted, but it was fun. Dylan had a great time. Here are a couple of videos. In the first one, he's saying "ancora, ancora, ancora," which means "again, again, again." His default setting is now Italian, and even words he used to say in English, he now says in Italian. I'm still insisting on speaking English to him and with me he usually speaks English back, but now that he is out playing with kids much more, Italian is his language of choice.

Happy!

Little green table

This weekend we bought Dylan a little table where he can sit and color and do other fun crafty things. I had the fantabulous idea of painting it green to match his room, so Cristiano and I stayed up late Saturday night doing that out on the balcony. I think it turned out pretty well. That's the excitement around here. Last week, I went to a three-hour seminar for parents at Dylan's play group on "How to Play With Your Toddler." Aside from the part where they had the parents roll around in soil on the ground to get in touch with our "inner children," it was actually really interesting. I got a lot of great ideas and even picked up some good discipline tips from the "dottoresse" - all of the teachers were early education specialists and had long titles and we had to call them "dottoressa." Even though we were all on the ground rolling in soil or pizza dough and discussing our "feelings" about it. My feelings were as follows: soil = dirty/manure-scented and pizza dough = sticky. All in the name of being a better mamma! Incidentally, the dottoresse HATE plastic and went on and on and on about how plastic to the touch doesn't "communicate" anything to a child and toys should never be in plastic. They believe that kids should even use silverware, eat on ceramic and drink from glass. Children, they said, are actually "miniature physicists" and if they only have access to plastic, they will not be able to "conduct their experiments." Weird - but interesting, no? I have been letting our own little physicist drink from glass and so far he hasn't experimented by smashing it against the wall - or worse - his face. Either he is still in the data gathering phase or he has no desire to experiment! Anyway, my first fantastic inspiration from the seminar meant we had lentils all over the house for about a week, but the point was to let Dylan go nuts (I was not allowed to tell him "no" or "that's not the way we play with that") with objects commonly found in the home. I think I'll stick with wooden spoons and a pan next time...

What the table looked like before we painted it

Having yogurt at my little green table with Horton and
Elliot the Elephant

Important announcement

Baby Cugini and entourage have purchased their tickets for this summer. This year we are heading south of the Mason-Dixon line - yee haw! We fly in and out of Atlanta, arriving Aug. 16 and returning to Milan on Sept. 6. Our tentative plan is to spend about a week making our way from Atlanta to Ohio, visiting South Carolina and North Carolina. Then we will be in Ohio for about two weeks except for the weekend of Aug. 30 when Cristiano MUST see his beloved Valentino Rossi race in the MotoGP in Indianapolis. MotoGP so rarely races in the U.S. that this is an added bonus (for Cristiano). While he watches motorbikes zoom around the track, I'll probably take Dylan to the famous Children's Museum. See y'all this summer!

Kiterunner: Dylan at the local kite flying festival on Sunday

Just a few cute cell phone shots...

Weekend on Lake Garda

We had a glorious weekend on Lake Garda for our friends' wedding (more pics here if you are really interested) complete with a wine tasting, a trip to the thermal pools and many nice meals - not to mention PERFECT weather. For Mother's Day, I had asked for new rollerblades or a bread machine. I know, I know. One would help me get in shape, the other would fatten me up. I got a bread machine. Though no gift was actually needed as being Dyl's mom is gift enough. Aww...Anyway, here are a few pics from the weekend.

With mom at the winery

With papà at the thermal pools wearing fantastic UV
suit that Vanessa brought us back from New Zealand

Tired boys

Wild child

We had a great weekend at the beach with three days of glorious weather. Here is Dylan with his cousin Luana and friend Sara (remember her from the beach last year when Dylan was her "favourite" boy?) eating popsicles. After spending a weekend with Dylan and a variety of different kids, I've come to the conclusion that mine is the wildest one on the block. There were a few kids about Dylan's age in our group, and I observed that they all a) sat in high chairs/on their parents' laps at meal times b) wore their sun hats and sunglasses with no protest c) did not try to run away at every turn d) did not try to jump fearlessly into the pools and e) rarely threw temper tantrums when they didn't get their way. Either these other kids were all on their best behavior all weekend, or my kid is an extreme specimen. All of the other parents kept commenting on how "spirited" and "bright" Dylan was, which sounds complimentary but in parentspeak means "Thank God my kid is not that out-of-control and demanding!" Because I only have experience as Dylan's mother and not as the mother of some mellow kid who sits quietly at the table with his pacifier playing with plastic bottle caps for the entire three-hour lunch (as one angelic 18-month-old in our party did), for me running after Dylan and not actually sitting down to eat is the norm. Dylan has never taken a pacifier, and has never been easily "pacified" in any situation. What can I say? We love him like this!

P.S. Gratuitous Italian star stalking of the weekend: Andrea Boccelli goes to our same beach club (free beaches in Italy are few and far between and you have to pay for facilities). Big whoop!

P.P.S. I ran a 7K on Sunday and "won" for my nationality, though then again, I was the only American who participated! I did not take home the big prosciutto ham prize. Bad timing in terms of offering ham as a prize, but the event was partially sponsored by a big Parma ham company.

May 1 weekend

mare
Originally uploaded by michellanea

Beautiful sunny weekend in Tuscany. Grandma Mimi, I took a few extra pictures of the apartment so you can see it. You'll be here in four short weeks! All the pictures can be seen here.