Play acting

Play group is going better than I originally expected. That first week it was a bunch of 13-month-olds who barely walk and sat around being breastfed. This past week has seen an influx of new kids - lots of rambunctious 16- and 18-month-olds. Fun! I'm finding it impossible to get good shots of Dylan as he never sits still, and I'm using my fantastic (sarcasm there) camera phone.

The below is a picture of him in the "roleplaying" room where kids can act big and do things that big people do like cook, clean, dress up or put the baby dolls to bed. He looks kind of dorky in this picture, but like I said, it's hard to get good shots of him when he doesn't sit still much.

Putting the cart before the...carriage

The laundry station even features a drying rack, iron and ironing board. Hopefully Dylan gets really good so that I no longer have to deal with those things!

Not all fun and games

I just went to IKEA and bought a 2-Euro doormat that will serve as the "naughty mat" for time outs and an equally cheap egg timer. I was going to get a cutesy timer with a happy egg but, then, time outs are not supposed to be cheery. The doormat has (prison) stripes and the egg timer is silver with no decoration. I've placed the "naughty mat" in a very unexciting area of our hallway where Dylan won't be able to play or see the TV. I'm kind of nervous about having to play warden/Supernanny!

In unrelated news, we've been frequenting the park (otherwise known as "the ugly park;" when I lived in Brooklyn, I referred to our two local delis as "the clean deli" and "the dirty deli," but here we don't have any counterpart to "the ugly park" except for an even uglier one right next to the cemetery where the teenagers go to do illegal teenager things) quite a lot as the weather has been nice. Oh, "the ugly park" is a graffiti lover's delight, believe me....

Back to play group

We started back to play group yesterday. Fun! I'm a little disappointed though in that Dylan is the oldest and biggest kid in the group. There is one other little girl about his age and all of the other kids are from 13 to 15 months. At this age, that's quite a big difference, especially as some of the kids don't even walk yet. Dylan loves other little kids and especially kids his age or older. He seems to learn and thrive from watching others. While it's great for him to be able to go to play group and blow off steam, I really liked the socialization aspect of last year's group. I have a feeling he will be spending a lot of time playing by himself like in the photos below. If I was on the fence about sending him to preschool in January, now I'm not. At the preschool, there is quite a large group of kids his age and I think he'll have fun and learn a lot there. This Saturday we start swim class!

I know he has red eye but no time to Photoshop. Sorry!

Puffed rice. It's almost like sand at the beach!

Dylan at 20 months!

Dylan at Grandma Mimi's house at the end of our trip

This is a fun - if frustrating - age. Dylan is old enough to have a strong opinion but not mature enough to be reasoned with or properly disciplined. He refuses to sleep in his own bed (though that will change this weekend when we go through another round of the dreaded Cry It Out - sigh) and lately is refusing to eat. If he could live on yogurt, that'd be fine for him. I'm trying not to pressure him because I know they go through these phases and I know that at his age, it's a "control" issue, but I stress myself out trying to prepare these fabulous, well-balanced toddler meals only to watch him spit everything out. He's gotten really thin and lanky - he's about 34 inches tall and weighs 25 pounds, which puts him in the 50th to 75th percentile in terms of height but only the 25th to 50th percentile in terms of weight.

He's given to frequent tantrums when he doesn't get his way or when it is time to leave the park, eat, change his diaper or get dressed. The good thing is that he's very verbal and can often tell you what is bothering him. This past week when we were both sick with bronchitis, one day he was coughing a lot and just turned to me with such a look of suffering and said, "Mommy, medicine." I had been avoiding giving him cough syrup but obviously he felt he needed some!

His Italian has improved by leaps and bounds just since we've been back and he can sing entire songs from playgroup all by himself. I now realize that just hearing English from me and educational DVDs is not going to be enough. I need to seek out an English-speaking playgroup or find him some English-speaking friends. Lately, he speaks to me mainly in Italian even when I address him in English.

Since it's barely mid-September and the three of us have already been sick and seeing as though it's rainy and cold today (requiring me to hang my first laundry load of the season in the house!), I'm really dreading this coming winter. Our 900 square feet of apartment may as well be a cage. That's what he's like in here - a caged animal. Last year I felt really cozy here with the three of us but Dylan now is so active and requires much more space. If I don't let him "out" to run wild in the park at least twice a day, he gets all cranky and then has trouble sleeping at night. What in the world am I going to do in the dead of winter?

We are considering sending him to preschool for at least half a day when he turns two in January. There's a preschool in our town that I've heard nice things about. I talked to some of the mothers at the park yesterday and they said their kids are much more independent, mature and better socialized since starting this preschool. We've been lucky in that Cristiano's mom and aunt have been able to keep him, but I think it is time for him to have a more structured and disciplined environment.

If we stay in Italy and don't move to the U.S. next year (that's still up in the air...), he would start preschool in the fall of 2010 anyway as it is a common rite-of-passage for the majority of Italian three-year-olds (though Dylan would go early as he turns three in the middle of the school year).

Take me out to the ballgame...

One of the surprisingly more fun activities we did on our trip was go to a Reds' game in Cincinnati. I say "surprisingly" because I really didn't think Dylan would last long. I thought he'd get bored, would start running through the stands like a maniac and we'd have to leave within the first inning. We ended up staying for most of the game. He loved all the sound effects ("Da da da da daaaa! Charge!!"), flashing lights and images on the big screen. And when the Reds scored a home run, they shot off fireworks over the Ohio River. Of course a year ago, all of this would have been "overstimulation" but this year he was old enough to appreciate and enjoy it. Unfortunately, my camera died while in the U.S. so I don't have as many pictures from the trip as I would have liked to, but I did take quite a few at the game. And the Reds beat the Pirates. Go Reds!

More updates as I get over the jet lag and this nasty cold (flu?!) I picked up at the end of the trip!

In the box where we had the "all-you-can-eat" lunchtime buffet including a stir fry bar, pizza bar, nachos bar, hot dog bar and hamburger bar - and more! And unlimited ice cream and peanuts!

Great day for a game!

Cristiano (rocking the Reds' hat) and Dylan during the game.

Even the changing stations in the bathrooms had the Reds' theme going.

Back in the saddle

Dylan was sick with a fever all weekend but today we were able to get out and about a bit more.

Windy day

Grandma Mimi's local dragon-themed park, which is small but still pretty cool (I've gotten a bit park obsessed)