The holidays

Grandma Mimi is on the plane and making her way here. It's a miracle she got out considering the blizzard that is hitting a huge swath of the Midwest and East Coast. Normally she changes planes in either JFK or Atlanta (which would have really been an issue with today's bad weather) but this time she's changing in Paris - and Paris was a mess through Friday with over 50 percent of flights canceled. In any case, her flight out of Cincinnati took off on time and she is scheduled to make her connection in Paris in the morning. I just checked and she's flying over Maine as I type. Fingers crossed that her travels continue to go smoothly!

Below is a slideshow with some pictures of our holidays. It was a tiring holiday weekend with three long days dedicated to eating and long tables full of extended family. I don't know if I've mentioned it before but I like Italian food 362 days of the year, but I'm not a huge fan of Italian Christmas food. There are not many "Michelle-friendly" dishes, and even the desserts are kind of boring. Somehow I still end up eating too much (potato chips, olives, sundried tomatoes, pandoro and other snack crap), and go heavier on the vino since the food portion of the meal is not particularly to my liking. At least I have a slice of America headed my way just when I'm falling into my usual far-from-home, post-holiday funk (not to be confused with my far-from-home, pre-holiday funk). I'm excited for my mom to get here, relax, watch movies and play with Dylan. Then after New Year's we will go away for a few days but we have yet to decide where we are going. It will be an adventure!

Happy Holidays!

This was done at school and given to the moms as a Christmas gift. It's a really cute picture, and he is actually smiling. They can't be torturing him too much if he smiles at school when I'm not looking. With me, he puts on an Oscar-worthy performance before school each morning and in the coatroom, screaming and carrying on about how he doesn't want to go and how school is "terrible." The other kids say "Why is Dylan crying?" and "Why is Dylan speaking another language?" One day one of the 5-year-olds said "He's speaking English, you dummies. I know because I had to get my tonsils out one time on vacation, and they spoke English to me in the hospital." Starting today, he's off until January 10, so that should make him happy. Happy holidays, everybody!

Out to play in the snow

Dylan was off six days over the Sant'Ambrogio/Immaculate Conception holiday, and is gearing up to be off three weeks over Christmas. At least Grandma Mimi will be here after Christmas to keep us company. The weather has been extra wintry. My least favorite season of the year. Bring on spring!

Fun times in Florence

This past weekend we took Dylan and Luana to Florence for the weekend on the new fast train, which now gets us there in only 1 hour and 45 minutes (as opposed to 2.5-3 hours). We had a great time! Below is a video of Dylan and Luana out to dinner one night. He's "shooting" her with a piece of bread. He keeps asking for a toy pistol, but I haven't given in. Yet. We'll see!

Dylan and Luana in Florence from Michelle Marie on Vimeo.

It's the eczema, dammit

These (almost) three years of not sleeping can all be chalked up to the eczema. I've had my suspicions for a while, but now I really believe it. Our kid is not sleeping not because we are terrible parents (maybe sometimes), because we don't have a good bedtime routine or because he merely wants to torture us. He is being tortured by this horrible condition. The reason I know it's the eczema is because he has had two short periods of "remission" from the eczema in the last six months and both times he slept much, much better - like almost through the night. He's also had several very severe flare-ups and during those times we have been back to newborn land with him waking up and keeping us up ALL NIGHT LONG. With this see-sawing of his eczema (really bad or almost gone), I've really been able to make a correlation with his sleep patterns. I really hope the eczema goes away - and not just for the sleep issues. It's terrible to see your child uncomfortable all the time and not be able to do much about it - except apply lotion all the time, give daily tepid baths with special oil and watch that he doesn't eat too many histamine-rich foods. I know that being itchy is pretty much the norm for him as it is all he has ever known, but as I've had two eczema flare-ups myself in the last year (I never had it before - could it be sympathy eczema?), I now realize how much it sucks.