9 months on the outside

Dear Eva,

You now officially inhabit the world for the same amount of time you inhabited your watery abode inside my uterus: 9 months! Yay!

Let me tell you about yourself and some recent developments.

Today is your nine month birthday, it's raining outside so we really can't go anywhere without lots of crying about putting jackets, shoes, and hats on. You cry when having to put any article of clothing on, except for maybe socks. We'll have a little candle ceremony with Papa' tonight when he comes home. But for now, it's just you and me. We'll practice standing and standing up, reading and playing with your many toys. You've been standing pretty well now for about a month. You don't crawl. I've tried to help you learn but apparently I'm just too late and should not have paid near religious attention to the 'Back to Sleep' campaign. In any case, with all of this standing at times you dare to take a step but research tells me that you need 1000 hours of practice before you'll walk on your own two feet without help. We've got a ways to go. You like to stand. A lot. You almost like it more than being carried around and cuddled but it's a toss up. You stand up in your bed holding onto the railing, in your playpen, and even on the floor with my help. My guess is that your favorite is the hardwood floor because sometimes I take your socks off so that you can feel the floor on your feet without anything between the two of you. As of today though, you don't pull yourself up on anything other than me.




You are sometimes shy, I think. But most of the time I think that you need time to take in a new place, person, or experience. This may be just your 'stranger-aversion' phase but you have always been an observant person. Some like to call you a busybody! Among family though you are wild; laughing and playing and jabbering in every waking minute.




Yesterday we went to the supermarket and you rode in the cart for the first time. You definitely still fit in the ergo and like it (especially piggyback) but bending over to grab things from the shelves with 18 extra pounds was getting difficult for me. You loved the cart. You loved looking around in every direction, trying to touch things (that I swiftly got you away from just in time), and probably not having me breathe all over you. You loved it so much that you cried when I took you out to put you in the car.



The car. You hate your carseat 99% of the time. Sometimes you straighten your whole body with all of your muscles so that I can't even get you into a sitting position to get you into the seat. You've had some amazing cries in that carseat.

Your other vocalizations involve laughing, burping, coughing, sneezing (which you always smile after) and saying the following: 'dy-dy', 'dow dow', 'tatatatata', duh- duh, occasionally you say 'ehwoh', and most often you say 'mammmmmmaaaaa'. Other letters in your repertoire are b, l, yesterday c for the first time, and this morning v. Though when you try to say your own name it sounds like ewah. You still have not said papi or papa', to your father's chagrin. Keep working on it.

Happy Complemese Evuccia!


Love,
Mommy

Siena and Fat Tuesday

This past weekend we made our first family road trip, to Siena. Three hours in the car. Eva slept 2 hours each way but when she woke up one of us had to sit in the back with her to entertain. We arrived at the hotel on Saturday afternoon, fed Eva her lunch and set out in search of sights and Sienese sustenance. Luckily, both Max and I always have appetites,no matter the time of day! How can one really get a sense of a place without properly experiencing its food culture?! Hehe. First lunch, then some sights!


During lunch we discovered that Eva has a penchant for maps!

Italy has a strong tradition of celebrating Carnevale most especially when it comes to kids. In Piazza del Campo, where the Palio is held, kids were running around throwing confetti at each other and shooting silly string, which inevitably hit a passerby instead of the intended target. We saw an old couple who had been inadvertently hit and a few tween girls who were absolutely mortified at their horrible luck. Kids were dressed up as carabinieri (odd), armymen, princesses, Winnie the Pooh etc. Carnevale is taken as seriously as Americans take Halloween.

Here we are...Max with Eva sleeping in the Ergo and me.





Today is Fat Tuesday which officially ends the weeks and weeks of confetti being thrown everywhere and at everyone and the constant wearing of costumes by children. I haven't ever really been well aware of Carnevale and today was no exception. We went to Mommy and Me today and to my chagrin baby after baby after baby came in dressed up. There was superman, a clown, a mushroom (quite an odd thing to dress up as, if i do say so myself), aladdin, mickey mouse, minnie mouse, tigger and on and on and on. The other mothers and the women who run the class looked at me as if i had denied my daughter the joy of joys that is Fat Tuesday. Where I come from, Fat Tuesday is celebrated in one city and is definitely not a children's holiday! Eva can go to New Orleans when she is 21 and experience the joy of Fat Tuesday if she really wants. For now, the costumes will have to wait at least until she can walk.

Sunday Morning Chat

Sunday Morning Chat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fKmbylD0W4

spazio insieme

'Space Together' for you anglophones. Today was our first day at Spazio Insieme or Mommy and Me. So exciting. Since we visited on Tuesday I have thought all week about how I'd meet other moms and possibly make some acquaintances or dare I say, friends; and how Eva would take the opportunity to wow everyone and blossom before their eyes: getting up on her own two little feet to run around and make soliloquies in English. Oh the possibilities!

We arrived promptly at 9:30 with two other mother and baby couples (two boys both with big blue eyes: this was the largest concentration of babies with blue eyes I had seen in Rome since Eva came into the world). They knew each other and so didn't really take much notice of Eva and I except to make space for us on the changing table. I took Eva's coat off and put hospital booties on my shoes and we went in to the babies' world: a large hexagonal room with huge windows and everything a baby could possibly dream of playing with: noisemakers, balls, bright shiny sparkly things, things to climb on, in and slide down. I wanted to take it all home.

For a while Eva and I played by ourselves in the 'sezione piccoli' filled with pillows and other soft stuff to break the fall of a sitting baby. The room started to fill up with parents and babies over the next half hour and soon,to her delight, there were bigger kids crawling around Eva. She squealed and yelled with delight at all the new things around her and I spoke softly to her in English so she wouldn't forget that she is learning two languages. As the grazing not-yet-toddlers passed and Eva grew more comfortable with her surroundings she dared to touch them. Like ships passing in the night though they barely noticed her or stopped only momentarily to glance at the stationary being and then continued on their respective ways; even if they didn't know where they were going or from where they had come.

As for me, I could have squealed too as I watched Eva. Her quiet observant way of always initially taking measure of her surroundings, gave way to smiles at other Moms and making physical contact with other babies. Amazing.

The human experience is rich in so many minuscule little ways, that eventually add up to big impacts: the invention of the steam engine, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand etc. I fell in love with Eva's father five years ago and it felt like I was the first person on the planet to feel that way. When I got pregnant, Max and I were the first couple in the world to feel the joy and excitement of it; and now that Eva is in our world, I am the first Mom to feel so filled with joy, love, pride and optimism. These small, little things are events that define one lifetime but they are merely the stuff that makes the world go round. My realist side has to stop and remind me on occasion that my experience is not singular or unique, that millions of others are traveling through lives marked with the same events. The idealist in me, of course, hopes that this fact doesn't devalue each separate event in each of those lives, including mine.

swinging...

this past saturday was a spring teaser. so, we took Eva to the kids' park down the road. She ate her afternoon yogurt in the sun and then took her first swing! She actually started using her legs and swinging herself after a while!

legend of the fall

eva dove from our bed 8 days ago. there really is no legend or mystery about it.

i was a bad parent. i sat her down on the bed at a 'safe' distance from the edge and popped into the bathroom to put something away. our bathroom is in our bedroom, so the distance between the bed and bathroom is negligible in most situations. i popped out and she was all smiles, giggling, arms waving in the air as if to move her body forward, yet still sitting nicely on the bed. i thought to myself, 'hmmm looks like you are getting close to the edge.' I went back into the bathroom to do something else, all the while talking to her, and upon my exit i said 'where's mommy?' as i often do when demonstrating object permanence, and as i rounded the corner of the wall i saw the very same scene as the first time around only I saw Eva diving downward. If anything in my life deserved slow motion, it was this. The width of the bed seemed an eternity as i took two running steps crashed down onto the parquet on my knees and grabbed her little body as it went through the air. Only I was too late. The top right side of her forehead hit the floor making a thump that Max heard in the living room. A scream belted out and I held her tight rocking her on the floor as bruises started to form on my knees. Max ran in and stumbled on to the floor too. She wailed and wailed and I couldn't handle it so he took her. She screamed harder so he gave her back to me. She started to calm down and take deep breaths between her bouts of crying, each time reliving the flying terror in her head as she turned back to look at the evil bed who had spat her onto the floor. Though the crying seemed to last an eternity and I knew Max was very upset with me, Eva started to laugh again after a few minutes when the Elmo Boo Boo ice pack started to thaw. We toyed with the idea of going to the hospital, even though she had no bump or bruise or other war wound. It was decided when I put her down on the changing table and she did a little spit up as throwing up after a head injury is a bad sign. Eva is notorious for spit-ups after every meal.

After a long, silent drive to the hospital in which I sat in the back with Eva, trying to keep her from falling asleep, we entered an empty emergency waiting room. What a relief. We overheard the nurses and doctor on duty chatting away and were irritated that they didn't see Eva immediately. Finally after 10 minutes they beckoned for us to come in. Nearly everyone on duty gathered round Eva, cooed at her, said sweet nothings in Italian and the doctor turned to us and said 'you know in the old days, mothers would have just put ice on the head and called it a night. but today...i think you're all here more the mother than for the baby' i wanted to tell her to f-off for obvious reasons but instead i stood there and took it. i had been a terrible terrible mother.

Eva observed the strangers, without emotion, as they cooed at her, she was groggy from the car ride. But when the nuns appeared Eva became undone. They terrified her as they innocently tried to play peek-a-boo and pop out of no where to excite her. Her mouth turned down and she froze and the howling let loose, only this time I didn't feel guilty; I just wondered if this experience would lead her to a life long fear of the clergy and the Catholic church.

The doctor declared her fine and gave us list of symptoms to watch for in the next 48 hours and sent us on our way. Eight days have passed and all is well.

cameron's blog

You could call it blog envy but, envy is the wrong word. I too have a daily source providing me with endless blog material. I check Cameron's blog three times a week, even though I know that she now reports on a weekly basis. I check Cameron's blog so much that I don't write on my own. This is not me longing for Roan to be my son (though he is damned cute and much like his mother and father, whom I adore). Eva is my own personal extravaganza. Just this evening, at age 8 months and 5 days, I observed her laying on the bed (as I was getting pjs and bedtime books ready for the ritual), legs crossed, 'reading' a book and giggling all on her own. Of course moments like these can be boiled down to series of coincidences. But blogs are for bragging and telling stories, so here I will say without regret or embarrassment: my daughter is pretty cool and I have an inkling that she is a smarty.

maybe reading Cameron's blog a little more often than may be normal is a bit alarming, even to me. but, perhaps the real reason is (roan adventures aside): i miss my friend. there is nothing better than reading her blogs each week and imagining her voice and her expressions as she recites each word, during one of our old couch sessions in astoria. i saw cameron in december for an hour, after not having seen her for three years. it was a horrible tease and a great joy: our two families were together.




cameron, please don't stop writing. even when roan gets older, things become routine and he is no longer awed by the subway or terrified by pre-teen girls in uniforms in a fake supermarket; thousands of miles away, i will still miss you and need your voice.

8 month birthday

olan mills baby pic contest

here is the winner of the 'olan mills baby pic contest'. submissions were few but laughs were many...thanks to uncle dave.

prada, gucci, burberry, oh my!

On Wednesday I ventured in to the city with an extra 17 pounds or so strapped to my body via the Ergo. I had to go to work to finish things up and a very toned-down goodbye lunch. We parked in the Villa Borghese parking spot and set off for the walk across Rome's historic center to my old office. The Villa Borghese parking lot was a good idea given that I hate parallel parking and I would have spent the afternoon just looking for a space had I opted for the lungotevere; it was a bad idea on the other hand that half the distance i had to walk was underground and had stairs and the other half was wrought with nasty san pietrini just waiting to trip me and the little one...

We made there and back safely, my back and legs are sore, in the good 'i haven't used these muscles for a while' way. Eva slept in the car on the way in to the center but once she got into the Ergo for the long walk, she was wide-eyed. She got her first glimpse of Via Condotti, a street where Mommy will never be able to take her shopping- unless we win the lottery. Along the way we saw tourists taking pictures of themselves in front of Burberry, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci. Eva saw the beautiful windows stocked with spring fashion as we tromped through the streets unfashionably; I without a jacket in the 55 degree weather, because it would have just been extra weight to carry, and Eva with her little polka-dotted pants that kept riding up to her knees by fault of the Ergo. Taking Evuccia out in to the world was empowering. She saw and heard so many things in a short space of time and she met new people when we finally got to Cornell. It was a day of firsts, first time on Via Condotti, Via del Corso, in front of the parlamento, in front of the Pantheon...I can't wait for her to realize where she is and all of the amazing things that surround her. I hope she becomes the kind of person who allows herself to be amazed by life on a daily basis.

cry, cry, baby

this is the first time since eva was very very small that a crying binge of this measure has occurred- that i know of at least (the sweet women at daycare used to tell me things like, 'she really wanted to be held a little more today.' unless that was code for, 'your daughter screamed all day long,' i was content to say, 'ok, grazie' and be on my merry way). this bout of crying, is this teething, people? is this really what it is? nearly 36 hours of crying crankiness from an otherwise well-adjusted seemingly happy baby; not being able to do anything other than be with her? she won't fall asleep semi-on-her-own like usual. don't get me wrong, i love her, but i can't get anything done in the house and my sanity is waning. :( i even did a special performance of kylie minogue's all the lovers for my cranky audience of one; but the crying just started up again after the song finished. i got a work out but not reprieve from crying.

cry, cry, baby. but please, tell your tooth to come soon.

red pjs

first kiss

dear eva,

though it happened a few days ago, i don't remember exactly when, the repeat of the incident confirmed to me in a very unquestionable way that you are processing the images and sounds you are exposed to everyday.

i kiss you as much as possible. on your head, neck, cheeks, tummy, and feet. your papi kisses you too. we want you to know that you are loved and that also, very importantly, mommy and papi love each other too. perhaps it was from the demonstrations of mommy kissing papi or papi kissing mommy that you understood the importance and tenderness of a kiss. perhaps you feel lips pressed against your forehead enough times a day that it has just become second nature to want to kiss- like talking. one day last week you put your little hand on papi's beard, pursed your lips ever so slightly and 'kissed' the air ever-so-closely to papi's beard. i gasped at the tenderness of the moment and secretly wished to be the 'fun' parent who gets the kiss. Your Zia Monica explained the root of this secret wish correctly last night, 'fathers are fun but mothers are the source of security.' In any case the kissing episode went forgotten until last night, at Zia Monica's, you kissed Winnie the Pooh, sweetly, deliberately, and repeatedly (when asked to do so) on the nose. You kissed him when asked to in Italian and in English. After a few kisses on Winnie's nose I boldly asked for a kiss for myself. No luck. You decided to play with my necklace and receive, rather than give any more kisses. Oh how I wished to be the fun parent. As luck would have it,we did not have a camera on hand to immortalize your first kiss.

february 1st

15 days away from eight months. this week eva is finally starting to get out of the vicious cycle of colds and flus that has pursued her since last October. We are finally at home together. Her last hurrah, though, was to catch an eye infection either at the nursery, in California, or in the airplane. It kept the two of us home in what was supposed to be my last week of work and her last week of daycare. We had unofficially begun the new chapter in both of our lives.

eva is doing much better now. so well in fact that she has seen fit to pass on her eye infection to me. today is tuesday, the OFFICIAL second day of of the 'mommy and me' era. eva is usually as predictable as a watch with naps, but today, she chose not to take her afternoon nap (even though i tried for quite some time to convince her. so, we played and took pictures.

she isn't a complete ham for the camera, she studies it instead of smiling immediately at it just because i ask her to. eva's observant nature, which applies to people and other inanimate objects she hasn't already been acquainted with, lead her doctor to label her an 'introvert' last week at her appointment. though it may be a bit early to do personality profiling, i prefer to call her 'discerning'. ;)

seven months eight days

Despite being sick for the last thirteen of sixteen weeks, eva is growing and amazing us every day. Here she is on Christmas eve at Grandma and Grandpa's house, sitting on the very same floor that I used to sit on, while opening presents. There was something oddly triumphant about bringing Eva 'home' for the first time. She was surrounded by loving uncles and grandparents who kept her entertained every waking hour of the day. She sat in the same rocking chair (supported of course)that I did as a child, and heard all of the same baby talk from my mom and dad as my brothers and I heard. Surreal.

decisions decisions

eva has been sick for a month now which is making my decision easier and easier to make. her first real sick day coincided with my first day back to work. just my luck. it kills me to hear her cough and cough and cough and to see snot running out of her nose like an open water faucet. though it may not be the most rational of reasons to use to quit one's job, it certainly backs up my thesis statement: 'i don't want to watch my daughter grow up from the sidelines.'

i have beaten myself up for weeks and finally came to the decision when she started doing these horrible body-shaking coughs. i repeat: it may be faulty reasoning because i cannot keep her from getting sick her whole life but to see a four month-old (my four month-old) so miserable breaks my heart. i have asked every question possible and weighed all of the options. i read somewhere, 'if you choose to be a stay at home mom, stick with it and never look back. you'll never regret it.' the affirmation gives me some sort of solace but at the same time, i am not looking to be betty crocker (as my mother puts it). i just need more time with my daughter so that I don't feel like she is just a pet that i feed and dress and have an hour's worth of interaction with each day.

moms

At age 4, we think: Mom knows everything! At 8: Mom knows a lot! At 12: Mom doesn't really know everything . At 14: Mom doesn't know anything. At 16: Mom doesn't exist. At 18: she's old fashioned. At 25: Maybe mom does know about this! At 35: before we decide let's ask mom. At 45: I wonder what mom thinks about this ? At 75: I wish I could ask mom about this.

week 1 completed

week one of work-daycare-crazyness is over. i am no more closer to an answer than i was 8 days ago.

as luck would have it, eva picked up a mean cold in my last week at home and so max had to stay at home with her my first two days of work. it hurt much less to know that they were home together. coming home those two days was a treat- seeing my two favorite people in the world laughing and playing together (snot dripping out of one of their noses). then wednesday, thursday, and friday: it was almost as if i could convince myself that i was making the right decision, while i was in the office that is. then, as i got off the bus each day (on friday i took a cab because i couldn't stand the thought of getting there a minute past 5 and i had left work 10 minutes later than the days before)i found myself practically running to the daycare while asking myself what the hell i was doing leaving her alone. now it is sunday night and taking stock of the weekend i realize that i am no longer in sync with the little one, the way i was when i wasn't working. we spent all day together and i was responsible for her in every way and i knew her inside and out. now she is between worlds- the daycare and home.

oct 8 2010