11 months - eeek!

with cheerios and apples, the sock is still the snack of choice?

Did I not even mention the fact that Hendrik passed the 11-month mark the other day? Eeeeesh. Well he did, and he will be ONE YEAR old in exactly 29 days - unbelievable! In a way, it seems like the time has passed in the blink of an eye, but on the other hand so much has happened since our first few days and weeks as parents. A good friend of mine had her first, a boy, a few weeks ago, and she's emailed me with a few questions about napping and eating and schedules and honestly - I don't really remember. I mean I do... but the details, those small details just get lost in the craziness that is parent initiation. I did find this in my notebook - Hendrik must be close to two months old (I think):

	And the next day….
8:30 ate	7:30 awake, 8:00 ate
10-12:15 slept in chair	9:15 sleeping in chair – 11/11:15
12:30 feed	11:30 ate
2-2:50 slept in crib	2:30-3:45 sleep
3:30 feed	5:30 ate – 6:45 bath, awake
4:30 sleeping chair – 5:10	9:30 ate
5:45 eat	10:30 sleeping in crib
6:45 sleeping in chair	- 4:30
9:30 ate	- 7:45
- 2:30

What a blur! With that in mind (the blur), I asked our neighbor Fabio, who I'd say is hmmm in his 70s, if time just keeps going at this clip - fast fast fast. Sitting at the mouth of his garage next to his garden a'plenty, he looked at me and shook his head. Then, smiling, he let out a big sigh that said oooooh girl you have no idea: "you think this is fast? just wait thirty years and you'll wonder what happened." Ouuuuuf! Thirty years. We had a great conversation the other day - he was asking about Hendrik and the places we've lived, and whether or not we'll be here for another year or two. He apologized for not getting out of his chair to talk to me, and explained that his back was extra sore from his morning foray into the woods to collect mushrooms - his number one hobby. This guy is a wealth of information for living off of the land - he knows where to collect wild asparagus in the spring, and the spots for more than 150 different kinds of funghi - ! Incredible. He gave me a small but very valuable jar of herbs that he collected at some point this year and mmmmm yum they were good. He worked in the cinema for 37 years, and I imagine he has some pretty good stories.



Anyways, the here and now. I have Hendrik updates! 1. He went down the entire flight of stairs by himself yesterday (16 of 'em) and 2. He pretended! He pretended to eat food! I gave him an empty oatmeal container this morning and he proceeded to pretend that there was food in there and motioned to eat it. LOVE! Oooooh I love it. We started pretending with him, and he shared his delicious food (and drink!) that he had in his new container. And the volumes of love continue to grow.

oooooh time. a family of three... just like ours!

too many tabs!

I'm still not entirely sure what Italians do between 12:00 and 3:00, when stores and shops close for the afternoon. I do know that people eat a big lunch and hm, maybe they take naps? I was thinking that perhaps chores and errands are on the list but on Tuesday when I was out doing just that, everything was empty - I was the only one at the post office, the only one at the open-all-day! hair place and hmmm, wait, no the library was buzzing. The libary! We finally stopped in and oooh I'm glad we did. Now Hendrik and I both have library cards, and there are English books for the whole family, yay! It was beautiful in there, and I was kicking myself (again) that I didn't bring the camera. Vaulted ceilings - some stucco, some exposed brick - huge, heavy wooden doors, and people eating and drinking coffee and WINE in the cafeteria. Not that I would have taken a picture of strangers driving vino, but it's worth noting, no? We were the only ones in the little kiddie section (with English books - we took out three), and Hendrik LOVED... loved... pulling books off of the shelves. (Woops.) We were also the only ones at the Museum of Science and Nature (a rainy Tuesday morning activity) and then too, at Grom, the gelato place in the central piazza. The museum: it was small, but exciting (sometimes) for Hendrik. He did the scrunched up nose-breathing thing that usually means dog for the ibex, and in an aggressive way. Big dog with long horns? Maybe. He also liked the fish (plastic) and the assortment of stuffed birds. The gelato: I had pear and dark chocolate once again, and it was good - but not as good as the first time; on our next trip I'll try something new. But anyways, getting back to the closed all afternoon thing - the little grocery store here in Vela has an even more extended afternoon break: they are open from 9-12 and then again from 5-7, except on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and of course they're closed on Sundays. In a way it's nice - free time in the afternoon to... eat and nap! But also a bit inconvenient for shoppers.

So let me think... there are so many things to write about I'm not totally sure where to start. The volleyball? The guys won their league game at home last Saturday (or Sunday?) and then also won their Champions League game in Belgrad on Wednesday - yaaaaay. They've been gone soooo much this month, but the light at the end of the tunnel (for me at least) is November; after the 5th, the league takes a break for Olympic qualification tournaments and the World Cup. Why that light might not be so bright for Steve is that a month without games means a tough training schedule with his all-about-business Bulgarian coach.

Sunday's home game

And news with me? Hendrik keeps me pretty busy BUT I have been finding time to run more often and read too. There's an amazing path along the Adige river that seems to go on forever, and I got a solid 10km in a few days ago - hopefully the same can happen tomorrow morning. Hendrik naps in the stroller, and I jog. I can't say that I've seen other moms out with jogging, so perhaps that's why I've had some strange comments. Or maybe Italians are just forthright? Well that we know.

good run?

beautiful scenery to keep me going!

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been amazing, and I'm addicted. Oh and they have Mme Ramotswe at the library! While someone was punching my data into the computer I noticed The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency sitting atop a pile of reserved libros. "OOH you have those books?" I asked her, and then continued on in shoddy Italian to inadequately explain how fabulous they are. And - as an aside - my mom has been raving about librarything.com, and I've been meaning to check it out for a while. I've also been meaning to pay some attention to the ... wait.. FIFTEEN tabs that are open in three different browser windows. For real?! They are:

• The Scuttlefish - a new found blog about all things ocean that I'm loving
• Wikipedia page on Trento... my lame effort to construct a blog about the history of Trento. It's coming, one day!
• Another somethin' or other about Trento
  
• Ericandles - my cousin Eric and his wife Les blog about their life with three wonderful children, and the video they posted on Sunday looks like a good one. The first two and a half minutes were solid, only 19 more to go!
• I brought home some nice pine cones from a walk up to the top of Doss Trento the other day, and was inspired to make a pine cone wreath. Right. Two pine cone craft pages open. (On www.recycle-eh.com)
  
• Second pine cone craft page.
• another crafty craft page - make your own leaf-wreath. Where do I think I'm going to find the time to do this?
• How to draw a Hen and her chicks - on the Crafty Crow (great website!). For when I have even more spare time to do creative things with our limited art supplies....
  
• more crafts
• last craft page - I swear. Little Train from Recycled Materials - again, from the Crafty Crow.
• "The Case Against Breastfeeding" - a very fiery and thought-provoking article published in The Atlantic. Some definite food for thought (hah!).
• Veteran's Week events page....
• "Bookbinding in the Digital Age" - an article about a man who started a new career as a bookbinder, learning in a small shop in Casablanca: "But when I get sick of all the information beaming at me through the computer and over the radio and tv, a book made of paper can be just the thing. It’s nice to handle something that is still unplugged." Amen.
• Milano City Marathon - April 15. Because I'm thinking about it.
• Young House Love

And there you go. I know there's more that I wanted to write about, but, well, I should go and tackle some of these tabs. Not the crafts, the tabs. And then it's time for my book. And bed. Ouf, I'd better go!

as you can see...

As you can see we're having WAY too much fun around here... I'll have to sit down and blog about it some time (soon)!

this, that, bed time

We're just back from an amaaazing meal at Maso Finisterre, a restaurant just around the corner from our place where we both ordered not really knowing what we were going to get. First a salami + cheese plate that had the best hash brown patty we will ever eat, and then pasta (fresh) for Steve and when they brought my entre of massive gnocchi balls, Steve's mystery meat plate came. Okay so it wasn't a total mystery; he knew he was ordering beef but what he didn't know is that it would be cold and completely covered in mystery sauce. Thankfully the sauce wasn't of the mustard variety and thankfully it was delectable. And despite having eaten an enormous dinner, Hendrik was happy to eat bread, bread and more bread, and then some grisini (dried breadsticks). Where does this kid put all of his food? Really!? I'm sure our parents said the same thing not so long ago (hollow leg? or two?).

I have a backlog of logs (backblogs?) but not really enough time to get them out and down when I want to, or hm, maybe it's due to the whole issue of not having enough time. Hendrik has been sleeping so well (get this: this morning he woke up for some milk at 6:30 and then went back to bed until 8:30 - sleep IN!!!) so it's not because there's not time but because there are other things to do - no surprise there. And this blog is going to be on the short side because I want to go and hang out with my husband on the couch. Hm, or I could read my book. Hmmm... okay anyways, I'll tackle that bloglist soon but get back to life with a sleeping babe pronto.

fresh pasta, yes please!

looking downright dapper!

and downright zonked

the last days of sock-free porch time

feet soup yumyum

On the way up to Parco Doss Trento - clear, sunny skies and a crisp morning down below

climbing!

because I wouldn't give him the camera... :(

a nice little stretch before bed...

dinner: our eater in action

this and that + a growing babe

jam diagonals, yummmm

Is it wrong that I'm already thinking about Christmas baking? I mean, I've only made a list, and just one batch of baked goods... when I asked Steve the question I just asked you, he laughed and said, "What, you think these are going to last until Christmas?" Oh, hm. Right. Probably not. Anyways, yes - I may be jumping the gun a bit, but in my books it's never too early to start thinking about making (and eating) nanaimo bars.



And I can NOT believe that Hendrik is approaching his first birthday. Everyone says it goes by quickly and it really, truly does. And I know that it's not going to slow down at all.... sigh. Here are a few pics that I could have posted sooner, but have somehow found themselves lost in time:










What's new with him? He's getting closer to walking - he cruises around on the furniture at a pretty good clip now, and if the stairs aren't blocked off, he's halfway up in the blink of an eye. He's a vacuum at the dinner table, and his favourite foods as of late are salmon, bread and figs and hm, he's back and forth on broccoli and avocado, which confuses me. Either you like it or you don't, no? He was gobbling the green stuff when we were at Gretchen's, and the broccoli here doesn't taste any different to me... so ?? Who knows. He knows (and waves) hi and bye-bye (and ciao - so cute!), says fffffff for giraffe, and can point to fridge, window, door, broom (he LOVES saying broom - "boom!"). A spoon is also a broom (sweep it in!) and he uses the same word for apple - "bapa" - for tomato. Hm... what other Hendrik updates are there.... He's still biting me, and I'm not sure if he really gets it when I say NO. Well wait - I know he doesn't get it when I say no because he keeps going in for the kill, and the more I say no the more ravenous he gets - mrrrrr. So that game usually ends with him crying in his crib while I inspect the little teeth marks on my shoulders. Maybe it's just his way of showing me how much he loves me? I'll take kisses instead - he gave us his first real kisses yesterday and it was melt-your-heart adorable.

It's been a while since I've read back-in-time posts on my blog, but I just checked out this one, written three years ago tomorrow, and it reminded me that I have to write a blog about our city, our area. Three years have passed since we were in Romania! Ouf. And where will we be in three more years? Who knows.... but for now, I'll enjoy Italy. Back to it!

kings of the castle!

2011 Trentino Diatec (and their website - tons more pics here!)

Steve in action against the Brazilian team

They won! Woooop! And yeah, it's kind of a big deal. There was a huge gathering in Trento's main square on Saturday afternoon, complete with flares and cameras and crowds to greet the winning team. Hendrik was interested in all of the commotion, showing little emotion but looking around with wide, observant eyes - taking it alllllllll in. But with no rest for the wicked, the guys didn't have much time to soak up their victory; the bus arrived around 5:00 on Saturday, and after a quick drink and snack at a downtown bar everyone headed home (I assume) because... they had practice Sunday morning in preparation for a game tonight - two days later. And with Wednesday night's Champion's League game (against Spain's Cai Teruel) that will make six games in eight days - yikes.

2011 Kings of the Court

BIG block!

back at home in the main square - lots of supporters and fans (and pictures pictures pictures!)

Proud Papa, happy to see his son!

"Dad, you're a world chaaaampion!" Awesome!

People were even saying congratulations to me - I didn't do anything! Eesh. But speaking of kings and castles, we made a trip to this amazing castle while Steve was gone - it was gorgeous!

Castel Beseno is located hm, about 20 minutes south (ish?) of Trento - very easy to get to. We walked around the nearly empty grounds and then picnicked on a beautiful and sunny patch of grass in one of the courtyards - it was lovely!

The views were amazing....

The weather here has definitely been a bit more chilly, with cool (/cold) mornings and evenings - but thankfully the afternoon sun is still warm warm warm. Apparently there was a first frost yesterday, but there's still no sign of snow on the mountains around us; I'm sure as soon as the rain begins to fall, the peaks will get a dusting. Ummmm hm, what else... OOH! Our first (and second!) visitors have booked their flights! YAY! Steve's mom and dad and Erin and Fred have all booked their tickets - eeee! My sister Sarah is planning on coming for Christmas, and she might be our first visitor.... but not the first to book. Last night we skyped with Dan and Milka and it made us wish that we could have people over right now - come over right noooow! - but the first step is booking the flight, and we're looking forward to having friends and family here.