Some advice...

I have a colleague whose girlfriend is just about to give birth to their first child. He’s obviously nervous and eager to learn from the ones of us who have already done this. Now I never thought my opinion was more important or truthful than anyone else’s, but recently I keep overhearing this other guy (who has a two year-old) give him "advice" which never fails to make me cringe. Like he tells him than having a C-section is usually better because he knows a couple of women who "tore up so bad they had to spend 6 weeks in bed after". Mhh, yeah. We all know that’s what normally happens, right? All I can tell the soon-to-be-dad is that I still think in most circumstances the "natural" route is, well, more natural and therefore best. C-sections are such emotional topics. Oftentimes they happen after you’ve really tried to avoid them and then always remain a bit of a touchy spot, or alternatively (like guy #2’s partner), you reaaally want a scheduled one from the minute you get pregnant, and get really defensive about that choice/"right".

Guy #2 also told the expectant father that he’d better skip the prenatal courses on breastfeeding like they did, because these courses are annoying and they really didn’t want to be "bothered and pressured by the freaking milk-nazies since they knew they weren’t doing it" (I’m pretty sure they were probably only nice old ladies trying to paint nursing positively, not threatening, bullying hags). Again, what can you say to that? Before having LP I wasn’t so keen on breastfeeding either; it just freaked me out a little. I understand that everyone makes choices and these choices need to be respected. I understand that some women really can’t breastfeed or do it for very long, for whatever reason. This is clearly the *ultimate* emotional issue, and I often find people are too quick to judge.

But this attitude? I don’t know. I also had all kinds of apprehensions and fears. I didn’t set myself any goal at the beginning, and gave myself the option to stop at any time, exactly so I wouldn’t have any pressure. I was reluctant, but when my son was born, it just seemed like the right thing to do and I decided to take it one day at a time. The point was not to become an extremist, not to claim that formula is poison (although it is a highly processed and artificial food, when you think of it, and yes, this matters to me), but to at least try. At least give it a chance, because it just seemed like I owe my son that. If it hadn’t worked, fine. But it did. And I continued for a year.

Because even if I totally think that mothers who don’t breastfeed shouldn’t be put to shame, does this means we don’t have the right to say that we all know it’s still better to do so, in every aspect (even if it’s just out of laziness, cheap-assness, and convenient self-reliance, which were all big for us)? So that’s all I’m saying: not even being willing to try, and especially bashing it every chance you have, really, dude? Do you really think your attitude is making you a clever free-thinking rebel? I bet Nestle marketing execs are pissing their pants laughing at this thought right now. That was my loaded rant of the week, ladies and gentlemen.

Another one of guy #2’s finest was to keep telling the other one that "babies need so much stuff, whatever you get and receive and fill your house with will clearly never be enough and you'll end up buying tons more". Ugh? I guess he’s got a point for a few things, like I don’t know, wipes (the need for which we had grossly underestimated at the beginning). But hearing that hurts my ear. I do have my issues with "stuff" and clutter, but even if I hadn’t, does that make sense to you? Maybe because it’s our second one and we’re much more relaxed about it (perhaps too much so), but trying to have less stuff this time around has become kind of a calming mantra of mine.

Maybe I’ve forgotten it all but my philosophy is now more that babies really don’t need a lot. For sure we’ll need a place for bébé to sleep and be changed, the little bouncy seat, high chair, car seat, stroller, and so on. But there were so many things registering places tell you are "essential" we really didn’t end up using… Monitors are not coming out of the box this time (whenever LP cried, we immediately heard him anyway), the friggin’ stinkin’ diaper genie (and its expensive, wasteful replacement liners) has been thrown away a while ago, and the damn swing LP HATED! has been sold during the last annual garage sale. Things like bottle sterilizers, wipe warmers and pacifier rinsers just sound offensively useless to me. Why? Why the need to surround oneself with as much ghastly plastic stuff as possible?

There are really two things I plan to extensively use this time around: a carrier/sling, which I tried a little bit with LP, but plan to pretty much live in this time, and the pod seat, which I discovered by chance in a store when no one had even spoken to me about it. It ended up being greatest thing for the stage when babies start holding their heads and have more muscle control: it’s practical, portable, small, mess-proof, travel-friendly, and can be propped up everywhere. LP used to love sitting up and seeing what was going on instead of being at floor-level all the time. With that, I could put him on the counter besides me while I was cooking, on the table while we were having dinner, etc.

Interesting statistics...

...and food for thought for the wedding flower business I'm (slowly) in the process of launching...

(Source: Local daily newspaper La Presse)

Last year, there were 22, 559 weddings celebrated in Quebec (for a population of about 7 million). Ours was one of them. This is equal to about 3 for every 1,000 people. That rate has been steady for around 12 years; its historical peak was 8 for every 1,000 people in the early '70s.

The average bride is 30, and the average groom is 32. This is notably older than it used to be (the average bride was 25 in 1986).

In about a third of weddings, at least one of the partners has already been married before (which one can assume possibly means a smaller, city hall-type wedding -most people her are non-practicing Catholics, but a lot still marry religiously, and the Catholic church does not permit remarriage).

Same-sex weddings correspond to about 2% of all weddings performed each year (they've been legal for 8 years). This equals to about 450 each year, including, two years ago, my own sister. 58% of gay weddings involve men.

17% of same-sex couples who married here last year were not Quebec residents: the progressive attitude and no-questions-asked law is in no doubt attractive to couples whose own states/countries do not recognize their unions.

Even on paper it doesn't stack up

So after my post on the imperfectness of our house yesterday, we wrote down all the things we like about it versus the things we don’t like as well as our wish list, and it became pretty clear. I can't really pretend that it will work out fine anymore, and the moving-again part does not appear to be so daunting when I consider the trade-off of finding a place that would really work for us. I'm not saying we're putting the house for sale tomorrow (God no!), I'm not saying that it will even be in the next year.

But I think you can all guess the conclusion we've come to. See for yourself.

(Disclaimer: I know this could seem like a First World problem, like boo-hoo, this poor two-good-salaries-family who needs bigger closets and a bigger garage to put all of their stuff. I know some people really can't be picky about the place they live, and cannot even aspire do that one day. I've lived in Europe, where families of four sometimes share a one-bedroom apartment because that's all they can afford in the city. I'm aware we've got it good, due to a combination of professional luck, hard work, and the real estate market in Montreal not having gone crazy yet. I'm aware just owning your own place is something of a luxury. I don't really have anything else to say except that I don't think we're being unreasonable either, and that it doesn't really seem like a good enough reason to stay.)


Likes:

• Great neighborhood
• Affordable for location and space
• Beautiful hardwood floors
• Fireplace
• Mature trees
• Garden now has many plants, shrubs and trees I always wanted.

Dislikes/minor annoyances:

• Not enough closet space
• Kitchen is dated and not very functional
• Bathroom is small for family of four
• Lacking storage
• No character whatsoever
• Entryway is small and awkward, cramped between two flights of stairs, with no closet. Always scared LP will fall down, and he has twice.

More major problems:

• No A/C, some rooms poorly insulated despite a certain investment on our part (insulating the garage, changing the windows…) This leads to unnecessary energy costs.
• At least one room missing, preferably two or three (kid room upstairs + playroom and gym/music room in basement would be ideal))
• Garage/work area too small (since we brought the Mustang in M has lost his workshop, and this is something that’s really important for him. We love the car and want to make it a long-term project, but as of now there’s no place to work on it, or do anything else (like forcing plants during the winter, etc.), for that matter).
• High-traffic street, with cars and buses going by way too fast.
• The yard and the pool are by far the main, unfixable problem. The pool is a 30 year-old massive concrete hole. I used to think swimming pools, like closets, could never be too big, but I was wrong (and I really don’t understand the era’s reasoning behind having a semi-Olympic diving place in one’s smallish yard). The pool has been nothing but a very high-maintenance, costly source of problems and worry (small kids!) for the past five years. Having it filled is both really expensive and a sure way to waste a whole summer while wrecking the rest of your yard and the neighbor’s because of the heavy machinery they need to bring in, so status quo it is. Since it’s so big and unheated, the water is never quite warm enough and we get very little enjoyment out of it (this summer has been the welcome exception, though). To top it off, since it takes up 90% of the yard, LP doesn’t really have a place to play, and we don’t have space for anything (no swings, no sandbox, etc.)

Wish list:

• A big(ger) yard, space for the kids to run around!
• A place for a good vegetable patch. I only have a few things in containers, and it’s great, but I really want more, if only to increase our family’s source of fresh and organic produce.
• A sizeable shed, for storage but also for M to fix things, make furniture, restore antiques or other similar projects he loves doing but can't anymore.
• An in-suite bathroom and/or powder room
• A breakfast nook or place to have an extra table for homework/projects/puzzles and games, etc.
• A mud room
• Some architectural character or charm (doesn’t have to be grand, just interesting… In general I find new homes and newly built areas a bit soulless), with some curb appeal.
• A place that simply has a better flow and is more functional, promoting better organization/clutter control.

We’re not even sure we could find or afford all of this (probably not, although we wouldn't mind relocating), but it would definitely make a big difference in our overall quality of life.

Our house, in the middle of our street

We’ve reached the stage where our house does not really suit us or our needs anymore. Well, I’m not sure it ever has, at least not on M’s part, but I’ve sort of thrown in the towel recently and admitted it once and for all.

M had the house before he met me. He didn't buy it out of excitement, but mostly because the neighborhood was nice, he and his ex were fed up of looking around and not finding something they really liked, and settled on the fact that "a first house" didn’t have to have everything. Then a few months after she left, M got stuck with the house (and mortgage), and because of that and another family tragedy he spent the next few years there alone, hating it and being really unhappy, struggling to make ends meet and basically never turning it into a home.

When I moved in, I didn’t *love* it either –I hadn’t really envisioned not choosing my house-, but I still really happily settled in and resolved to make the most of it. Prior to that, I had been living in a tiny downtown apartment for two years following my divorce, and this was still a major improvement. M would have been keen on selling then so we could both start from scratch together, but I convinced him we shouldn't. I had just been moving too much (an unreal number of times, around 20 since the age of 16 alone), and was really eager to stop and smell the roses for a while somewhere.

The house is definitely now a home, and it’s not terrible by any standards. I’ve become attached to it and it imperfectness, and I’m always happy to come back to it. Over the years, it’s been greatly improved both inside and out, as we both put in a lot of hard work (even though we never redid the kitchen after all). This will always be the first house our kids have ever known. But its problems are becoming more and more apparent as our family grows and our lifestyle changes, and I can’t really get over it anymore. Not to mention that as hard as I’ve tried, I was never really able to make M love the place. I’ve stopped fighting it; I think that even now that the situation couldn’t be more different than it was during the darker years, it will always be associated with bad vibes in the back of his mind.

Bottom line is, this is not the place where we see ourselves growing old. And as interesting as the prospect of paying off our mortgage earlier and enjoying some extra years or relative financial freedom is, so is the prospect of, you know, actually loving the place you spend your life in and being truly comfortable in it. When we look back two decades from now, what will seem to be the most important: settling in a too-cramped house and growing increasingly frustrated in what will always feel like a (too) big compromise, or finding a place we really love and spend many peaceful, blissful years in it (fingers crossed) even while it means we will be mortgage-free a little later?

We have three bedrooms, but the third one is now a home office we really use and need, and even if we’ve tried, we can’t really see another place where it could be relocated. Our house is already full to the brink, and our basement rec room is already multitasking (and mostly failing) as a guest room/gym/music room/play room/library/storage room. We’re drowning in toys and kids stuff, and I haven’t even given birth to the second one yet.

So all this to say that it looks like we won’t even have a nursery for bébé. Yes, I know, what bad parents. But since I think you should do what makes the most sense in your life, even if that means you won’t give both your kids the same exact treatment, here’s to hoping bébé won’t mind too much. The plan right now is to keep the cumbersome crib dismounted in the basement for as long as possible, and have bébé sleep with us in some sort of a bassinet/play pen at the beginning. That’s what we’ve done for LP as long as I nursed him during the night, and I loved the arrangement; having him near was great, and it was the best solution for me not even having to get up to nurse. Then, LP and bébé will share their (small) room until we figure out what we want to do and move.

This is my first solemn promise to my unborn child: we will make you a beautiful room in the new house, bébé.

Nightime and the couscous train

Even if it's quieter than it is during the day, our house is rarely completely silent and halted to a full stop at night. We're not a family of good sleepers. Having a good, uninterrupted night's sleep is a rarity for me, as it is for M. We sleep very lightly, wake up frequently, and when the slightest thing is bothering us or we cross that certain threshold of consciousness, we can't fall back to sleep.

LP goes through phases when he wakes up too, and calls for us. M usually handles this to let this pregnant chick stay in bed, although if it's the fourth time and he wants to die, or if he's feeling a little bit poorly, I take over. LP wants more water, or to be tucked in again, or sometimes complains of leg pain (growing pains M and I used to have as well, -at 104 cm (41 inches) he is towering over the charts), or wants us to put a bandage over his mosquito bite. In brief, he wants to be reassured we're there. And that's OK with us. I was an anxious child and that anxiety, which was paramount at night, may or may not have been the source of all these sleep problems I still have. Sometimes LP wants us to lie in bed with him for a while, and we do, because we prefer that to him coming in our bed (which we used to be fine with, but now he's just gotten too big), and because it generally means that after he'll fall back to sleep soundly enough for the rest of the night.

Sometimes the slightest sounds wake either one of us up, and then a chain reaction begins. I wake up and grow frustrated over being unable to fall back to sleep, so I silently get up and move to the next room to write. But soon enough, M is woken up either by not feeling me besides him anymore or by the glare of the iMac in the other room, and he comes pleading with me to come back to bed, as writing in the middle of the night is insane (which it is). Then, LP is woken up by this very quiet exchange and wonder what's going on. Thus is our family. These days, bébé wakes up when I do too, just like LP used to during my pregnancy insomnia. I do wonder if this conditioning in the womb could have contributed to him not being the greatest sleeper either; I don't know. I don't have much control over this, it's always been a part of me. We'll see with bébé.

Even in our quiet, residential neighborhood, we have all become familiar with the different sounds of the night. Sometimes we hear ship sirens; we're quite close to the St. Lawrence River's seaway. There's also the always present slight buzz of the nearby highway, which we never hear during the day. There's our neighbor, the town firefighter, who is often called during the night, although he tells us mostly for false alarms. There's this other neighbor, who sadly was in a terrible car accident 8 years ago, was never able to work again, and has since adopted an erratic schedule when we can often hear him work with tools in his garage at the strangest hours. Finally, there's the train, the one that only goes at night, sometimes three times a night, and always tchoo-tchoos very loudly. I could see the tracks that seem all but abandoned during the day, and always wondered what that phantom train was: it's not a commuter train, and we're not in a big cargo transport corridor, either. Finally recently I watched this local cooking show, where I learned that one of the largest couscous factory in the world is located right here in our town, although on the other side of the aforementioned highway, in an area we basically never go to. The train is carrying wheat from the Western Prairies directly to this factory which functions non-stop, a several thousands of kilometers journey which last minutes always happen to be at nighttime right by our house. Why it is permitted to go through at night in this especially tranquil part of suburbia remains a mystery to me.

P.S. Somehow hearing it always reminds me of that month I spent in London in 2001, in a really expensive, but so-so basement hotel room that was so close to a tube tunnel every six minutes or so everything shook as if we had been in the middle of an earthquake, at each passage of a train. The weirdest thing is just like the couscous train, after a while it just doesn't bother you that much, and sort of becomes a familiar, almost reassuring background thing.

Endlessly inspired by Alice

I recently accepted a wedding flower gig in October, when I'll be 8 months pregnant! But hey, there was no way, no how that I was ever going to say no to this one. I love this too much, and I really wanted to be there for the bride.

This couple has a similar approach to their wedding as we had: they have a two year-old boy, they don't want a big fuss, just a simple celebration to make things official and commit to each other in front of their loved ones. So they're having one of these outside-the-box weddings so dear to my own heart: an afternoon tea with dancing. The bride once expressed her concern to me about her soon-to-be sister-in-law having thrown the most elaborate, lavish, traditional wedding last year, wondering how her own simple affair could ever stand the comparison. I told her our situation was kind of the same, with both my sister having had bigger and more traditional weddings the year before we did. And let's be frank here, people love traditional. But my own conclusion was, if it's not you, you simply should not have to go through with it. So my advice was: then, don't even try. Dare to go so different that people don't even think about comparing! Give them an experience that will make them go beyond their maybe-hesitant feelings about it all, and have faith that they will love it.

And so, without going crazy on a theme, the inspiration I proposed (let's give some credit to M who first came up with the idea when we talked about it together) was the Mad Hatter tea party in Alice in Wonderland... And the bride loved it so much she said my suggestions were like fireworks that prevented her from sleeping that night! What we will do is decorate a main, big table with multiple small flower arrangements in teapots, tin canisters, sugar and cream pots, etc., along with scattered, different but coordinated serving platters offering desserts. We'll also use vintage etched glass pieces (hers, her mother's, and mine), old table cloths, and possibly lanterns and/or pompoms. We will complete the look with toy tea sets sold at IKEA: they're inexpensive, perfect for the look, and can double as favors for kids.

{Disney's 1951 movie version, which I love -see, I'm not anti-Disney!}

Best of all, this bride is letting me achieve something I've wanted to do for a long time: a carnation wedding! She loves them, and so do I (in tight round balls, no fern and baby's breath in sight like in supermarket bouquets), and since they're so affordable, we will be able to use a lot of them, in many different colors. Her bouquet will probably be only made of carnations, but I'm thinking about a few other types of flowers as well for the table arrangements, including anemones and/or ranunculus, dahlias and chrysanthemums (which should both be in season). I'm not exactly sure how this will play out in the end, but right now my vision is each arrangement would only have one type of flower, and one color.

The bride was so into this idea, she sent me all kinds of wonderful Alice inspiration, and even decided that her gown should be blue (probably from BCBG)! From Gwen Stefani (in her What You Waiting for? video), to the Matrix movie (which has multiple references to the symbolism-rich book), to the big designers, and of course to Tim Burton, everyone seems to be inspired by Alice! Look at this interpretation of the tea party by Annie Lebovitz (the picture is part of a whole, gorgeously stylized spread originally published in Vogue, which features many fashion personalities including John Galliano as the Queen of Hearts (!?)).

{British milliner Stephen Jones as the Mad Hatter, and Christian Lacroix as the March Hare}

Kids and happiness

Parenting, happiness, political and social structures put in place (or not) to better address the parents' (work-life, or even just self-realization) needs: man, these articles really hit close to home.

Here's the original New York Magazine feature: All Joy and no Fun. Why parents hate parenting. And here's a very interesting response: Yes, kids make us happier.

It's no secret that about every study on the topic concludes that having children does not make parents happier, and often makes them less so. I've read about it time and time again, and even tend to agree. What? I'm not defending having children more strongly??? Well, being a mom is the most important role I'll ever have. It's fantastic, and rewarding, and when considered as a whole, definitely has brought me more joy and yes, happiness than I ever thought possible. But yeah, I'm not sure it's made my life easier day-to-day (OK, I'm sure it hasn't). It's just a worthless observation, but my husband has a 96 year-old great-aunt who still lived on her own with minimal assistance up until a few months ago. And you know what I always thought? The fact that she never had children probably played a role in her making it that far. I don't know. She led a simple, quiet life, pretty much on her own. Never had to worry or to stress about much. Never had to give up much. Perhaps it's a bit of a dull life, perhaps there was a longing for a family that was never met (maybe not, what do I know), but she was also probably quite serene, in a way that happiness studies can tangibly measure.

I don't want to paint a grim picture of parenthood: I think it's worth it a thousand times and would do it again in a heartbeat! I don't want to be really whiny about how eff hard I think it is -my philosophy has always been more to just get with the program. You're tired? Have more caffeine. Not much time for yourself? Get up earlier. Stumbling across a problem? Get informed, get help, perhaps vent a little, but then tackle it, whatever it is. I always try to remind myself that a lot of people have it much harder than I do, and it usually works wonders.

But. There's definitely a repetitive, unrewarding, tough side to parenting. In my case, there's the day-to-day domestic grind that's always weighing me down, there's the constant and elusive strive for balance, there are the others aspects I don't want to neglect (marriage, work, friendship, creativity, downtime...) that sometimes feel like I'm pulled in a hundred different directions.

Case-in-point: coming back home after the day at our house, these days (maybe a little dramatized, but sometimes fairly realistic):

Talk with LP about his day while starting on dinner. The spinach I wanted to use is spoiled what to make what to make mhh frozen peas I guess. Call M, who's mowing the lawn, to start the BBQ. Call 4 times before he hears. Try to prevent LP from going outside. Call M to make sure he's watching LP, since of course he escaped outside. Run to prepare his and my outfit for the next day. Plug the iron, then remember the water must be boiling now. Run back to kitchen then suddenly remember I need to prepare LP a new towel and bathing suit for daycare the next day. Remember the towels aren't washed. Run downstairs to start a load. Come back to kitchen, handle a mini-tantrum when I tell a hungry LP that no, he can't have ice cream before dinner. Doorbell rings. Little neighbors are coming to fetch him, and off he goes. Run back to iron my shirt for the next day. Open mail, potentially bad news from government about company taxes, I'm too frazzled to understand right now, put it aside for later. Call M, who's now taking care of the pool, to handle the grilling. Start to assemble lunches. Frantically search for extra water bottle LP needs for the next day, but cannot locate it. Ponder what to thaw for tomorrow, mhh, chicken breasts sounds good. Realize we're out of milk. And bread. Remember I have a presentation at work the next morning, have to think about that. LP comes back crying. He was having so much fun he didn't want to come back to use the bathroom, and now he's had an accident. Peas and noodles are probably overcooked at this point. Undress him, put him in the bath (at least that will be done), call M to come and take all of his clothes, including his shoes, to the laundry room where he can't put them directly into the washer so he asks me where he should put them and I shout back I don't know, the sink? But the sink is already full with my underwear. So I tell him to come back up and dump them in a plastic bag or something. Give a still crying, still hungry LP a quick bath, then put him into his PJs. M tells me we have to take care of some bills tonight, the city and school district taxes I think. Phone rings. Come back to kitchen, salvage dinner. Try to be gentle with LP who really wants something to eat now, but won't have fruit and I won't give him anything else because this is ridiculous, we're just about to have dinner now. Remember I also have some emails to send about various things. Eat. Have lovely family moment with LP who's now being adorable and quite funny. Take care of laundry. Pick up toys and clutter. Water plants. Tell LP that no, he can't throw golf balls down the stairs, where did he get that idea? Negotiate 15 minutes of TV with him, who chooses to watch Top Gear with his dad, both lovingly nestled on the couch. Find water bottle and put it by the door so we won't forget it the next morning, then come back up and get a post-it to stick on it, saying: BATHING SUIT AND TOWEL! Finish lunches, then dump them in the downstairs fridge. Play dominos with kiddo a little. Phone rings again, can't pick up on time. Brush teeth, handle mini-tantrum because LP wanted to open the toothpaste tube himself and I didn't let him. Cuddle, laugh, story, bed. Go through ten or so minutes of him calling us, getting up, then he's finally asleep. Take care of everything else while M does the dishes and cleans the kitchen. Blog a little. Go to bed with a magazine, smile when I feel the baby start kicking -all of this time I had not thought about the fact that I was pregnant for a second. Drift into a coma almost immediately.

Coming back home after the day, pre-kids (maybe a little idealized at this point, but still fairly realistic):

Read the paper. Watch the news. Decide on what we'll eat at 7, then leisurely make it. Eat. Work out. Maybe go out to run a quick errand. If it's still nice out, perhaps have a quick dip in the pool.
Watch TV or read in bed.


I guess the main thing are the up and downs. As it is beautifully articulated in the second article, I don't think that parenting deprives you of joy and happiness, quite the contrary. It's more that I think it can make you quickly, and strongly, and dizzyingly navigate from wholehearted love and bliss to extreme unpleasantness, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration, and the like. But you know what? If one has to come with the other, I'll still take it any day.

On {possibly} raising a girl

So our baby, is possibly, although not definitely, a girl. And I love girls. I'm fairly girly, and, the clothes! and, you know. Just look at this picture, which The Alternative Wife posted on Mother's Day. It says it all. And makes me melt.


But I must also say that ever since it became a possibility, I've been consumed by all kinds of weird thoughts (you know I'm a little weird at this point, right?) I'm having some trouble articulating. So I'll do the best I can. Raising a girl is different. (Duh.) And it poses all kinds of challenges that are just simply not there with boys. And it also involves some aspects that make me a little uncomfortable.

Why? Well, there's the body image issue, for once. All of a sudden I'd become an ever-so-important example for a little girl who needs to learn healthy eating habits, and also that whatever her body type is, she's fine and she needs to love herself. I'm relatively OK when it comes to this, but not perfect. I don't always love myself. I have my moments of letting myself go with food and then regretting it and trying to compensate, my moments of self-loathing, and my moments of self-deprecating humor towards my imperfect body. But I just know how important a mother's self-image and attitude towards this is, and how it will probably determine a great part of the daugther's one throughout her life. How doing this right could help her feel more secure towards the not-so-great period that is puberty, towards the unrealistic images you find in the media, towards the social pressures girls are still facing, towards the cruel teasing from others, etc.

Somewhat related, there's also the... nomenclature. Which was brilliantly addressed by Cate recently, in a post called The Missing Word. It was about how girls were defined by what they didn't have -a penis, and how often they were simply brought out to develop a bit of a shameful sense of their own parts, something that doesn't really occur with boys. Boys see their penis, they use it every day for peeing, they usually feel quite comfortable with it. Girls, on the other hand, only use their vagina or vulva to do dirty things. See, even the words are clinical and ugly.

And then, there's my main concern. Let's call it "the princess and the pink". I like pink (I'm wearing some today). I'm not anti-pink at all. But am I the only one thinking it's a bit too much for little girls these days? Why should they be dressed in all pink, all the time? I guess people will reply to that: "Well so that everyone can know it's a girl!" And all I want to say is: "Why does it matter?" I get that people can get confused and puzzled easily, and are more comfortable when things are clear. But then, I've heard all kinds of stories of babies dressed in pink, with pink barrettes in their hair, and strangers still asking: "Is that a boy?" So really, I can take these questions. They're well-meaning, and last a second, and then it's over. I have no idea, and at this point I'm not even sure I will ever find out, but I postulate that you can dress a baby like a girl without the one-color wardrobe. Last year when his daughter was born Ryan from Pacing the Panic Room published a great post called, in his usual style, Slap Fighting the Pink Posse. Most of what he said rang very true to me (and the 150+ comments provide great perspective).

OK, and here's the real controversial part: I'm deeply uncomfortable with the word "princess". I've recently been a horrible killjoy when it comes to this, but I have a hard time helping myself, because I feel words are powerful and they matter. But I also don't want to make it seem like I'm judging anyone, and don't want to hurt the feelings of people I care about. I certainly don't have all the answers, or even think I do for a second. Sometimes I really wish I didn't ask myself all these questions, but I do, and here is the place where I can explain them.

I don't like that the Disney princess culture is basically taking up all the mental space little girls have to dream these days. We had it too, to some extend, and I remember drawing princesses and castles as a child. Again, that's not my fundamental problem, and I'm not super-radical-anti-Disney, either (you could rightfully call me an hypocrite because LP has had a few Cars clothing items). But whenever I try finding anything else for little girls to be interested in, well, that's all there is. A plastic princess world, of plastic high heeled-shoes and plastic princess purses and polyester princess dresses little girls apparently want to wear all the time. Some princess pretend play is good. Pink, fluffy, rhinestone-tiara princess all the time, I'm not sure. Because then you won't want to occasionally play one, but you'll think that you are one. And the slope is slippery. Someone told me that he recently voted on this Facebook contest where people posted pictures of their kid's rooms. And among 40 or so girl bedrooms, 17 had the word "princess" written on the wall.

Why would you want to tell your girl that she is a princess? I don't get it. But it's very widespread, and the exact same thing I constantly stumbled on when reading wedding blogs: the message is it doesn't suffice for a (grown!) woman to be a beautiful and sophisticated bride -she has to be a princess. And except for a few members of the royalty in Europe (who, by the way, dress in civilian clothes 99% of the time), girls are NOT princesses. Nurturing their self-esteem is crucial, but I think this has gone a little too far. The princess culture does not promote being sane, and smart, and caring, and strong; its one-faceted world promotes being prissy, and high-maintenance, and dependent, and detached. Jane from Baby Squared, mother to twin girls, has a similar view on this: she simply avoids the too pink and princess-y and frou-frouey. But every time she says so on her blog, people just cackle and slam her: "You can run, but you can't hide. You can't fight the princesses. It's so funny that you even think you could". Well, they might be right, but along with Jane, I'll run for as long as I can. Hey, these might be the same people that say kids simply can't be good eaters, and I'll die trying to prove that they're wrong.

I'm also not sure if it's the princess culture, or just a generalized tendency towards an ultra-genderization, but I think something is making girls want to look like (sexed-up) women very early these days. Whether the play make-up and nail polish they receive before they even start school (yes I know this contradicts the picture above), or the one-inch heels and purse my 8 year-old neighbor was sporting the other day, or the borderline slutty clothes they sell for tweens, I don't know. The game just seems different now. And despite this surge of pseudo-femininity, not exactly prettier.

P.S. I hate not looking feminine enough, and never made excuses about putting style before comfort by the way (I'm wearing these right now, even while quite pregnant). I would love the occasional, innocent dress-up and make-up game with my eventual daughter. But mixing this with the day-to-day life of children, I think it's different and I would have a bit of a problem with.

P.P.S. Even as girly as my nature is, when I was 6 my mom cut my hair very short (I was whining too much when she washed it) and seemed to do her best to dress me like a boy. My aunt recently found a picture of me at this age that is the spitting image of LP -I mean, literally. I'm not sure why she did this, but that's not what I would aim for, either, no worries.

Deutsch sprechen en Italien?

{Yes, it's really Italy that we're talking about here. Doesn't this picture make you want to suddenly burst into song about the hills being alive or something?}

One of the most unexpected, and interesting part of our vacation was a two-day "trip within a trip" we took in the northern tip of Italy, in a region I had not much heard about before. While Italians call it the Alto Adige, a more correct name for it would be Süd-Tirol.

What makes it special is that it was part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire until the end of WW1, when it was annexed to Italy against its people's will. In the thirties, Mussolini conducted an aggressive Italianization campaign, for instance giving each town an Italian name. But without going in too far into politics which nuances are largely unknown to me, this didn't really fly. In the last half-century or so, there was a lot of tension, some violence, and the signing of different treaties to grant the region more autonomy.

What we encountered was a wonderful and refreshing surprise, at least to me, who still misses the Germany I've come to love, a lot. A little part of Austria right there in the Italians Alps! Where the villages were Austrian-looking, the food was Germanic, the signs were in German, and the people spoke, you've guessed it, German, with a slight Southern (Bavarian/Austrian) accent!

For two days, I had a blast speaking in German, and surprisingly, in context, it really did all come back to me (which was not the case the few times I've tried speaking it here). M had never heard me speak it, thought it was quite funny, and, especially, was grateful that I was there to translate everything. I don't deserve that much credit for this though, since ordering in restaurants or other similar situations are quite easy and structured, and far from having philosophical conversations (which I don't think I could handle).

I had always told M that I wanted to bring him there and "show him Germany," not just the places where I've lived and been to but also all of the different concrete things that are part of its culture, and really this was the closest thing... He had weizen beer, schnitzel, strudel... He was able to really see and taste what I had always talked to him about: how mustard is different from any other kind I've ever had, how orange the egg yolks are, how mayo tastes like eggs, not sugar.

For people there living in German did not seem just like folklore: they really do use it exclusively (and apparently a lot of them only have a passable level of Italian), go to school in German -even university, and are definitely turned towards the North, and not the South.

We agreed that our next European trip should be Germany now, and LP reminds me so every few days. I however stated that we should wait until bébé is old enough for the vacation to become manageable with two kids, which, according to M, should happen in 13 or so years.

Three summers ago

Parenting is fascinating. Sometimes it just drags on forever, and it feels like the bad days will never be over, the tiredness will never pass, and especially, that your kids will never grow up. Ha.

But then you come across pictures like these and realize how quickly it goes by... You see it in the face of your child, who makes you grasp the concept of fleeting time like nothing ever has. It still seems like these pictures were taken yesterday, when his eyes were still blue and his hair was just naturally styled as a mohawk like this. You see it in your own faces too, how younger and fresher we looked even just three years ago, despite all this new parents fatigue and craziness. Cherished memories.

{Pictures taken by my mother-in-law}

Man, I can't believe there's another one coming. Can't believe we get to go through this again!

La mortadella

One morning in Lake Garda, where our hotel was directly on the water, we were woken up by the following:

As the boat approached, M and LP who were watching closely started laughing when they realized that it carried not only a full-on marching band, but also what they declared to be a "giant sausage".

The boat came to shore right next to our window, the marching band got out, continuing their cheerful playing. Then a crane took the giant sausage out, still attached to its table and all, and slowly unloaded it to a truck that carried it a little further on the main old town piazza.






Excited, we quickly got dressed and ran down to see what that was all about. We could hear the band still playing, in between several speeches where la mortadella was repeatedly mentioned. We never knew what the occasion was, but in between the outpours of Italian, I somehow deciphered that the giant sausage weighed 1,300 kg (2,866 lbs).

A lot of people were gathered on the square, where la mortadella had been solemnly placed under a tent, and surrounded with tables. Several people were laboriously cutting into the sausage, and then slapping it in between little buns, to make sandwiches for everyone to enjoy.

I don't really like mortadella, and certainly not so early in the morning on an empty stomach, but LP said his sandwich was really good. Although I must admit that in typical LP fashion, half of the bread ended up going to the lake swans, and half of the meat to the hotel's friendly cat.

Expectations vs reality

What could be reasonably expected from a 3 year-old during a two-week European vacation?

Bringing kids on trips seem fairly standard nowadays. Everyone around us is doing it, and even though we've done our fair share of traveling with LP starting when he was just 4 months old, we sometimes feel we're a little too cautious or too tame in doing this, being surrounded by people who go trekking for a month in Australia/South Africa/Patagonia with an infant, bring the kids to Japan for Christmas, you know what I mean. We always loved traveling and knew we wanted to bring our kids along -this is not a reproach to my parents who traveled quite a lot but never with us (with the exception of one time in Florida when I was five, and they had brought a nanny) because I know times were different and they had their reasons, but this is something that I truly wish had been different from my childhood.

The general assumption seems to be that you can take kids anywhere, and they will adjust to about any kind of conditions, providing they are reasonably safe. When we planned our trip, we pretty much thought about what we wanted to do and to see -the mountains for M, art and city browsing/shopping for me, etc. Italy is not Disney World; while it is quite kid-friendly in a way, it's just not in others, and there were days when LP was reeeally bored. He didn't care about the medieval sights or the wineries -for him, fun is playing in the park, or running in the grass, or seeing cars and machinery. When you ask him what he preferred, his anwser is very typically three-year-old-boy-ish: being at the airport, flying on the plane, taking the train, boating on the Mediterranean, taking the funicular up the Alps, AND especially visiting the Ferrari factory. Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of the Sistine chapel or the Coliseum in there.

Still, he did pretty well for the first part of the trip, the first ten days or so. He seemed to adapt to the absence of routine and change of schedule well, and there were only a few minor meltdowns -normal.

Then something happened: LP disappeared and was mostly replaced by a demon-child I really didn't like. There were a few days in Florence and Rome that were simply a disaster from morning to night: off-the-charts tantrums (I mean their intensity surprised even ourselves) to a scale we had never seen and where he was completely hysterical and out-of-control. We've talking craaaaazy screaming, kicking, punching my belly, being really aggressive and angry, displaying behaviors we had never seen him do before, like yelling at us to shut up, or the time he threw a small rock at me with all the strength in his little arms, narrowly missing my eye. After we were able to calm him down, there was a lot of explaining and reasoning and negotiation and sobbing and him feeling extremely sorry and shameful and telling us he would do better from now on... Until the whole circus started again an hour later. Really, walking all day in brutal heat was tough on all of us, especially for this pregnant chick, and we were at the end of our tether. Even while he's always been an intense and at times quite challenging child, never for a minute I had wanted to just turn my back and leave him somewhere before. But right then, I admit that sometimes for a second I really wanted to, for him to just not be my problem anymore.

In hindsight, there were a few things we could have done differently: not moving around so much, for instance, and rather settle in one or two bases. Two weeks was perhaps a bit long too, and 10 days may have been ideal. He didn't have much time or many places to blow some steam, and he went to bed late (even for our standards), usually around 10:00 or even 10:30 (we didn't have much control over this: dinners in restaurants were usually very long, and they're simply not open at 6 or so... Even when we showed up around 7:30, we were often the first patrons there).

And I mean, on top of all of this, he had every possible excuse in the book: the heat was sweltering, the days were long, and going from hotel to hotel, from restaurant to restaurant, always be looking for the next public restroom, and living off your suitcase can get hard on everyone. He's just 3! And has always thrived on his routine.

But then, there were other kids there, and they weren't acting out like this. We did see a few tantrumy-crying kids (let's not kid ourselves, vacations can be stressful to them), but never on that level, and in fact most were just being patient and nice and well-behaved. I know this partly has to do with temperament: even on a good day LP is very active and unwilling to stay into place for long, and so waiting for hours in his stroller during a guided tour was never going to happen, we were well aware of that. But this has left us exhausted and quite discouraged. And a bit lost. We do realize that some parents are simply handed easier kids than others, and that there's nothing you can do about that. But what are we supposed to do when this happens? Seeing him so unlike himself and so crazy, I couldn't help thinking where have we gone so wrong for him to behave this way? We were thinking that whatever we were doing wasn't helping much, and we were just so afraid that we had been turning him into a monster.

We've not been handling this really well. We had a hard time keeping our cool and not losing our patience, and we just weren't sure how to navigate through this. How can you make him feel that it's OK to be tired and bored and fed up, but that some gestures or attitudes or behaviors are simply unacceptable? And what are you supposed to do when you firmly say so, and give him very clear boundaries, but he just totally laughs them off and defiantly goes on? We never really had to face this, and it just doesn't come really naturally to us. Sadly, we both feel it's probably one of the most important things we just have to get right.

That big pregnancy taboo

I am always surprised to see how people react to the whole topic of drinking alcohol during pregnancy. I drink -just the tiniest bit, after the first trimester (during which the organs form) has passed. I’m not talking getting drunk here, I’m talking having a few sips of something, such as to taste a good wine or being part of a celebration. Yes, only a few sips, like the amount they pour into your glass when you’re first supposed to get a taste of a bottle and approve it before the waiter then serves everyone else. I’m not downplaying this, I wouldn’t be OK with real drinking during pregnancy, or any dangerous behavior for that matter, of course not. But I like drinking, and I appreciate getting a little taste, and I know the amount of alcohol ingested is truly minimal.

Some cultures seem to be much more relaxed towards this –in Italy, when M ordered half a bottle for dinner, they would systematically still bring me a glass, and start to pour some for me, even though I was quite visibly pregnant at this point. Most of the time I would stop them before and point to my belly, but sometimes I would just go ahead and drink this very small amount, not even enough to give me the slightest buzz. However, here, I find people to be a little hysterical about this. "You’re drinking?," they exclaim with incredulous eyes. Or if I ask someone if they do that too or if their partners do, most people just shake their heads in disbelief, as if I had just asked if they were smoking crack while knocked up. "Of course I don’t drink! You’re not supposed to drink!"

No one has to drink if they don’t want to, obviously. But I generally find people to not really stop and rationally think about or interpret public health recommendations as part of a larger context. It’s known that consuming large amounts of alcohol can damage the fetus. Since however it was never really possible to establish the amount of alcohol that could be considered safe, and because it’s wise to use more caution than perhaps necessary when it comes to everything pregnancy-and-baby-related, guidelines usually prone abstinence (although not everywhere). But this is how public guidelines work, people: advisers who issue these recommendations always have to consider their audience to be not-so-smart, and systematically dumb them down while striping them out of any nuance. In this case, it’s pretty obvious that saying "drinking just a little is really most probably fine" could have all kinds of interpretations – a little is 5 occasional sips for me, but could be 3 drinks a day for a usual heavy drinker, or maybe there could be a danger that once someone starts, they wouldn’t really be able to stop after a small glass, and so on. Hence, the total prohibition message, which at least is clear and prudent, but, hey, as it’s been said in many places (including this recent article), has always been "a precaution," not based on established science.

The other problem I find is that the no-drinking message has become way too singled out and emphasized, to the detriment of a lot of other potentially dangerous behaviors many pregnant women are completely unaware of. The way I see it, your behavior and lifestyle during pregnancy has to be a well thought-of, comprehensive one, that doesn’t stop at alcohol (or smoking) alone. There are so many things that could be harmful to your baby, and probably a lot more so than minimal drinking… I’m especially thinking about exposure to heavy metals, VOCs, chemical substances, hormone and endocrine disruptors, etc. I posted about that last year, when I learned that children get 50% of their lifetime exposure during their first 5 years of life, including in utero, and this scared me a great deal and brought me to a new awareness of these things.

Therefore, it’s really probable that the pregnant women who think they are safe since they are not drinking and find my behavior irresponsible (but that’s alright, I feel quite secure about this and its effect -or lack thereof- on my baby), will eat canned tuna often during their pregnancy. Not many people seem to know that, but it is loaded with mercury (some kinds more than others) at doses that many experts deem very unsafe not only for pregnant women (it goes straight through the placenta and directly attacks the fetus), but even for women who plan to become pregnant in the next few years (see for instance the excellent book by Marion Nestle, What to Eat). The problem with mercury is that not only is it extremely dangerous, but it is cumulative in your body, never being eliminated or going away (like alcohol does quickly). These women may also get their hair dyed, or get their nails done at places where very strong solvents are used. Even usual nail polishes you use at home contain harmful VOCs (I now use the water-based, non-toxic brand Acquarella), and bottles should not be opened while pregnant or even in the presence of children. Pregnant women also nearly always paint at least the nursery, right, if not the whole house when the arrival of a new baby leads them to a new place… Well, unless you choose a non-toxic brand, which are few and expensive, the paint fumes will also expose your baby to a lot of VOCs. Then, there are the cosmetics: parabens and phthalates are increasingly viewed as culprits for hormonal disruptions, but there are also other ingredients that should not be used while pregnant, including retinol and salicylic acid (a common acne treatment)… Sunscreen? Some ingredients like oxybenzone have been recently found out to penetrate skin cells (despite longtime claims from manufacturers that it didn't) and potentially damage your DNA when exposed to light, and many experts have strongly advised against using them for children, although you don't hear that anywhere in the public sphere. And what about the big coffee drinkers, or the pregnant women who are always surrounded by smokers? Not to mention all the over-the-counter and prescription medicines…

I mean, I don’t want to sound alarming here. These are just realities of life you should at least be aware of, and it's kind of impossible to shield oneself from all of this. The fact is even if pregnant women did all that (I certainly did several of these while pregnant with LP), chances are their baby will turn out fine. As mine will, even with the few sips of wine that make mommy happy.

Bambini

Italians love children. We did not expect that LP would draw such warm affection from strangers everywhere -people were always talking to him, playing with him, making little jokes that he found hilarious, cajoling him (which we weren't so sure about at the beginning), cooing to him even though he's not a baby anymore... Twice during our trip, shop owners gave him a little present he could choose (much to his delight), and when he wore the AS Roma soccer football jersey we bought him, people went nuts, and all day long we could hear them amicably shouting to him: La forza Roma!

I suppose this should not have come as a surprise... After all, our stroller (a Peg Perego Pliko 3) is Italian, as are a lot of baby gear and clothing companies, including Chicco. City after city, we came across the most wonderful children's furniture, toy and clothing stores... No sweat pants, no Disney endorsements, no everything-pink-and-froufrouey for girls and no future-quarterback for boys. I loved how kids were dressed: freshly, smartly, fashionably, slightly more up than down, but still like cute kids who play around and have to be comfortable. If we had been sure we were having a girl, I would have gone nuts with the clothes. They were much more to my taste than everything I see here (or perhaps not in high-end places but I don't shop there). Pink was used as an accent color, as I personally think it should be at least some of the time, and there were tons of ridiculously cute, feminine little dresses in gray, black and white, teal, etc., shades which we never see here. And shoes! They were usually a bit expensive, but oh my the kids' shoes were so stylish! In the end we caved in and bought LP a pair in the colors of the Italian flag -hey, they're Geox, so they're super well-made and breathable. (Much to my surprise, there were also a lot of maternity shops, both cheap and more expensive. So many choices compared to here! Did you know Benetton makes maternity clothes (sweetly called premaman)? I suppose they're probably not even available outside of Italy, where the brand is ubiquitous. I ended up buying white jeans and calf-length leggings.)

I think specific images often give the best idea of how things really work and how a certain people thinks and acts. So without further ado, in a span of two weeks, we saw the following:

-A Smart car outfitted with a baby car seat (on the front -and only- row, obviously), the tiny trunk filled with a baby stroller.

-Mopeds with some sort of children seat attachments on them, zooming by long enough so that we could see the mother in her chic outfit and heels with her child, maybe just a little older than LP is, wearing a very small helmet.

-Children playing in the park at 10 PM, surrounded by mellow, chatty parents and grandparents.

-Prams fitted with pretty little umbrellas, being enthusiastically pushed by a beaming grandfather.

-At least three couples of gay men, attentively tending to the needs of cute baby girls (OK, maybe they were "uncles" or whatever, but still).

As for food, in some kind of a follow-up to my pre-trip post on how curious I was to see how children there were fed...

Well, there were no kids' menus in restaurants, for sure. With the exception of a couple of places. One time, it was small plates of pasta with juice: like everyone seemed to agree upon, this is the right way to do a children's menu. The other time, it was pasta with fries (because yeah, these two go so well together, right?) -clearly they were just trying to please the tourists, and we politely declined. Everywhere we went, there were a lot of kids in restaurants, even quite late (ha- the Italians seemed to concur with our later bedtime policy, and the children don't seem to do so bad), and they were just eating what everyone else was having. It was really funny to see these little kids managing quite well at rolling their tagliatelle around their fork as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

But. I don't think that it's like a unspoiled paradise, either. Kids seemed to have a lot of soft drinks, which has not really spelled good news here in North America. Mind you, it was mostly Fanta, which is orangeade, and compared to here where the color and taste is completely man-made, looked like it was only fizzy water with real orange juice and (OK, probably a lot of) sugar. LP loved it, and we let him have it from time to time (we don't really here). There were also a lot of kids-targeted sweets everywhere: candy, chocolate bars, processed pastries. And despite a lot more opponents than here, McDonald's joints are rampant, and I don't think it matters which culture you grow up in: it's slightly disturbingly fascinating, but its appeal to kids is powerful and universal.

There were a few things LP didn't want to eat, for seemingly no reason at all. The choices we had for breakfast were always great, but morning after morning, he would only pick at his food, have to be coaxed into eating a few bites, and shamefully waste most of his plate. He suddenly decided that fresh mozzarella and prosciutto were not to his taste. Luckily, there were also many things he thoroughly enjoyed: pesto, olives, bruschetta, fruit, salad, pizza and pasta of any kind. He refused to try the small whole fried fish plates we would gorge on while nearby the Mediterranean, but happily accepted calamari and baby octopus (go figure), licking his lips and marveling at the great "fish and chips" (we didn't exactly correct him).

He was also a big fan of the gelato, which we made a daily run for, although it took him forever to make up his mind about the flavor, and then he would change his mind again and request us to change cones with him. Often this little game would go on until everyone had had a little bit of everyone else's, which we didn't mind so much. Ah, three year-olds.

This one doesn't even need any explaining

From Wikipedia, via dooce:

Well, well, well.

I never thought this would happen, but we're in a bit of a gender limbo right now. Try, and try, and try as they might, neither the technician nor the radiologist were able to confirm the sex of our baby. It was moving around a lot, kicking, bringing its little arms to its mouth, and turning around, but just wouldn't tell us. I personally think it was having a good laugh at our expense.

But. They still think they know. They actually said they were sure at 75%, which is a too wide margin of error to drop everything and go shopping, but is still a good guess. And astonishingly, their guess was


GIRL.


They just couldn't see any hint of a little penis or testicles like we did quite clearly for LP, and twice, for just about a millionth of a second, we thought we saw the characteristic three-parallel-little-lines thingy. Thought being the key word here.

So. First, I feel quite stupid right now. Intuitions are really worth sh*t, if I really got it completely wrong with BOTH my children, don't you think? Second, also, we're sort of experiencing an anti-climax. For weeks, we've been looking at this date as the start of our new life with this baby, which would suddenly become personified. We wanted to start thinking about names, be able to tell people, etc. What now? What do we call the baby, given that we've been acting as if it was a boy all along? We did tell LP that in the end, they thought bébé could actually be a girl, and he didn't seem to react much. Thankfully, I guess it's still too abstract in his head to potentially confuse of bother him, but if it did, it would entirely be our (well-meaning) fault.

The public health system does not provide any more sonograms for the rest of the pregnancy, unless major problems or complications arise (which let's just hope won't be our case). So at this point for most people, this would be it, they would have to live with the uncertainty until the birth (I know some people love the surprise, and I think it's super cool in theory, but we just couldn't do it.) Luckily, by some strange fortunate chance, there was some kind of a mix-up with the insurance paperwork for the (very expensive) 12-week scan we did at a private clinic. They also charged us for an extra sonogram taken in 3D at the beginning of the third trimester, which we wouldn't have taken because we presumed our insurance didn't cover it. However, we didn't really check and just sent the whole bill, and much to our surprise, it was completely reimbursed. So we will have this other one (we didn't take it with LP, but aren't we glad this happened now) in about a month and a half. In the meantime, I guess bébé remains, well, bébé (sigh).

Other than that, the baby seems perfectly normal and healthy. I've gained about 5 kilos (12 pounds) since the doctor last weighed me pre-pregnancy, in January. I'm cautiously optimistic about gaining less than 45 pounds this time. I'm also carrying exactly the same way as I did with LP, aka according to the old wives' tales I have a boy's belly! It's been really, really hot here ever since we came back from Italy, and we don't have AC at home, so I'm glad I'm not that huge yet at this point. We're taking it easy and for the first time in 6 summers, are fully, completely appreciating our swimming pool.

Bimbo o bimba?

I can't believe I'm already at half point of this pregnancy, but here we are. Today is the big day, when we should find out what the still largely abstract entity otherwise known to us as "bébé" is. I guess there's the odd chance that it will be shy and won't want to show its parts to us, but I can't really see that happening. Bébé is kicking up a storm to make sure I (and we) never forget about its presence, and maybe it's because I don't remember but I think it's more frequent and stronger than it was was LP... Maybe it's just the way it's positioned, because I feel it very low. LP used to play hide-and-seek with his dad, kicking relentlessly but then stopping altogether as soon as M would try to feel him. Every. Damn. Time. He only finally felt it at 23 weeks... This pregnancy, one night I was lying in bed in our hotel in Lake Garda, called him to come put his hand on my belly, and bam! Surprisingly strong kicks one after the other, even though I was only 18 weeks. He was delighted... I'm not sure he's completely gotten out of the big boobs thing and fully realized this perk only actually comes along with a baby.

LP felt it too, and laughed with glee. He's enamored with "his" bébé, always kissing my belly and talking to it, constantly asking me "so how does bébé like this meal/drink/train ride/museum?..." He suggested a few names for it -we're completely clueless-, among others "Hugo" after the nice gentlemen who lent us his apartment in Riomaggiore, or other slightly wacky options like "cappuccino" and "Michelange" (notice the Italian theme).

Personally, I really don't think we'll have any surprises there; in my mind, bébé has been a boy from the start. To tell you the truth, we've been actually referring to it as "he", "him" and "your little brother" for two months, ever since the technician guessed so at our 12-week scan. Yes I know it could have been jumping the gun too quickly, but like I said, if they guess boy, even at this point, the chances it turns out not to be are very slim, compared to the opposite guess.

Predictions anyway?

Mangiare!

How do the Italians eat? I was very curious to find out. Well, differently than here, that's for sure.

From what I saw, the country wasn't actually the "slow food", devoid of modern junk haven I naively assumed it was. Our first observation was that processed food is definitely present there, and both supermarkets and even breakfast buffets at hotels were loaded with puzzling items -who would actually choose individually-wrapped, industrial Nutella-filled croissants when real, fresh, flaky, delicious ones were available? Fruit juice was always cloyingly sweet and vaguely chemical-tasting, which did not go too well with our palate (I buy it as natural as possible). Everywhere but in the smallest towns, big grocery stores proudly announced that they were "open on Sunday, on a continuous schedule" (meaning that it did not close for a few hours in the afternoon as is the traditional way)... All this reflects a society currently experiencing big changes... From the old ladies carrying their groceries home after a run to the fishmonger, bakery or the like, probably also making it a social occasion by perhaps stopping for a tiny cup of espresso and spending time chatting with their friends on the village main piazza, to the younger families one-stop, once-weekly shopping at the supermarket, a whole way of life is probably on the way out.

Or is it? Because even if these signs were present, we still discovered a country that simply loved good food, and valued it accordingly. Everywhere possible, people had vegetable patches, including at least tomato plants, some grape vine and a few olive trees. Making your own oil, wine, pomodoro sauce, pesto, and even pasta, seemed relatively standard, at least outside the cities. At our first, very small hotel in Montepulciano, Tuscany, several cooks were working all-day long in the tiny kitchen, baking delicious, simple, not-too-sweet cakes we would enjoy the next morning, and preparing the evening meal, focused on local and seasonal ingredients. One time, I saw a man carrying a huge crate of fresh, dewy lettuces walk down the street, whistling. He abruptly turned the corner to use the hotel kitchen door and delivered his precious load, and I thought, yeah, this would never have been seen at home, but that's kind of the way it should be...


Food was a revelation. Nothing was very elaborate or fancy, but (almost) everything was mouth-watering and perfect. Capers did not merely taste like vinegar, but had a very pleasant earthy pungent quality to them. Anchovies did not taste like salt, but had an almost melting fresh-from-the-sea texture... Olives were fresher than we had ever tasted them. Pesto was not sort of dry and bland, but really rich and creamy, the taste of fresh basil exploding in your mouth at each bite. Pizze had an addictive crackling thin crust, pasta plates were pitch-on all the time -with only a few ingredients of the best quality, cheese, prosciutto, cream... Gelato was unbelievable, and choosing among the sometimes 50 flavors (green apple, white nectarine, cantaloupe, etc...) was a very hard decision, please don't laugh. Even small, casual eateries served great quality wine -not that I could actually taste it (OK, I did have a couple of sips a few times).

We loved visiting the small markets above all, the ones occurring on the main square once a week, or the ones that looked like what grocery stores probably were before the big supermarkets, with cramped shelves, a small meat/cheese counter in the back and beautiful produce offerings displayed directly in wooden boxes outside on their doorsteps, reminding me of some of my childhood books. Cherries, strawberries, melons, several kinds of peaches and plums, oranges and huge lemons, heirloom tomatoes big and small, shiny striped eggplants, dainty zucchinis with their blossoms attached; everything appeared to be local. As someone who hates that our climate does not even permit such cultures, I thought this was such a blessing and a privilege...


We stopped a few times on the road to steal pick some fruit, including cherries and lemons, which we had never seen hanging from trees. A lot of producers and even towns were proudly saying that they were "bio" (organic) or even "GMO-free," and of course for them this was not some kind of a fad or part of a "return to the Earth" trend, but just the way things have always been. We visited places where the vines were located on very steep hills, planted among stone-wall terraces created without any mortar by farmers of the 14th century... This made us feel so humble. Time has shaped the landscape and created an experience and culinary wisdom that I don't think we can really grasp here, with our such young history.

Amazing little marzipan shapes in a window shop in Milan

We had a few amazing meals to add to our best-in-life repertoire, one including truffle-and-walnut ravioli, and one where I had pollo a la diavolo, a half-chicken roasted with herbs and chilies, simply heavenly and absolutely perfect in crispiness, texture, moistness and taste. It was served with just a few tender roasted potatoes and spinach sauteed in olive oil and garlic that tasted so good, LP had mouthfuls.


Needless to say, we never wanted to come back.

Bella Italia (Part 1)

Tuscany

Montepulciano

Chianti vineyards

Montalcino

The Vino Nobile region

Cinque Terre, Liguria

Riomaggiore

View from our apartment

Short trip to Lugano, Switzerland

Lake Garda, Lombardy

View from our hotel room...

The Alps of Sud-Tyrol

Coming down from the Stelvio pass, which is supposed to be the best road in the world... M had been dreaming about driving it for months... (I wanted to die)

Décollage horaire

Hello! We're back. And being home feels sort of sweet but we're also sad and in denial and a bit disorganized and brutally jet-lagged. The expression in French is "décalage horaire," but LP calls it "décollage horaire," and hates it even more than we do since he can't rationally understand it. "Décollage," by the way, means take-off, as if on a plane. Anyway, this explains the hurried middle-of-the-night post and the absence of pictures for today, sorry about that. I will have them tomorrow, and obviously because how-could-it-be-otherwise-in-this-wonderful-country they're gorgeous.

As soon as we got there and exited the craziness of the Fiumicino airport, Italy still felt exactly like it did the few quick times I was there almost a decade ago: like we may have accidentally stumbled upon the greatest place on Earth, not *just* because of the landscapes but also because people seem to have somehow "gotten it," how to live well... The country was even more painstakingly beautiful (and authentic) than any cliché ad could ever paint it. From the rolling hills in Tuscany to the Cinque Terre, where we had to repeatedly pinch ourselves, to the mountains, the lakes and the cities, we were smitten. People were warm, and friendly, and helpful. Children seemed to be sacred, and family a super-important value. Although I've traveled around Europe, I'm not sure I had ever seen such a level of care put into keeping places not just tidy but really attractive and picture-perfect. It seemed like every woman was beautiful, and everyone was well-dressed. Every restaurant we walked in welcomed us even with our child, and the food... Time after time, both simple and delicious, the pleasure always renewed...