Just another lovely school day, part 1

Ok, this post is a few weeks outdated. I have just gotten so busy that, of course, this blog is the last on my list to even think about. BUT, I would like to catch up on how R is doing at school, so I thought I better just go ahead and post this. First grade is way more exciting than I thought it would be, and there seem to be quite a few differences than school in the states... or at least I would like you all to fill me in on that! Anyway, here goes:

Saturday is just another day of the week for school kids here in Italy. Traditionally, kids go to school 6 days a week until about 1 or so, then they eat lunch with their families, and afterwards start on homework. This gives the kiddos plenty of time for popular after-school activities like dance, soccer, or the ever-most popular... swimming.

However... we have enrolled this year in tempo pieno, or full time. Rachel will go to school from 8:15 to 4:15, 5 days a week... giving her a Saturday at home with her daddy, and the rest of the family. She will do 40 hours a week. This schedule didn't start this year until this past Monday. (edit) Up until now, I've been racing to get both kids picked up at 12:30ish (ages 3-5, pre-k and kindergarten) and 1:15 for the elementary schoolers. We live outside of town, unlike 99.99% of the community, so this means my kids were eating lunch at 2pm by the time we got home. Not fun, especially since the littlest one has always been a 5pm dinner diner.

I'm also thinking, there isn't recess... the first week or so, it seems like the kids were playing some game with a ball outside in the courtyard, but R says they don't go out anymore. Therefore, we've been making up for lost playtime at the city park and out riding bikes. I get the feeling it is noses to the grindstone from here on out!

So far, we are a month and a week into school. (I think I love it.) I didn't realize I was going to enjoy following R's class work so much. I guess my Italian is going to get better!

I love the grembule, or the smocks that they wear over their clothes. Scuola Materna wears white, and then Scuola Elementare wear pink gingham for girls and blue gingham for boys. All grembule always sport the latest fave characters like Ben 10 or Hello Kitty.

I think it is great they always have pockets for Kleenex and such.

I love that she has already filled one notebook, and the other 2 that she brings home are well on the way to filling up... then this doesn't count the other 4 I know she has at school. I still haven't seen what they are for. (Edit! She is almost filled another 3!!)

I miss the lined paper I remember having, but I like the neat way the kids are learning to use their gridded notebooks by copying and counting out patterns. There were one or two that were even difficult for me (and that's saying a lot!)

I like how their notebooks are color coded... I don't remember if I started out that organized????

They seem to be learning a lot of prepositions. Half of her notebook is full of words describing position. Left, right, upper, lower, then upper left, upper right.. above, below, preceding=first, following=next.  The teachers also seem to be linking some assignments together, such as, the kids underline words in their math directions that they are learning in Italian.

The craziest thing is this week there was an assignment I translated-- I read things such as:  points in sparso order, infinite points, points close together, one point next to the other forms a line, straight, curved, spezzata, open, and closed... then R had drawn diagrams to define her statements. WHAT??!! Was that geometry?!

I like the astuccio portamatita. It holds colored pencils in the middle compartment. Each one has its own space so you know if one is missing. The back compartment is for markers, and the first is for a ruler, pencil, pens, eraser, and pencil sharpener. Everything has a place, and a place for everything.  Since this photo was taken her pencils are all little stubs now. She is determined to use them to the very end. (And, since I wrote this, all these pencils are just nothing but nubbins now. I had to force her to retire them and break out a new box)

I love that R has a two-sided red and blue colored pencil... I remember having those too!

Her roof-tops are red when she draws houses, mine were black... there keep being subtle little differences like that.

I LOVE that R will have these 2 very nice ladies as her teachers all the way through 5th grade when she will graduate from elementary school!!!! Here, the teachers stay with the class.

I love how Rachel has no front teeth.

She isn't working in lower case letters yet, just capital. They aren't expected to know how to read, nor have they been taught to read yet... but somehow in all the repetition and writing, I can see she "gets" it. She is reading her own directions. And now they are starting with vowels (easier than English vowels because they only make one sound).

The asilo, of course, taught letters and such, (if I remember correctly, not for the 3 year olds, a tiny intro for the 4 year olds, and just basics for the 5 year olds) but they seemed to be more geared to hands-on activities in science or social studies and they did a lot of units. Each year had a theme such as life on the farm, a unit being about the general animals to traditional foods made on the farm, or the human body, where they did units on everything from emotions to the 5 senses. Fun, fun. But, I am getting off track. This is just the beginning.

It's been a long journey since R started preschool at 3 and didn't speak but 2 words of Italian-- even though she was born and raised here. It's been tough leaving my independent and social, but strangely tearful girl at preschool/asilo the past 3 years... watching her cling to her lovey, a spotted, tattered puppy that still hides in her backpack. Watching a teacher in a clinical-looking white smock hold back my baby as I plasterd a smile on my face and said "have a nice day".
The days have always been long with that giant if always looming above me. If we were in America she might be going half-days or every other day, if we were in America I might have more choices or options...she might not cry... I wouldn't worry if she needed to ask for something and wasn't understood... she could stay home with me. At 3, she was so little. So very little and I sent her off to school so she could learn her language, so she would be ok in first grade.
Well... she is. Thank God she is doing great.
School in Italy is not mandatory for 3 year olds, but it was essential for us. School began in the weeks after we moved to our house in the south and I knew not a street in this town. My husband himself never attended the asilo so he thought it was unnecessary to put our daughter through something she so clearly hated. I was on my own in getting her enrolled and such. I wasn't driving at the time and so R and I caught a ride (with a 2 year old Sammy in tow as well) with a neighbor that turned out to be totally insane. Nuts, folks. Truely bonkers.

It was a tough year.
Thank God the teachers here like to give candy to crying kids.
Let's just say, I was offered my fair share of caramella, too.

Thank God every day at first grade is just lovely.

Flying Solo

One of my main reasons for keeping up with mom blogs is to not feel so far away. This is for sure my main reason for lingering on facebook. Sometimes I think I am the only one who buys the Skippy peanut butter in our supermarket; afterall, my kids are the only ones taking PB&JS to school for their mid-morning snack. I just might be the only mom that isn't making pasta for lunch everyday, and I am almost without a doubt, the only mom sending her kids off to bed at 7:30. Yes, sometimes standing outside my kids' school waiting for pick-up, I find it hard to relate to the other moms. I know that upon arriving, I am the only one who was jamming to VeggieTales with Baby Cakes in her carseat. I always have to chuckle to myself at the strange juxtaposition of the English blaring on my radio, to the Italy morning blurring by, outside my car windows.

Eh, va bene. Likewise, I'm sure I stand alone on strange habits that I've picked up here when I return stateside. I always have to fight the urge to kiss people on both cheeks for the first week I am back "home".

As for now, this Sunday night, I might be fighting off the nerves I feel for starting another week at a new school, with new parents staring at the kids that are speaking English to their mom, and the mom that is trying desperatly to keep a toddler from throwing a tantrum, a kindergartener from crying to go home, and a first grader from toppling over under her giant, heavy Italian backpack.





But, if there is one thing that I have gotten good at it is suppresssing the what-if-I-were's. What if I were in America, what if I were eight-handed and able to juggle, what if I were closer to family. Well, I'm not any of those things or many other things I could only hope and dream for. That's ok.

Oh, and the wishing for eight hands is something my kids have come up with, as of late. I'm not sure if it has to do with my daughter's work load at school and wishing she could get everything done at once, or my son's fascination with sea life and octopuses.

Is it October already?!

Where've I been? Boy, does time fly when you're having fun. Seems that my last post and its month quickly faded into March where I roughed out a few weeks flying solo while my husband was away, which turned into April and Easter break in Rimini, and May was the month of birthdays, school recitals, and packing for international travel. Summer was 2 months of amazing fun at my home-away-from home in Oklahoma. August was having my mom at the beach with us and reuniting with my husband after a summer apart... and the beach, beach, and beach! September, new schools and life with a really, real school kid-- a first grader!...And all with baby gigantica in tow. Whew! Has is slowed down enough for me to visit my little ol' blog? Probably not, but I'll take a stab at keeping it updated. School schedules are almost ironed out, but Baby's naps are all over the place. Seems she wants to stay 10 months old when it comes to how often and how much she wants to sleep... once we are in a routine again, I might, just maybe, find a few spare moments to sit and sew something or write something... maybe paint a little, too. But, as for this glorious, golden Saturday afternoon, with zucchini bread baking, hubby working at his model trains, kids playing with eachother like long-lost playmates after a week of being divided by separte classes (a first in 2 years!), I find a moment. With the eucalyptus trees swaying, red geraniums ablaze, and sheep grazing in the distance, my moment is up for the afternoon as soon I will find the little one toddling in from her nap (thanks to big sister who has devised a way to get her out of her crib) ready to go outside and play. Happy Saturday, ya'll!

Bravi, bambini!

Maddalena is one! A whole year has passed... has it? Or has it been longer?

 And here we are.

So, almost 3 years ago we moved to the heel of the boot. Far, far from family and friends. It began as an adventure, a transfer and a transition. We traveled the 10 hours with an almost 2 year old, and a 3 year old.

If you drive down the Adriatic coast you will see a radical difference in landscape as you enter our area of Puglia... and as a northern Italian friend pointed out to me tonight, you might not even feel like you are in Italia anymore. I sometimes feel like I live on the edge of the world.

My husband says that sometimes from the sky it looks like just that.

Well, within the first month, I enrolled dear daughter in preschool for the first time, as all the other little 3 year olds in the villagio attended. I knew she must go. While she was born and raised in Italy, we speak English at home so I knew that if she didn't begin getting the language from someone, somewhere, we would be headed down a long, hard road in elementary school.

It was brutal. Fits, tears, strange side-effects of not wanting to leave the house...ever! Fits and tantrums.

It was sad.

It was a long year and when we finally reached the end of the year I felt like we had traveled more kilometers than the trip to get to this strip of land that juts out into the Mediterranean Sea.

...and then one very hot afternoon at a zoo safari park while celebrating the end of the school year and Rach's 4th birthday... I just felt a little bit sluggish... just not quite right. Just a little like being pregnant.

Confirmed.

The best part about living surrounded by sea, is the beach. But having your energy drained by pregnancy doesn't quite make it a vacation.

Plus, the other two littles had been born in the nice northern part of Italy. Before we found a private practice doctor (who always still work at the public hospitals too) I had a few prenatal appointments at the local hospital.

The time when the doctor was not wearing a shirt under his white doctors coat, told me I was in a whole different world. (Hey, it was really, really hot that summer day in the un-airconditioned room.)

Anyway. The next school year... new school and both kids attending.

At least we were attending the same school as the other neighbors so I had a little help.

And the tears were less, but sometimes doubled. I was the foreign mom that waddled in every day and then sometimes had to pry four hands from my cankled legs.

Yes, with my second pregnancy I was told, and I quote, to lay off the gelato.

Indeed, it happens, and this third time was not much different.

I tend to grow big babies.

I  like sweatpants.

You get large but you still have to lug around the kids' backpacks and coats and get in and out of cars and bend down to pick up legos, all whilst the other Italian moms are wearing tall boots and leggings and cute little dresses.

All the meanwhile, telling your still small daughter you can't carry her into school even though you just have the feeling she might need the extra attention that day.

Little Sam would soon no longer be the baby.

I shuffled through. We all might have sacrificed something. I clearly recall my husband saying, "I guess this means I won't get to go fishing next summer."

(Well, he did anyway)

But, we did it. I like to say that Maddy arrived into a family gia pronta, ready made.

She knows no different than to be poked and laughed at, pinched and squished.

Alas, before I brag on the baby, I must say Bravi, bimbi! Job well done kids!

While the newborn screamed in the backseat on the way to school you all endured. You have waited for your dinner, waited for my attention, and coped with my sleep-deprived crankies. You successfully have taught your baby sister beautiful Christmas songs and how to fake burp. You hang in there when she knocks down your blocks or scribbles on your artwork. You have dealt with it when she detours our plans.

You did it! You are a big sister and a big brother and I know you will help shape Maddy's life.

...and no, we can't get a dog.

Somehow we have made space for baby toys in this apartment and integrated Maddy into Rachel's room. Somehow we all fit in the elevator.

Somehow we made it through the year with only the half of baby gear we own because the other half was left at the old house (which we still own).

It isn't easy.

If all three fall asleep in the car I have to make three long trips up the elevator.

Nothing is convenient. I lug around a gigantic baby wherever I go. My helpful neighbors have moved. We don't know a babysitter and we don't have a nonna, grandmother, nearby.

Through flus or doctor's appointments or grocery shopping trips, its just us.

This year, it has been just us most of the time.

I sorta feel like we have conquered great feats. But, I guess not. It's just normal life.

One year has passed since Maddy was born, and although she was a pleasant surprise, I feel like her story is one of three years in the making-- of where we are now. I'm sure that doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's like her first birthday sorta marks the tide's ebbing moment in our lives.

Maybe this is a time to slow down a little... maybe this is a time, in a fading tide, where I hurt a little because I see just how fast a year has passed.

Inspirational Ironing

Ahhhh. The blank page of a new post. I had all the best intentions to maintain this blog with all the little things that make my life different, or the same, as life in America. I have a notebook full of ideas, writings and doodles which must be a habit that has carried over from my days as a "sketchbooker" in art classes. This leads me to a recent complaint I have about my life, and it would probably be the same if I lived in America. As a mom with 2 small children, and a baby, I am an artist frustrated with little time.

Between my incessant need to keep a spotless and clutter free house, and the pasta dinners that need to be made, and the laundry that must be hung out to dry, the marble floors to mop, windows to wash, and having an early walker in the house, I have less time than I ever have, but ironically, am more inspired with life than ever. Funny how chores in Italy are fittingly what you would stereotype a black-dressed, apron-clad, matronly casalinga, or housewife, to do. There are things like shaking out rugs, airing out bed pillows on windowsills, mopping the marble floors, and forever sweeping the balconies. Washing windows? I never washed a window in America! They are less than inspiring chores, but the kind that give you a chance to think about life as you work. But then, don't get me started on the ironing, something that I never did in America, but now, somehow, I feel that I must be wrinkle-free. Although, we own a clothes dryer, it is not in the mentality here, nor the budget with higher utilities, to use it unless very necessary, such as during the rainy winter or spring. So, after my tiny washing machine finishes a small bunch of clothes, I must hang them out, untwisting each baby sock and pair of Buzz Lightyear undies from the pile, pin it to the drying rack, wait a day, and then choose whether the item can stand to be left stiff and wrinkled or seperate it into the pile to be ironed.

The chores are taxing, especially with kids underfoot, and sweating through them under the Italian sun, just isn't as quaint and enchanting as one might imagine hanging billowing white sheets against a backdrop of dark green cyprus trees and rolling golden hills, could be. I swore to my husband that if we didn't finally bite the bullet and buy air-conditioning this summer, I would start to dress the part of the podgy housewife with the big, sleeveless, floral printed, gigantic pocketed, muumuu-like dresses that they sell in the open markets. That of the kind that the buxom grandmas with fleshy underarms wear with their rubber clogs as they tend their tomatoes. We now have air-conditioning, although, how long an Italian thinks it is ok to run it or if it is true that you can get sick from the cold air if it blows on you, is another post.

Anyway, my first couple of years in Italy, I had all the time on my hands that a creative person would need to create. How seemingly perfect, or cliche-- an artist in Italy. Before up and moving to Italy, I was doing a pretty darned good job at painting it... capturing it on canvas was at least affording me my travel addiction and working in an art and framing gallery sure helped. I think I sold at least, on average, a painting a month for about 2 years, maybe a bit more. But, moving and learning to adapt to my new life seemed to zap me of my zest. Taken outside of your comfort zone, you learn things about yourself that you might not have seen otherwise. I learned that, in order to stay, for lack of a better word, inspired, I needed a good dose of regular socializing. I needed to live in the thick of things. I needed other creative and well-rounded people around me. That is, exactly what college life was, but I had graduated. My first years in Italy were like moving to a deserted island. I felt trapped in the confines of the English language in a non-English speaking world. I might be able to meet friendly people, potential friends, but how could I talk to them? I didn't drive, but there was no where to go anyway. There were no hobby stores or libraries, or malls, as we Americans know them. I didn't know anyone. I was uninspired by a life that is painted in yellow-stuccoed hues, and green peeling shutter-shades, in posters and calenders, but through cynical eyes, was a crumbling, decaying mess.

In America, landscapes are groomed and molded to fit the city. In Italy, buildings, streets, signs, churches, buisnesses, houses, and parks, seem to sprout where ever they were fancied, where ever there might be a tiny space left over from the Reneissance's creative boom. The general rule, thereafter, must have been function, not form, in designing buildings. I was used to painting canvases meant to be hung behind Pottery Barn sofas, at the very least. But Italy's sense of style is not what America glams it up to be in "Old World" styled furniture and fixtures. Let's just say, as a builder, my dad can design an Italian-styled villa in America, more aesthetically pleasing than the real thing. Much of Italy's residential structures are arrayed in 1960's decor from when Italy went through an ecomomic boom, accented in terra cotta orange and avocado green.

I guess they say hindsight is 20/20. Looking back I was surrounded all along by beauty. I remember when we lived in Castlefranco Veneto, walking under porticos decorated with paintings hundreds of years old. They were right over head while I was looking at the graffitti down at eye-level, thinking about how I missed Wal-Mart.

I am more inspired today. I am surrounded by an artist's beauty. The swaying eucylpitus trees outside my window. All the shades of yellow and cream that make up the limestone and monochromatic towns of this region. The frescoes in the churches, endless views of olive trees and the bluest sea... the fading layers of colors from years of repainting old stuccoed houses. Bright laundry fluttering like a birthday bunting in the wind. If there was only time to capture it all.
Like tiny mosaic tiles forming a simple pattern, my art now lies within tiny moments with my family. The bigger picture, isn't elaborate, but the integrity of a mosaic is intricate. Living room dance party. Hide-and-go-seek with Monster Daddy. Making Maddy laugh. Rachel's never-ending doodles and cardboard creations. Sammy's fantastic and busy world of airplanes and police cars lined up around the house.  The whole layout might not be what I expected... the apartment is old, the car is too small, someone always needs new shoes, the kids have outgrown their bikes. I wish Rachel could take ballet, and Samuele swim. I compare too often what life could be like for us on the other side of the ocean. But, it is the mix of a family, my almost normal family. The light and the dark. The shades that inspire me to do better, be better, or just keep going. As for now, I wait for inspiration for that next great painting as I seperate, not my paints, but my wash into lights and darks. And I think... someday... someday...





...and now I'm off to go clean up one of Rach's masterpieces. I call it, Cereal the Sister



well, I'll just take it with a grain of salt, or a few...

This Christmas Past

Better late than never. I'm finally getting around to editing Christmas photos and reflecting on our busy holiday season.

My kids love the classic Christmas shows that we have on DVD like Rudolph and Santa Claus is Coming to Town... those really old ones that, to me, without them it wouldn't really feel like Christmas... or would it? Just like what I wrote about Halloween a few posts back, over the past seven years here, I have seen a steady flow of influence from America. My first years here, I could not find a wreath for my front door. I complained over the lack of decoration and Christmas music streaming through the commerical centers. The town centers and piazzas have always had beautiful, glowing light displays, but it is just now that I can find fake Christmas trees that will reach the ceiling, versus the tabletop kind. Or, coordinating glass balls and ribbon and garland, stars, snowmen, and singing Santas. My first years here, besides a sparse strand of lights on a balcony, the only decoration adorning the outside of apartment buildings was the backside of a Santa climbing a rope ladder, looking as if he was about to rob gifts versus leaving them. Almost every house having the same Santa in various sizes.

Worse yet (and I hate to admit this), was the proportion of gift giving compared to that in America and my attitude about it. Not yet having kids, all of my magical Christmas energy went into planning my husband's and my own Christmas... with the in-laws. But, their idea of a Christmas gift was more like a pair of socks and a panatone, which is a sort of fruit cake, or maybe a scarf or hat. I admit disappointment and great waves of homesickness. Then, having kids didn't change the concept of gift-giving much at the beginning. My husband's idea was ONE gift from Babbo Natale, Father Christmas.

But, hey, that was not the Santa I grew up with, and so, for my daughter's first Christmas at 7 months old, she was bombarded with gifts, but played with the wrapping paper.

The following year, she was 19 months old and had a new 4 month old baby brother and a new 5 month old cousin, so the in-laws begun to have hope in the spirit of Christmas Future.



The subsequent year, the 2 1/2 year old and 16 month old siblings were terrified of the visiting Babbo Natale dressed in a felt suit and donning a pillow-belly, but grandma, Nonna, thought it was hilarious from under her cotton-ball beard.



An Italian Santa at the kids' school. Note the felt suit.





Last year, almost 8 months pregnant, I could have played Mary on her way to the inn in a living nativity.

...And so, each year gets grander and our VW Passat can barely hold the gifts we return home with, and the 3 carseats full of growing kiddos.

As the kids get bigger they expect more from Santa. And, as our family has grown and the price of airfare has gone up, this jet-setting mama can only think of how to spend the holly-jolly Christmas cash on plane tickets for the summer. Then, looking at our own Fisher-Price Nativity nestled between a fat Beanie Baby snowman and Dora's Christmas book, I find myself wanting to give up the deceit of Santa Claus and come clean. This year, at times, I really felt like we were hiding Jesus in amongst our wish lists and to-do lists.



 When my mother-in-law was growing up, she didn't have a Christmas tree. In Italy, the Christmas season has always been marked with the presepio, or nativity scene. Churches and businesses alike set them up, sometimes filling up a whole room, or with features such as animated characters. But, did you catch that? Public places, businesses, coffee bars, department stores... set up a baby Jesus... with his mama and earthly father, the shepherds, the wisemen, angels, and a whole town of common people going about their daily buisness. (My Fox and Friends buddies that I watch every afternoon might like to know about that... for you won't see the Italian news reporting the discord from those who celebrate Festivus and are offended by the sweet stable scene.)



I have brought my American Christmas to Italy. My mom sends packages, I play the traditional music, I recreate festive dishes, we read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I introduce friends to strange American foods like marshmallows and candy canes, I send my husband out to ring sleigh bells on the balcony on Christmas Eve, just as I am tucking the kids into bed... and none of it has anything to do with the birth of our Lord.



So maybe... as I look out upon the bleak and wild landscape that surrounds us here in southern Italy, I actually can't imagine a place more Christmasy, despite the lack of yuletide glitz. Maybe my heart has been "two sizes too small." The buildings made of rubble, the rocky terrain, the olive groves, the shepherds minding the sheep, the big night sky out the living room window, all set the stage, for what I really need to teach my kids. My view from this little spot on the globe stretches through history and reinforces the reality, timelessness, and the ubiquity of our King's humble birth. As I see this day celebrated here in Italy, I am reminded of the Grinch's puzzled reaction to the Whos' song for Christmas.

'"It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags!"..."Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...perhaps... means a little bit more!'

  I'm sure that isn't the first time that quote has been used to describe a deeper meaning of Christmas, but it fits how I should have felt from the beginning.

 We had a wonderful Christmas this year and it was exciting to celebrate it with the toddler-before-her-time baby, topping off our family.

Daddy's work Christmas party

As the years here in Italy are going by, I am finding that going to church with family on Christmas Eve or the holiday meal that Nonna makes, playing with cousins, or taking a simple walk together in town, and...well, of course, a well thought-out care package from home, is what I look forward to the most. I know I can't take away the magic of Santa from my three precious elves, but I can do my darndest to keep it all in proportion.

                                       

Happy Thanksgiving

The weather today is a bit like my emotions. As normal for this time of year out on the tip of the heel of the boot, the sun is shining one moment, and the next there is a downpour. At least the temperature has dropped and it doesn't feel like spring approaching summer today. That helps me get into the holiday spirit.

While I took the 2 big kids to preschool this morning, I listed the names of family members that would be getting together in America today.  Then I asked, "What do you think they will be doing?" I thought for sure they would know... afterall, I have been reading a Thanksgiving themed book each night of November and we have made Native American crafts and traced our hands into turkeys. But, their idea of America, and all the happenings, must be stuck in summer time, because their answer was, "Swimming." Well, that is what we did with the family the last time we were there and the comic relief was needed as it was hard for me to get out a whole sentence without getting choked up. I recounted my memories of Thanksgiving and my ideas of what everyone would be doing today.
I guess every year is different. I'm pretty sure I was bummed my first Thanksgivings here, but I must have gotten used to the idea because I never remember crying over an attempt at a Thanksgiving meal. Some years we have a go at the meal, trying to recreate the feast without the American conveniences, and sometimes we just go out for pizza. I'm not sure why this year is more difficult, but to look on the brighter side and in the spirit of this holiday, I must be thankful.
I am thankful I walked into Lidl today (which is a German chain like Aldi), because the baby didn't seem ready for her morning nap, and I found this.

After I put the baby down for a nap, I had a wonderful, quiet lunch.

Also, at Lidl I found, for the first time in seven years... drumroll, please...

Sure, we have turkey here... but not in this form, and certainly not with the pop-up thermometer! I think Italian turkeys must be too big for them to sell a whole turkey and, honestly, I was worried that this would not fit in my small, European-sized freezer. But, it did and now when my husband comes back in town we will make this with all the fixin's and celebrate further by decorating the tree. 

I also decided to bail out on my usual house work and play.

I am thankful for the chance to use a clothesdryer every now and then.

So, soon I will leave to get the kids from school. And, weather permitting, we will hang out at the park outside the school and the kids will play with their friends. Even though they have been with their friends for six hours and are very tired, it is their favorite thing to do. I will load up their bikes in the back of the car, despite the lack of space and my list of housewifey chores running through my head. Despite the fact that this does not fit into the schedule of the very heavy 9 month old baby who will probably end up in my arms or struggling to get down to crawl around the filthy park.

But, to celebrate the "togetherness" of the holiday, we will stay and play.

I will rush home to cook the baby's pastina (little rice-sized pasta). I am thankful she is the perfect surprise addition to this family.

I will make the pudding-dense, Italian hot chocolate for a late afternoon snack for myself and the kids. I am thankful that they give me a chance to be a kid again.

We will wait for daddy to get home after a day in the clouds. I am thankful he loves his job.

I am thankful that he makes my my café latte every morning. I am thankful that he is the daddy in this family. I am thankful that he is my friend.

...and then I will update later on our meal together tonight... Hark! Friends, family, good food, and a thankful heart... I guess Thanksgiving isn't that far from Italy, afterall.