Thursday, May 31, 2012

Che orecchie buone che hai, papà!*

(*) What a yummy ears you have, daddy! Comme tu as des appétissantes oreilles, papa !

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Lo zainetto di Chiaretta

We mentioned it in yesterday’s post, and here it is: ladies and gentlemen, after ‘lo zainetto di Silvietta’, here it is ‘lo zainetto di Chiarina’ (or Chiaretta to put it into rhyme). Bright orange, so we can be easily identified by the rescuers in case we are missing in one of our future mountain excursions…

Thank-you Chiaretta (or Chiarina).

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Here Ingrid is!

We already introduced Mathilde’s guardian angel: when I am travelling, she suddenly appears to keep Mathilde company and help her with Leo.

But when, sometimes, the guardian angel is off duty, here Ingrid is!

Merci Ingrid d’être venue, et d’avoir tenu compagnie à Mathilde. Et merci de nous avoir fait découvrir le Parc de l’Insugherata - un vrai bois en Rome!

(Ps: do note Leo’s new backpack. Thank-you Chiaretta!)

Monday, May 28, 2012

Abbiamo una ranocchietta in famiglia*


(*) We have a little frog in our family ; nous avons une petite grenouille dans la famille

The next Michael Phelps?

Mark Spitz, Michael Gross, Ian Thorpe, Michael Phelps… we like to think that all of them started one day as Leo did yesterday: a little bit lost at the beginning, and then rapidly at their ease in this new element, bubbling with joy eventually...

Sunday, May 27, 2012

The warriors’ rest

After having swum in the pool, biked along the Lungotevere, crawled on the floor, danced on the terrace, fought on the bed, the two warriors finally enjoy a well deserved rest.

(Ps: I already said it, but I herewith re-confirm it: father - it’s a hard job, but someone has to do it...)

Saturday, May 26, 2012

The things that I missed while I was away...

How many things can happen in a week?

I have been away for a week only, but - looking at the things that happened while I was away - it seems I have been away for a month. During my absence, Leo has learnt to draw himself on the bars of the cribs, and can now stand on his bed. He has also learnt to stay on all fours (although not walk on them yet). And, above all, the tooth that had been pushing for the past weeks is now (half) out.

I have been away for a week only, but… how many things can happen in a week!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

All is well

Just a short message to let you know (in case you were worried by my long silence) that all is well: I am fine, the mission is going well, and I am not starving…

(No, this is not a Chinese resturant - this is typical Pakistan Northern Areas cousine. Home-made. Yum, yum...)

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Leo’s first run

Today we run to support the research against breast cancer.

And for those who may wonder why Mathilde is not in the pictures:  she was running - she run the whole race! - while Matteo and Leonardo were lazily strolling behind the lines…

(Tonight I’ll be leaving to Pakistan. See you in about a week. Bye for now).

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Leo and his new friends

From DC, Parma, and - recently - from Tunis, we are getting news that Leo just had (or will soon have) new friends.

Congratulations to Renato & Carito, Agnes & Xavier, Annesophie & Mathieu*, and looking forward to meeting Leo’s new friends soon!

(*) Sorry, we don't have a post with Annesophie and Mathieu yet...

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Scialla!

It is true, the birth of a child totally changes the lenses through which you look at the world…

A couple of days ago we watched Scialla (Roman slang expression that means ‘don’t worry’, ‘stay cool’), an Italian movie that tells the story of Luca, a rebellious 15 year-old boy that lives with his single-mother and reluctantly attends the high school. Suddenly, Luca’s mother has to leave to Africa for a few months. She thus decides to give the custody of Luca to Luca’s private classes teacher, a former professor with whom Luca gets along, disclosing him that he is Luca’s natural father - but asking him to keep the secret. A forced cohabitation thus begins, during which, against their will and through a series of events and adventures, Luca has to confront himself with an adult male character, and the father has to take care of his son…

The movie is cute, and under normal circumstances we would have enjoyed it and gone to bed happy and relaxed.

However, a profound sense of anxiety pervaded us instead. We projected ourselves in 15 years and saw Leo in Luca: I was frightened by the challenges and the responsibility of dealing with a rebellious teenager. Mathilde was frightened by the idea of not understanding Leo’s Roman slang!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Monday, May 14, 2012

Più veloci della luce! (Faster than light!)

We thought we had already seen Leo happy. But we hadn’t seen him yet on a child’ seat on a bike.

He was literally bubbling with joy!  What bliss…

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Trust is...

... to throw yourself into the unknown trusting there are two hands ready to catch you...

At the park with Valentine and Annick

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Tutti gattonando appassionatamente (Crawling altogether passionately)

In the past days we received the pleasant visit of Muriel, Julien, and the little Valentine.

Crawling altogether passionately…

Friday, May 11, 2012

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Botany classes

Davidino’s day-care teacher maintains that - in the presence of their children - parents should call a spade a spade. So if they are pointing at a tree, they should not call it ‘a tree’, but ‘oak’ if it is an oak, ‘fir’ if it is a fir, ‘willow’ if it is a willow, and so on.

The same rule applies to anything else. 

And so, Leo, this is a leucanthemum maximum, this is an opuntia ficus-indica (watch out, it stings…)

Monday, May 7, 2012

Little Leo grows...

Cheerful, lively, smiling… but certainly not at the forefront as far as the psycho-motory skills are concerned.

And so tonight, when - during our dinner with Muriel, Julien, and Valentine - we saw Leo crawling on the floor for the first time, as if he had been crawling forever, we could not hold a tear of emotion…

Il Mammone

If Leo wants to play, to fight on the big bed, be tickled, be lifted or thrown in the air, then it’s dad.
But if he wants to be cuddled, then there is no sweeter hug, no softer shoulder to lean on than mummy’s…
… mammone! (mummy’s boy, fils à maman!)

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Hollande ou Sarkozy?

Palazzo Farnese, French Embassy in Rome. Mathilde fulfilling her civil duties.

Hollande or Sarkozy? Tomorrow the arduous virdict...

Saturday, May 5, 2012

In Anzio with friends

Marco, Marieclaire, Simone, and Leo...

Friday, May 4, 2012

I Promessi Sposi ? (The Betrothed ?)

Duccio, Riccardo, Andrea, Lorenzo, Lucien, Guilleume, Arthur, Tiago…

It seems almost an epidemic, but most of our friends had a baby-boy in the past year.

Probably good to set a football team, but for us, foreseeing parents, quite a problem: will Leo ever manage to find a wife? With such a shortage of baby-girls, and such a plentitude of baby-boys, the competition will be fierce in 20-25 years, we thought.

So, better to plan ahead.

We have never been particularly in favour of arranged marriages, but we never thought we would have found ourselves in our present situation. And so we started our quest…

The first baby-girl we considered was Aude, who you have already met some posts ago when Laura came to wean us as far as babies are concerned. 

Arranged marriage or not, we consider ourselves a rather open-minded couple, and we thus decided to have the betrothed meeting before taking any decision. The meeting went pretty well: they played together, it seemed they liked each other… in sum, all seemed to go pretty smoothly. But when the time of the bath came, the problems started. With hindsight we have to admit we have perhaps rushed a bit too much. Anyway, we decided to have Leo and Aude having the bath together. 

We should have never done that: Leo, usually a rather peaceful character, literally got crazy. He started screaming, spraying Aude with water… he did not want to share the bathtub with anyone.

Embarrassed, we bowed down in profuse excuses. But it was too late: the damage had already been done. Laura and Benoit, the parents, immediately accepted our excuses. But Aude’ feelings had been hurt forever, and we doubt she will ever want to see Leo again.

And now, will we ever find a spouse to Leo? The prospect of having Leo at home living on our shoulders forever is suddenly becoming more and more real…

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Al concerto del 1 maggio

The 1st May Concert in front of San Giovanni Cathedral on the occasion of the Labour Day - an happening where dozens of Italian artists play for an entire day in front of hundreds of thousands of people from all around Italy - may perhaps not be Woodstock, but still remains an event to be seen.

We were there… J