Italian Thanksgiving

Ugh! No time to blog! Giulio is a VERY busy baby! 

We're ready to get cooking!

He was very good a couple weeks ago though when we celebrated Thanksgiving. He took a nice long nap through most of lunch so I was able to get all the food on the table before he woke up. What a great kid!

Decanting a 1979 Barberesco for lunch!

Our TWO turkeys came out great and everyone loved everything as far I could tell.  Giulio's favorite? The pumpkin pie hands down!!

My First Thanksgiving!!

Stationery card

Flourish Of Frames Christmas Card

Design photo Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

8 Months Old!

Ahhh! I haven't blogged in over a month! Well Giulio is another month older and is getting into everything!! He weighs 24.5 pounds and is 2 feet, 5 inches tall. He crawls all around the house, pulls himself up to his feet and cruises on foot while holding onto furniture or someone's hands.

I will have to blog about Auntie Laura's wedding and Giulio's second trip to the US later, but the photos are up on my Picasa Web Albums if you want to see them!

7 Months Old!!

Friday Giulio turned 7 months old and weighs about 24 lbs and is 28 inches tall. This kid is super baby! He's crawling, of course, he has been for almost a month. A couple of weeks ago he began pulling himself up, first on his knees, and now on his feet. He can do it at the couch and at the coffee table. My not-so-little guy has places to go and people to see and crawling isn't getting him there fast enough!

It's amazing how must personality he has already at 7 months. He's outgoing, not shy at all, always full of smiles even for people he doesn't know. He loves going out and looks around observing everything when we go to a new place. Now that he's crawling he can crawl to his favorite play things which include the guitar, the amp, my shoes, the jumperoo and all of Olney's toys. Speaking of Olney, those two are getting along well, but they sure do leave me exhausted!!

So happy to be up on his feet!

Visiting Michela and Zio Marco

Walking home with Daddy after dinner out

Still Adventuring!

 A couple weeks ago we went to Limone for the day. The weather was amazing! First we went into town to buy some yummy stuff for lunch. The bread and grissini are better in Limone because they're made with the freshest mountain spring water. We bought plenty of that plus some sweets from the bakery and then bought some pasta sauce, cheese and appetizers from the gastronomy store. With all our purchases in tow, we headed up the Roman road to our house. The puppy took a dip in the river and Giulio laughed as he watched Olney splash around.

The little man waiting for lunch to be ready in the apartment.

We had to take a million pictures because they sky was SO blue and the sun SO bright! We stopped in the field and sat in the grass with Giulio for a little bit. There were saffron flowers sprinkled throughout the field and it felt more like spring than fall. There aren't so many maples here, so we don't get the fall colors I'm used to in the US, but the mountains are ALWAYS an amazing backdrop.


When Giulio was just a couple weeks old, we took him to Baladin pub for the first time. Ever since, he's been checking out the pub scene once a week! When we arrive, it's right out of Cheers, everyone says "Hi Giulio! How are you today?"  A little while ago we met up with Alisea with her Mom & Dad at Baladin. Giulio was SO cute, petting Alisea.

Giulio at the Cantina Comunale of La Morra.

On Saturday we went to the Cantina of La Morra for the biannual barolo tasting. Giulio only drinks the best wines! We're VIPs there and Giulio gets lots of cuddles from all our friends at the cantina!

After the tasting we went to the Osteria More e Macine which was recommended to us by our local friends. I had my first pork belly and all the food was really good and we spent less than we had expected!

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL!?!?

Hail to the Redskins, hail victory! 

Braves on the warpath! 

Fight for ol' DC!!!

Top 5 Tips on How to Survive Sleep Regression

sleeping at 4 months old

Ok, so I should have never posted that Giulio was sleeping so well (averaging 9 hours a night) because I jinxed myself ensuring that sleep regression would hit us hard! Around 4.5/5 months, Giulio stopped sleeping through the night. He now wakes up 2 to 3 times a night to eat. There are a lot of explanations for this oh-so-common phenomenon, but this is the one I like best: he doesn't nurse well during the day because he's so easily distracted that he needs to eat at night for the extra calories. Here's an RN's more profound way of saying that. That combined with the fact that he's so big and active, he needs a lot of extra calories and breast milk is mostly water, so he needs to eat OFTEN. Also, he's SO CLOSE to crawling that, just like when he wasn't sleeping to practice rolling over, he's not sleeping well because he needs to practice crawling...

sleeping at 4 months old

Anyway, here are my top 5 tips on how to survive sleep regression.

1. Sleep when the baby sleeps. As crummy and impossible as it is, go back to the newborn schedule of sleeping when the baby sleeps. Hide the pile of dirty laundry, try not to think about the dirty dishes in the sink, and order take out.

sleeping as a newborn in the hospital

sleeping as a newborn

2. Mood lighting! Put some nightlights around the house so you can walk around and go to the bathroom without turning on any lights. Once bright lights are involved, it will be harder for you and the baby to go back to sleep. Do NOT bring phone, ipads, etc into the nursery with you to pass the time while nursing!! That will wake you up just as much, if not more, than bright lights. Don't do it!!

sleeping at 5 months old

3. Rehydrate. Have a bottle of water or sports drink ready to grab after nursing. It just took me waking up thirsty with a dry mouth once to know that I needed to rehydrate after night time nursing sessions. It will help you sleep better.

4. White noise the entire house. Everyone knows white noise helps the baby to sleep, but it can help you sleep too! I get back to sleep so much faster when I have the fan going.

sleeping at 5 months old

sleeping at 2 months old

5. Know that it can't last forever. I'm pretty sure that all babies eventually sleep through the night or at least toddlers/kids/teenagers do...so try to remain positive. And celebrate small victories, for example, I got to sleep 9 hours last night (not in a row, but it felt great just the same)!!

Giulio falls asleep pretty quickly and he naps regularly 3 times a day, so I know as he eats more solids and starts crawling away (requiring even more calories of course) he'll go back to sleeping through the night and I'll get that coveted 8 hours!

sleeping at 1 month old

Half a Year Old!!!

A very merry HALF birthday to my little man Giulio!!! I can't believe it's been 6 months; the time just flies by! As I write this, Giulio's behind me in his jumperoo playing with all the little toys and periodically jumping for joy. Those giant thighs of his must be made of pure muscle, because he can jump really high!

Giulio jump, jump, jumperooing!

So Giulio is the size of the average one year old weighing 22 lbs and measuring 27.5 inches long! Basically he's huge! By the end of the day my arms hurt from carrying him, but he's my sweetie pie baby face and I love carrying him around all day anyway!

ALMOST crawling on the carpet

I don't have a lot of new stuff to report. He's eating a bit of solids and is ALMOST crawling. I really thought I'd be announcing that he started crawling in this post, but he hasn't quite figured it out yet: he can only go backwards.

"Watch as we roll over!"

He loves Olney and just laughs and laughs when Olney barks and whines. The more Olney whines, the more Giulio laughs. Olney's good and let's Giulio pet him sometimes, but mostly Olney just licks Giulio every chance he gets.

Notice what a handful he is!

Oh, and Giulio is loving bath time. Now that he can sit up, he is all by himself in the big bathtub. He can splash and he loves his squirty crab toy the best. Fabri got some great photos the other day while I was giving him his bath!!

Last night Giulio watched his Daddy play soccer for the first time. He's playing in a tournament with the Savigliano hospital and the first game was against the Savigliano police (of who we have many friends including, if you recall, Gabrielle [whose wife just had twins!!])

Oh, one other important new happening, the little man has two little teeth in that mouth!!

5 Months Old!!

The little man is 5 months old. He weighs 21 lbs and is a little bit longer than last month. It's not easy to measure the length of a rolly polly wiggle worm baby!

He can roll both ways and is very close to crawling. He's doing a lot of cute babbling too!

We just started solids this week. So far he likes apple sauce and avocado. Next we'll try pears and, when he hits 26 weeks, vegetable broth with potato, zucchini and carrot!

Zia Giovanna's Wedding

Giulio went to his first wedding last month. 2012 is a wedding filled year! We have 2 surprise friend weddings that come up this fall and then Giulio's Auntie Laura is getting married. Good thing this kid is such a party animal or I might be worried...

We woke up Saturday morning and got dressed in our finest attire. Thank goodness Giulio has a bunch of hand me downs from a family friend, because I never would have bought such a fancy (and cute) ensemble.

We went to the church where Zia Giovanna was dressed in a beautiful white dress and married Zio Paolo who was quite handsome himself.

Then we drove out to the wine hills to a fabulous party. After a brief deluge, the likes of which the Italians had never seen before, we dried off a bit and got right down to celebrating.

Giulio took a brief 20 minute nap, but he did not want to miss out on even a second of the party. He wasn't fussy at all though and was still dancing at 1am when I decided that all little babies should have been in bed an hour ago and we went up to our room.

The next morning we were finally able to see the real beauty of the place Giovanna & Paolo had chosen.

Then there was a party at Ruffia for all the folks that were still in town. Giulio did take a nap at one point, but mostly mingled with the crowd. Fortunately this little man gets along with everyone and all I had to do was feed him and put him down to nap when he got fussy.

Now Paolo is Giulio's REAL Zio Paolo instead of an imposter uncle that only buys presents every other birthday...