long island for a year

One year has gone...so fast. The last two Christmases I haven't been so much into celebrating or decorating. This year my baby boy turns one and this is a very special occurrence itself. And...last year, as you might well imagine, I was very much concentrating on myself and on "how the delivery would be" and - most important - how fast it would be. If you've ever heard stories of endless deliveries - which are very common with first borns - just forget about that. Since I had spent about three hours in delivery room for Carlotta, it was for me quite obvious that it would be faster with the second child. The fast and the furious. I like to start the story with me having the first contraction while drinking tea and eating cookies but I will spare the details because I don't want to upset your stomach after the feasts. Let's just say that Bastian was born 2 hours and 15 minutes after that first contraction and again I got tea and cookies as a treat... The midw...

MERRY CHRISTMAS! My daughter asked a few days ago if Santa was allowed to go to stores and buy everything without going through the cashiers...Smart girl!

On Saturday it was snowing on Long Island, too. This is probably a snow landscape I hadn't seen before, even if there were snowy winters in Venice when I was a kid - and this year too, to tell the truth. Have a look at this ...isn't it amazing? Very beautiful pics of the snow on Long Island were posted by Bill Drago on The Long Island Blog . What am I doing while the snow is still on the ground? Bake cookies: I took the chance to try a recipe I got from my friend Marge. Usually I am very experimental with sweet stuff, which means everything turns out a bit different from expected...and actually I did add a secret ingredient. Still, these cookies will be renamed "Marge's cookies", because I like the idea that there is a person behind every recipe.

Caro XXX c' era un tempo in cui avevo due mani. E due occhi, due orecchie, due gambe...solo per me. Ora niente mi appartiene: qualsiasi cosa io faccia devo essere vigile affinché i bambini non si facciano male, possano essere sazi, riposati, ascoltati... Ecco, anche ascoltare qualcos'altro che non siano i pianti, le richieste o i loro racconti non è semplice; ció che prima davo per scontato, come poter sentire i miei programmi preferiti alla radio, ora appartiene a un passato quasi dimenticato. Dico quasi, perché io - pur affetta da una memoria traballante - non ho scordato in quale particolare circostanza le nostre vite si sono incrociate: ascoltando la radio. Allora, una sera d'estate, ascoltavo musica per consolarmi o per passare il tempo e scrivevo come una dannata per trovare scampo alle mie frustrazioni e per sopportare la tortura che mi pareva allora infinita. Non è ancora finita del tutto ovviamente, sennó non sarei qui a spiegarti. Beh, ti diró che di quella partic...

In a freezing cold December day, after fighting with my daughter who is - if you ask me what's wrong with her - possessed by evil spirits from time to time...I find support in GUESS WHAT? CHOCOLATE I don't necessarily eat kilos of it at once, but I need some. Thanks to the kind people who know me so well and instead of flowers just bring me a bar of dark chocolate (more than 70% cacao that is) as a present. Sorry for those who bring flowers, I like them a lot but it obviously ain't enough to keep them alive. Sigh. Said that, I will post my last Japan pics, those of Shikoku. I wish we had more time to visit this wonderful area of Japan - will there be a next time?I don't know. In the distance you can se the , Seto Ō-hashi bridge 瀬戸大橋 that connects Honshu with Shikoku, namely the beautiful old city of Kurashiki in Okayama-ken and that of Sakaide in Kagawa-ken, stretching for 13 km over five islands on the Seto Sea. If you ever happen to stop here, there is a Kinokun...

una favola per mia figlia

As much as I promised myself NOT to follow the Advent Calendar tradition, as much as I tried to avoid stuffing my daughter with presents she doesn't need, you can be sure that she is having this year too a nice treatment. Which she doesn't deserve, because she doesn't do anything to make ME happy. But is it the role of kids or the role of parents to make one happy? Bet you know the answer. And it's nice to see her smiling face every morning when she gets up - usually she would be in a very bad mood, no matter if she has slept 7 or 12 hours!!! - because she knows there is a small packet waiting to be open by her anxious hands. She really gets small stuff, like Xmas stamps, a colorful soap, small books, stickers... But this year I've got a present too. We. No, me. It's me the "at home" parent, so I am the one using that more often. It's an internet radio, so I can listen to my favorite programs. I love some Italian radio programs. Some. Some I hate....

On Sunday we did make it to the City, managed to find a free parking spot not far from Moma and we enjoyed the Bauhaus exhibit...Carlotta was busy eating her candy necklace and she didn't complain much and Bastian was fine. Visiting museums with kids isn't always a piece of cake - and if you add to it that in winter you need half an hour to get dress, then undress and maybe go to the restroom just when you would like to see the last rooms or the last work of art then it all becomes more a stress than a pleasure. I am very glad though that Carlotta liked at least one of the works of Bauhaus: a stained glass composition of Albers, that is. Well, it was colorful and very pretty and not so strict like many of the other works of art. No, let's don't start a discussion about art, I am trying to think with the mind of a four year old girl. To turn this a bit, I'll tell you about the game she wanted to play yesterday afternoon: she said we were supposed to play "mom w...

I am very bad at counting, very bad in sticking to plans and schedules, in a word...busy mom of two kids. We had a quite intense week, even though we didn't do unusual things. Bastian is very active, which means he tries to walk along any walls, or just crawls away to be found in the most inappropriate places of the house, so whatever I am doing there are interruptions and lot of running around involved. It's fun, but it always seems there is no way to finish what one begins. The weather was also kind of crazy lately, one day you needed to wear just a sweat-shirt, the next day you needed a winter coat, so we had to plan our activities accordingly. Yesterday was a wonderful day, one of those that makes you want to walk along the beach and collect pebbles - how many did I collect in the last months I don't know - but the wind was so strong that in the end I decided to just have a walk in Port Jefferson, which is one of the nicest towns on the North Shore, with a harbor and so...

Two, like two shots against the flu...

December OMG!!! That's my blog-advent calendar. Traditionally, I would have a Xmas Tree... But when I moved to Berlin I had a brilliant idea, look at that!!!For Ralph's happiness.