Sunday, February 28, 2010

Ode to Joy

Colin started taking piano lessons in November, and he really seems to enjoy them so far. His school has a nice after-school program with several teachers, covering various instruments, and he goes once a week for 30 minutes. We purchased a little keyboard for him to use for practice at home, as we weren't sure how interested he would be or how long it would last. Of course, he may decide next week that he hates it, but so far, he is really excited.

He arrived home from school on Wednesday, and he had his music class that day (the one that is part of the regualar curriculum, not the piano class). He was all excited because they had learned a new note that day, eighth notes. For those of you drawing a blank on this one, these are the ones that are attached together at the top with a little bridge going across two notes. In fact, I had to look up the translation for it online, as he only knew the term in Italian!

Anyway, he was excited about learning a new note, and he wanted to show me what they look like, so he got a piece of paper, drew a musical staff, and drew a series of eighth notes. Then he got into it, and drew a bunch of other notes, and said, "Mom, I made a song! I'm going upstairs to play it!" He may be a few years behind Beethoven, but I was still very proud.

This afternoon we were practicing his piano lessons, doing the songs that his teacher had assigned as his weekly homework. And one of the songs that he was assigned was the first few bars of "Ode to Joy", using just one hand. I was telling him that this was one of the most famous songs in the history of music, and after we had finished, we put it on the stereo. We listened to it, and I was explaining to him that it started out a bit slower, with just the strings, but things got "happier" and the other instruments joined in. I was explaining that all of the instruments of the orchestra were playing the exact notes that he had just played upstairs and when it all came together, it sounded like this. He was fascinated, completely excited that he knew how to play this famous song. He spent the next 15 minutes running and dancing around that house, "singing" the notes. Ode to Joy, indeed.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

White week

We just returned from our first "settimana bianca" or "white week" as a family. It is an Italian tradition to take a week off in the winter to go skiing in the mountains, and we decided to take our little ones for their first foray into the wild world of skiing. We stayed at a friends' house in La Thuile, which is on the border with France, and our friends from London, Patsie and Tom and their 2 children, Nessan, 17, and Dervla, 15, joined us. They have been making a tradition of white week during their children's mid term break for the last 5 years.

We enrolled them from Monday through Friday in a ski school which lasted for 2.5 hours every morning, which gave Marco and I a chance to hit the slopes for a short while. The kids were divided into various classes depending on their level, and ours were obviously at the beginner level. They were given yellow vests to wear with their names on them to signify their class. There were about 30 kids in the class, with 3 teachers...quite a group. La Thuile is popular with the British for ski vacations, so the majority of the kids were English, which Colin and Lucia really enjoyed. They had a special kids area at the bottom of the slopes, and the group stayed there for the first 3 days, practicing "snow-plowing" down a little hill, with the help of a "moving walkway" to take them up back up again. Afterwards Colin would talk about how he wasn't able to snowplow "at ALL, Mom" and that he fell "every 2 seconds". But, being Colin, he had a smile on his face as he said this, and was always happy to go back. Lucia was not quite as excited in the beginning and the first couple of days I had a tough time getting her to release her death grip on my leg and go off with the other children. Usually she was fine until, inevitably, one of the other kids would start crying and screaming "Mommy", and then I would look down and the big tears would start rolling down her cheeks. But by the 3rd day, she was okay.

On the 4th day, they took the children on 2 chairlifts up the mountain, and did some skiing on the beginner slopes at the top of the mountain. Colin was so excited to go up the chairlifts, even though I had no idea how 3 teachers were going to manage 30 children on chairlifts that seat only 4 people at a time. I decided it was better not to dwell on that. When I spoke with the teacher at the beginning of the day, he had said that they were headed for the ski school at the top of the mountain for hot chocolate. When we met the children at 12:30, Lucia immediately marched up to me to report that the hot chocolate had never arrived. Obviously these instructors did not understand that when you promise Lucia chocolate, you'd better deliver!

Friday was the last day, and I spent 20 minutes watching the kids doing their thing, and I have to say, I was impressed. Neither Colin nor Lucia fell on any of the 4 descents down the little slope that I saw. Colin didn't look like he was 100% in control of his snowplow, but he is getting there. Lucia on the other hand, made sure that she took the path of least resistance down the slope, going off to one side that was not as steep and meandering slowly down.

But it wasn't all hard work, we spent a couple of afternoons sledding, to give our tired leg muscles a rest.

As for Lucia's hot chocolate, right down the street from the house we stayed in there was the most amazing chocolate shop I have ever been in. We stopped in a couple of times for hot chocolate, the Italian version, which is literally melted chocolate, thick as mud, that you have to spoon in your mouth rather than drink, truly one of my favorite parts of winter, and this shop did it up right. On the last afternoon, we stopped in for a chocolate fondue that was heavenly.

We had a great time with our friends from London as well. Nessan and Dervla are always wonderful about playing with our children, who adore them. It always amazes me that 2 teenagers aren't completely disgusted at the idea of playing with 2 little kids, but they seem to enjoy it, and it gives Mom and Dad a little break at the end of the day.

All in all, we had a wonderful little vacation, and the kids are already looking forward to going back next year.














Monday, February 1, 2010

THE SOUND AND THE FURY

Last Monday, Lucia had another of her temper tantrums - a sort of a nuclear explosion of anger, complete with screaming, pounding on the floor, walls, doors, usually a good 45 minutes of pure, unadulterated rage. I have tried everything to deal with them, ignoring them, timeouts, taking away privileges, etc., but nothing seems to really calm her down. And it is really hard to ignore, because I can't get away from her, she follows me around the house, screaming and crying at the injustice she is having to endure. Colin and I usually just have to put up with her until she runs out of fuel for her fire. She is very contrite after one of her breakdowns and realizes that she has behaved unacceptably, but that doesn't stop her from having another one a few days later.

The reason for Monday's tantrum? I had done the unthinkable - told her that she must wash her hands before she helps me prepare dinner. Obviously I ask her to do this every time she helps with dinner, but for whatever reason, Monday it was just too much to abide. The tantrum started out with her screaming, "I DON'T WANT TO WASH MY HANDS!!!!!" But after about 10 minutes or so, it had shortened to "I DON'T WANT TO !!!!!!", which is usually the indicator that she doesn't even remember why she is screaming anymore, but since she is on a roll at that point, she is going to keep going.

As I was doing my best to ignore her during this latest paroxysm, I first thought that I would tell her she wouldn't be allowed to sleep with Colin on Friday night. Her favorite part of weekends is that she is allowed to climb into Colin's bed and the two of them chatter away until they finally pass out. Obviously, this is a no-go on weeknights, as they would never make it to school the next day. So my first instinct was to yank this privilege. However, it was only Monday night, and for a five year old, a punishment that doesn't go into effect until five days later is really not a deterrent. Then I hit on a better idea, I told her that she was going to bed at 7:00pm, an hour earlier than usual, and that Colin would be allowed to stay up, as he had not had a tantrum. I figured that this was especially brilliant as the real source of the problem is usually that she is overly tired. As I said, she is usually quite contrite following one of her outbursts, and I have to say, she accepted her punishment with as much grace as she could muster. The next evening after dinner, she even pointed out to me that she had not had a tantrum all day.

Colin, on the other hand, is a much more serene child. He generally does not explode in a frenzy of wrath of fury. However, he has his moments. Usually they start out by him shouting some syllable that expresses his anger, like "ARRGGHHHHH!! Then he stomps out of the room, throws himself on the couch and cries for about 10 minutes and then it is all over. Amateur stuff, in Lucia's eyes. Well, Sunday morning, he had one of his fits, and Lucia, never one to let an opportunity pass by, asked me, "Are you going to send Colin to bed at 7:00 tonight?"