Colin's first piano recital

Last night was pretty exciting. Colin had his very first piano recital. He only started taking lessons in November, but he seems to really enjoy it. His two favorite subjects in school are math and music. So last night - his big debut! In front of hundreds of screaming fans! Well, actually just a few dozen other parents, and thankfully they didn't scream as they might have been a bit offputting for my son.

The recital began at 8:30pm (on a school night, only in Italy) and Colin was third on the program. It started a bit shaky. The lights go down, the audience settles into their seats, and the first performer is announced, little Annalisa. She didn't even make it out of her seat, she was too terrified to perform. We move on to little Alice, she makes it out of her seat, to the piano, and performs her two little songs, quite well I might add, but with a terrified look on her face, and a few tears slipping down her cheeks. I'm starting to get a bit worried, Colin is a bit shy, and I thought seeing the other 2 little girls his age crumble under the pressure might shake him a bit. But as soon as Alice finished, he popped up from his seat, before they had even called his name, and strode to the piano. He looked so wonderfully happy and confident. He played his 2 little pieces perfectly, with accompaniment from his teacher, and even flashed a smile to the crowd at the end. Marco and I were beaming with pride, truly one of the proudest moments of my life, a night I won't soon forget.

The photo isn't great, but for what it's worth....














I haven't had a chance to post for a while, but as an update, Colin got a cool new bike, and he's loving it.

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.

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.

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?"

The 12 Days of Christmas

Christmas Day may have been the pinnacle of the holidays, but we were busy for the full 12 days of Christmas with lots of activities, starting out with the grandparents and cousins in Turin, and continuing once we returned home. Right after Christmas, we took the children along with their cousins, Benedetta and Giorgio, to visit a royal residence in Turin, not far from Marco's parents, which has recently been renovated, called the Reggia Venaria. They had an exhibition on knights, and the kids really enjoyed it. They had a special "treasure hunt" for the kids - they were given photos of certain objects throughout the exhibit, for example the photo of knight's armour that was made for a 3 year old, and they had to find it, write down the room number, and then if they submitted it at the end, they received a shield. Needless to say, the kids totally ate this up, and the other cool part is that Colin got a book about knights for his birthday from one of his classmates, so when we came home we looked up some of the things we had seen in the book. However, I noticed that the idea of the treasure hunt made them speed through the exhibit, paying more attention to looking for the next item to find rather than taking a chance to look around at all the wonderful objects on display. Once again, I found myself thinking that although my kids are getting older and it is starting to be fun to take them to museums, we still have a long way to go.....

The next day, Marco and I left our kids in the capable and very willing hands of their grandparents to take off snowshoeing in the mountains for a day, along with Marco's cousin's husband, Ernesto. We went to Moncenisio, literally crossing the border into France. We had a nice hike, LOTS of snow, so that was fun, although my legs were so sore by the end. The only problem was that it was VERY windy when we got out of the woods and toward the top of this part of the mountain. We were planning on hiking a little further, to a nice lake, but the wind put the kabosh on that. But the combination of the hiking, all that snow, and the heavy wind took its toll. I was so exhausted when we finished that I literally passed out in the car on the way home. Before we left, we stopped into a nice bar in the town where we had left the car, as the only other person we had seen on the hike was a man who mentioned that his wife runs the local bar. So we stopped to have a tea, and told the woman that we had seen her husband while we were snowshoeing. She was very friendly to us, but left it understood that she was not pleased that her husband had left her alone to take care of a very busy bar during the holidays so that he could have a nice hike in the mountains!

One of our other holiday activities was a trip to "Forte di Bard", about an hour outside of Turin, an old fort that was recently refurbished and reopened, and it was very impressive. They did a wonderful job with the place, adding 4 elevators to take you up to the fort, which sat, as most do, I suppose, high on a hill overlooking the valley. Inside there was one exhibition called "Le Alpi dei Ragazzi" or the Alps for Kids, which taught kids what an expedition on Monte Bianco is like (or Mont Blanc, as we Americans tend to call it, which pisses off the Italians to no end). It was very interactive, high tech stuff, with lots of different types of media. We started out getting our "gear". They had us put on helmets, harnesses, and roped us together on a rope team - Colin was the leader of our rope team. Then they taught the kids how to look up the weather forecasts for the day, using a computer with a webcam of the top of the mountain, then choose a route, using photos of various parts of the mountain, and the kids could decide which looked easiest to hike. Then they "packed" a virtual backpack, choosing from a group of items those that would not be needed for the ascent (cell phone, MP3 player) and those that were necessary (ice pick, crampons, and parmesan cheese - this was, obviously, an Italian expedition up the mountain). There was one part where they were simulating the walk across a glacier, and you had to stay on a certain path, if you stepped outside, there was a sound of breaking ice, apparently to symbolize that you had just plunged to your death in a crevasse. At one point, they took photos of us, and superimposed our faces on the bodies of climbers at the top of Monte Bianco - my kids loved this! There was also another very nice museum about alpine nature there, and once again, Colin kind of raced through that, but Lucia really seemed to get into it.

We headed back home on the 30th, as we had visitors arriving from Turin on the 31st to celebrate New Year's Eve with us - Marta and Alberto and their 2 children, Clara (4) and Paolo (2) came to ring in the new year. We made a big dinner and opened a very nice bottle of wine that Marco had received from work, so the adults ate and drank too much, or perhaps we just ate too much and drank far too little. The kids had a blast, we did some face painting with Lucia's new kits, had a dance party, ate ice cream, and topped it off with a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The kids, in fact, were still raring to go at 1am, when the adults, who were falling asleep on the couch, finally dragged them upstairs. Our guests stayed the next day and night as well, we took them to Bellagio to see the lake, and so that the kids could run around outside and get some fresh air. It was a wonderful visit, and it was nice for us to have some extended time with Marta and Alberto to catch up, rather than just quick visits when we are in Turin.

After that we kind of chilled at home, inviting some friends over to play one day. Marco went back to work on the 4th, but the kids didn't return to school until the 7th (here they always go back after the Epiphany). So I am back at work as well, and already planning our trip to the U.S. this fall.

Christmas 2009

Once again, we had a great Christmas this year. Colin woke up Christmas morning feeling much better and even managed to eat a great big Christmas lunch, after 2 days of fever and eating practically nothing. So right away, Mommy got her Christmas wish. Santa Claus managed to find us in Turin at the Nonni's house, and brought lots of good toys as well.

Colin received a couple of Lego-like construction toys, one is an assault chopper (which we are still working on) and the other is a motorcycle. He also received a 7-in-1 game set, with chess, checkers, backgammon, and a whole bunch of other games I've never even heard of. He also received a flying "bug" as you can see in the photo, which of course we had to test right away that morning outside.


Lucia had a princess Christmas, as Santa brought a Cinderella dress, a princess chalk board, and even "make-up", and she sat down right away to test out the goods.

Santa also left some "tattoos" in our stockings, which we were eager to try out with our Italian cousins. Check out the body art on Colin (one leg has a whale, and the other a lion - which by the way, has still not washed off over a week later), Giorgio has a row of turtles up his leg and an elephant on his arms, Lucia has some flowers on cheeks and butterflies on her hands, and Benedetta has a giraffe on her leg and a horse on her arm.

The main attraction of Christmas in Italy, at least for the adults who received nothing but coal in their stockings, is the traditional Christmas lunch. In Piedmont, the typical pasta is agnolotti, which is like ravioli stuffed with lamb or other meat. My mother-in-law makes it by hand every year, with a vegetarian version of ricotta and spinach for me, and it is always delicious. Of course, there are lots of starters and a second course, finishing up with panettone, or Italian Christmas cake.

We spent the afternoon with the cousins - the children happily played with their new toys, while the adults tried to digest the massive amounts of food they had eaten.

Snow Day

Tuesday was supposed to be the kids' last day of school before the holidays, or rather the last HALF DAY of school, as they were supposed to be excused at noon, and then we were planning on visiting Daddy at his office and having lunch with him. Mother Nature had other plans, and on Monday, she decided to let loose with a snow storm that left about a foot and a half of snow on the ground before it stopped on Tuesday morning. It was already getting bad Monday afternoon, it took me close to an hour and a half to pick up the 2 kids from school and get back home again. I called Marco around 3:30pm and told him he should leave work immediately because it was getting bad. Of course he didn't listen, and when I called again right before 5:00pm, saying that I was just getting home from picking the kids up from school, he took me a little more seriously. Still, he didn't get home until 9:30pm! The next day was obviously a vacation day, and we pulled out all of the snow gear and had some fun in the snow.