Parties, Parties, and More Parties!

A weekend of parties was a glaring success. And not too hot either. I was far too busy to take any pictures, so thanks to Lih-Lan for this one of Angelina.

We had the kids party in the afternoon, with assorted kids of assorted ages. The bounce castle was a HUGE hit, as was the kiddie pool and sandbox. I now have sand all over the house.... Angelina had tons of fun. My favourite moment was the birthday cake (which said "Happy Birthday SuperNina*) the look on her face when she realized everyone was singing for her was priceless. She's heard it before, but it still makes her soooo happy.

We had a short transitional period and then the rest of the party began - we invited everyone without kids for the evening, and those with kids to stay, but it also gave a chance for those who weren't really into the evening thing to leave early. For this we joined forces with our neighbors - now that we have a gate, it's so easy. And then their neighbors also opened their gate, so it turned into a 3-house party. They had a band and dunk tank which was tons of fun. It was also 7 yr old Wiley's birthday party, so there were a ton more kids who showed up at night. Our house ended up being the more kid-oriented side and also a somewhat quieter pocket for those to talk, while the grown-ups centered around the band, with the bigger kids in the dunk tank. It was a mass of kids and people wandering around, and at one point very chaotic, but everyone had a great time.

We followed up the next day with another birthday party, this one for 5 yr old Lily. It was a pool party which was just perfect!

Now I'm done with birthday parties for awhile....

(the cake decorator called, unsure of the spelling for "superNina" - apparently she thought it was supposed to say "superNINJA")

More Happy Birthday Time

Angelina's birthday party is a little late this year due to trying to coordinate with neighbors and not overlap with too many other birthday parties. We decided to do a join Annual Summer Bash + Angelina AND Wiley's birthday party. Smart me thought we'd have an afternoon "kids" party so all the adults without kids wouldn't feel obligated to participate in the kid-party or bring her a present. So now, we have TWO parties: one in the afternoon and one in the evening. All the afternoon families are invited to the evening (and everyone's welcome to the kid part if they want to), but it still means planning for two parties in one day, which is a lot of work! Food for kids. Food for Grown-ups.

We'll have a bounce castle and the kiddie pool. Our neighbors will have a dunk tank and live music. And we'll both have more food and drink than we can handle. And have I mentioned it's been 100F+ here lately?

As for Angelina, she thinks her birthday lasts forever. Thanks to packages arriving from assorted friends and family across the globe, we keep finding boxes on our doorstep. Excited child she is, she was even thrilled when the coffee we ordered arrived. She picked up the box and kept saying "My present! My present!" not wanting her to be disappointed I explained it was coffee for Papa. No.....it was a present for her. She opened it and exclaimed "Wow! For me!" (it is colorful)

Yesterday I went grocery shopping for the party, and came home with things like punch. Conversation ensued:

Angelina: "Mommy, open it!"
Me: "No, honey, it's for the party."
Angelina: "My party?"
Me: "yes, your party is on Saturday."
Angelina: "Happy Birthday to you" (singing.....) followed by her "blowing" - like she was blowing out candles.

Needless to say, she's excited.

Live in the Moment

A friend of mine posted this. I felt it was too good to not post here - as a reminder to myself, especially as a new baby arrives and our lives become an even bigger adventure.


All My Babies Are Gone Now
By Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow, but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education -- all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations -- what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the "Remember-When-Mom-Did" Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language -- mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that here.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

A Very Special Day

In addition to celebrating her birthday on our last day in Switzerland, Angelina got to spend extra time with Granpapa. Though she'd visited him nearly every day, and entertained him in his hospital room and later rehabilitation room, this was the first day he went out on a wheelchair outside since entering the hospital more than 3 weeks before.

Of course, she wore him out, but then she usually wears all of us out.




Le famille Allegrini and Ferrari

Making friends with Ton Ton Phillippe

To fully appreciate this, you have to realize that this took 2 weeks to occur. Angelina is super friendly and talks to everyone. With kids, she will take their hand without hesitation, like she's known them forever. With adults, she's friendly - saying hi - but keeps her distance.

Each time we saw Phillippe, he'd try to get Angelina to be friends. She was having none of it. She'd shy away from him (and all adults pretty much, except Granpapa whom she saw weekly on Skype so "knew" better).




The morning we were leaving, Phillippe met us at the airport. Fredo had gone off to return the car so it was just Angelina and I with him at first. Suddenly, they became best friends. She was no longer interested in Papa, she only wanted to hold Ton ton's hand as we strolled through the airport.

A little bedtime reading with Papa

and a little piano playing.....
She loved Granpapa's piano and wouldn't stop "making musique"


(Marcel, I promise she wasn't playing with her feet. She put her foot up there just as I took the picture, but took it right back down!)

Happy Birthday To Me

Angelina is having the birthday that never ends. Thanks to friends and family scattered all over, new presents keep arriving.

Nanny sent her a bunch of dresses. She calls this one her "Happy Birthday Dress."


We also had a birthday party the day before we left Switzerland:



She of course loves presents, what kid doesn't?


Our problem now is how to teach her that she shouldn't expect presents every day, and not to be greedy about it? She's grateful at least. Somehow we'll figure out how to make a big deal out of her birthday (which I think is justified, since every one needs one special day per year) without making it all about presents.

A visit to the Aquarium

This is a little out of order. Back in May we took a trip to Corpus Christi, desperate to see the beach. Due to a rainy morning we went to the Aquarium, which was well worth it. We saw all sorts of sea life and got very well splashed by dolphins.

Happy Birthday Mundie Pie!

From this......


To SuperNina!


You can already see in her eyes in that first picture that despite the trauma of birth, how strong-willed our Angelina was destined to be.

I still get emotional on July 3. I wonder if that will always be the case? Three years ago our excitement of labor starting turned to fear once she was born and later to joy when we brought her home.

Three years later, this child, whom most of the medical professionals didn't think would survive, is more full of life than just about any child imaginable. She's the kind of person who lights up a room just with her presence (sometimes that's not a good thing.....like when you'd like her to be just a little bit quiet). But we remind ourselves that it was this vivaciousness, this fighting spirit, this strong will that got her through those first weeks. I will forever be grateful to that spirit (and to the many medical professionals who helped her through those rough first weeks).

Happy 3rd Birthday SuperNina!

I've created a clone

On our next to last day of "vacation" (which was anything but), we went to Lac Neuchatel on the boat. It was stormy in the mountains but the east side of the lake was stunning. Angelina loved going fast on the boat "Faster Papa! Faster!" and of course swimming. Fredo took us to his favourite places from his childhood and Angelina played in the water (in various states of undress, of course). One thing that became very clear in seeing my water bunny, is that she's a clone of Papa. There's no question. I wonder sometimes if I contributed any genes?

Riding the trains

Trying to have some holiday time amidst the vacation that turned out not to be a vacation at all, we took Angelina to Swiss Vapeur Parc> Friday (which also happened to be our 5th wedding anniversary). It's located waaaaay on the other end of Lake Geneva (Lac Leman), just on the border with France, in a valley surrounded by Alps.

The scenery was of course stunning, and though it was cloudy and rainy in Vaud, this area was spectacularly sunny and beautiful that day. And very importantly, there were KIDS. Angelina NEEDS kids. Not a day goes by where she doesn't say "Mommy, I need to go to kids!"

Since it was towards the end of the school year, all the school kids were on assorted field trips. Didn't make it too hectic though, and Miss Social Butterfly made a new friend: a little American-Swiss girl, about to turn 7, was visiting with her American mom and started up a conversation. Soon Angelina wouldn't leave her side. Good thing the little girl was as enamored of Angelina as she was of her.

She had a blast on the trains. There's only two trains and one track, fairly long rides but after a few times the grownups get a bit tired. Not so the kids. She wanted to go over and over and over again. Her favourite thing is to go through the "caves." This is what she calls tunnels. She LOVES them, both with trains and in the car. More on caves/tunnels later. All in all, a great day.

Nasty, horrible bees

Last Sunday, Angelina stepped on (or at least, disturbed) a bee. The bee, of course, responded as it would and stung her in the ankle. With much terrorized screaming I quickly pulled the stinger out and flicked it away. Apparently not far enough because it landed on my arm and gave me a small reaction....

As for Angelina, some anti-itch stuff seemed to calm her down. We watched it for awhile. No problem.


Last night, Fredo noticed her foot looked swollen in the sock. Now, in the morning I put her socks on and her feet were fine. I did notice later in the day her crocs were tighter than normal, but just figured that was the thicker socks. Well, we took off the sock and see this




Knowing how badly we both react to stings, and given how small her body is, we didn't want to take any chances and took her to the ER. She's got an infection but it appears slight. However they gave her some cortisone cream and some oral antibiotics. These pictures were actually taken tonight, 24 hours later. It looks to have improved somewhat, but I'm not that happy about it....

She's fine. No more fever, and unless you touch her foot, you wouldn't know there was a problem. Which is part of the problem. She needs to keep it elevated to get the swelling down. Now how do you get a very active almost 3 yr old to stay still??? DVDs are working for a little while, but not long. Oh, and ice packs would be good. How does one get an ice pack on a squirming child????

Update: We're now on day 3 since the reaction started, 10 days after the sting. The hives and redness have decreased, but it's still really swollen and itchy and hot. Doesn't look like she has a reaction anywhere else on her body, which is a good sign, though the first day she had some spots on her trunk. Don't think those were hives and they're gone now. She woke today really cranky, which we can't tell if it's pain due to the sting/reaction or just general Angelina crankiness ;)




Update June 29: It's now been just over a week since this reaction started, 2 weeks since the sting. On Thursday it was looking worse: more swollen, more red, and she couldn't walk on it. So we went back to the Swiss ER...at first the nurse suggested she needed IV antibiotics, but I said no way. It wasn't infected, she had no fever, what she really needs is an antihistamine (not available OTC there). The doctor came in and agreed it wasn't likely an infection, just a severe allergic reaction. However she recommended a splint to prevent her from walking on it. It seemed counter-intuitive to me to wrap it up and put an extra weight there, but it did keep her off it for a couple of days, which seemed to help. We returned on Sat for a follow-up and by then it was looking better. Still not very nice, but the swelling had decreased substantially in the leg (still in the foot), and the hives were mostly gone: still red and itchy and blistery, but not so widespread. We returned today to the US, and though it doesn't look pretty, it does look mostly healed. Phew!

Nurse Angelina

GranPapa was in the hospital for his birthday, so we took him a dessert, sang happy birthday and brought a festive atmosphere. Angelina of course, twirled around and sang.

After everyone else had left and we were about to go, he got sick. Probably too much sweet stuff. We didn't manage to get anything to catch it fast enough, so Fredo and I both grabbed a bunch of paper towels and started cleaning him up while we waited for the nurse. Angelina, not missing a beat, went to the bathroom, got more paper towels, brought them over to GranPapa and started helping.

She didn't hesitate, she didn't say "ewwww!" she didn't run scared from the room. Nope, she said "Granpapa's not feeling well. Here's some towels." We finally had to tell her that was enough towels :)

I am rather proud of her. She can be incredibly sympathetic when she wants to be :)







and silly too. She's been having fun dressing up in Granpapa's clothes.





And playing with cousins

Fun with Cousins

Super Nina!

Mommy says "You're my big girl!"

Angelina responds: " I'm not big gril. I'm SUPERNINA Mundie Pie!"


I guess it's from watching superhero cartoons at daycare, but sometime back she started calling herself "Super Nina!" raising her arms and cheering.


About Mundie Pie: One day we were playing and she decides we'll role play. I'd be her and she'd be me. So she keeps saying something about "mundie pie." "Come here mundie pie! Let's play mundie pie!" I thought it was some sort of game. Finally I realized: Mundie Pie = Honey Pie, which I call her often. I didn't think I called her it that much, but apparently I do, as it's stuck in her head.

Summer Days

Swimsuits Optional
She is clothed here, but that was only after I insisted....

Angelina has a fondness for nakedness.....

A common weekend occurrence: She's outside playing. She sees Wiley and Felice. They decide they're hot and want to get into the kiddie pool. While Wiley and Felice get their swimsuits on, Angelina rips off whatever she is wearing and climbs in.

Mostly I don't care, except for the potential for sunburn (and poop - she's not quite potty trained, almost but not there yet, so I insist on a swim diaper).

I do wonder if she'll ever develop a sense of modesty or will just prefer to run around with as little on as possible. At least she's having fun in the pool!

Her friends

Every night we have a ritual, or at least it seems that way. Angelina lays down in bed. Then the following conversation ensues:

"Mommy, where's Mouse?"

I go get mouse.

"Mommy, I need Tiger."
I go get tiger.

"Mommy, where's Baby Jaguar?"
I go get baby jaguar.

"Mommy, I need Teddy Bear."

I go get Teddy Bear (which by the way, happens to be mine from c. 1975)

By now I've wizened up, and get Buggy Bug too.

Only now she decides she wants another "friend" she normally doesn't ask for - cow, or rabbit, or something that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

You may ask why don't I always just keep these in bed with her? Well, I do. At least I try to. But there are the mornings she says "Here Mommy, take my friends to the kitchen for me. Please." and hence I dump them in the basket. But sometimes they must sit at the table. Sometimes they sit on the couch. Sometimes they're in odd places. I do try to remember to take them before we get into bed, but I seem to forget too often.

This, from the kid who for the first 1.5 years of her life could care less about any of the gazillion stuffed animals people gave her. Now she has a whole zoo.



And now for the Bad Mommy Confession:

I always swore I would never be one of those parents who park the kid in front of the TV for a babysitter. And for close to two years it wouldn't have worked anyway, as she wasn't at all interested. Well, one day I bought some DVDs (we don't actually have broadcast or cable TV anyway, we just have DVDs). And, well, I confess now to occasionally parking her in front of the TV so I can make dinner, take a shower, have a moment's peace. I do actually do all these things with her much of the time, but there are some times when it doesn't work and I turn to Dora (tho now, she doesn't care about Dora, it's Tasha and Tyrone, the Backyardigans, or Monsters or Calliou).

And for my even bigger confession: we are both really insistent on family meals. Meals are spent at the table. No TV. Well, except when Frederic is out of town or out playing volleyball. See, that's when I usually resort to the TV babysitter to make the dinner. And then, well.......I get lazy. AND she EATS EVERY SINGLE THING (which is a rarity at the table). Now, I've only let her eat in front of the TV a handful of times. This is not a common occurrence, so I'm not that bad of a mommy, right?

Sometimes you do what you have to do....

The World

I try to keep this blog about Angelina, or our family, but sometimes the real world enters in and can’t be ignored.

Twenty years ago I was a 19 year old college student studying International Relations, watching world events unfold everywhere, but particularly in China. At the time I had no great fascination with China, but it could hardly be ignored. Chinese students, my generation, kids the same age as me, were doing what is often done in a free country: demonstrating; performing civil disobedience as a means to protest. College students around the world offered our solidarity. But little else.

On June 4 what all feared but still seemed like a total shock, armed troops opened fire on Tiananmen Square. On the morning of June 5, I sat with 2 friends at Café Roma in Isla Vista, drinking my Giant Cappuccino, eating my baguette (as I did nearly every Sunday morning in college….) reading every single page of the New York Times discussing the events. We talked about it for weeks. And then…..we had finals. And we moved on.

What I don’t think I realized then, and has taken me 20 years and a lot of international travel to fully appreciate, is that I could sit in that café, freely discussing the events, I could protest if I wanted and most likely not have to fear for my life, while my Chinese counterparts were losing theirs.

I wonder now if faced with such a situation 20 years ago, could I have had the courage to stand up? And it wasn’t just students, as this article points out, Rickshaw drivers, bus drivers, the poor, they too had the courage to stand. I know I could not today, being a mother, I’ve made a commitment to my child to never do anything to put myself in harm’s way, unless it’s entirely to protect her. But could I have then? I doubt it.

Do I want to think Angelina will have such courage? No. I want to think such courage will never again be necessary for anyone in the world.

Unfortunately, though, as we already saw two years ago in Burma, and today there as well, such events are likely to happen again and again. And as we see in China today, it didn't make much difference.

So instead, what I hope for Angelina is the ability to make a difference. Not by putting herself in harm’s way, but by always seeking to understand what is happening in the world. And then to act in an appropriate and useful manner. I hope we can teach that to her by our own example.

The NYT has been running a number of stories, including reflections on the famous tank photo, which yielded another fascinating story.




On a more personal note, June 1989 also marked a tragedy for my family: our brother Albert died later that month. It’s hard to believe it’s already been 20 years since that he’s been gone. He left a legacy of sorts. One I hope provides valuable lessons to our next generation.

Dora? Who's Dora? Give me Monsters!

Angelina has a love affair with Monsters. Well, it's mostly love with occasional fear. Papa and she always play at being Monsters, which usually involves a towel over their heads and stomping around the house saying "I Am The Monster!" Of course when Mommy does it, she says "No, Mommy. Not like thaaaat!"

Apparently I'm not a very good monster.

Since she likes playing monsters so much, Frédéric wanted to get her the film, Monsters, Inc. He put it on, she settled into her favourite chair, I sat down not really paying attention. Note, I've never seen the film.

Suddenly I hear this bloodcurdling scream like I've never heard before. She was shaking, terrified, her heart was racing. I ranted about "What Papa buys this movie for a 2 yr old?!" He assures me it's funny. Really. Puts it on again (against my judgement) but sits with her.

The result? She loves it. In fact, she loves it so much we've watched it 1,294,865 times. Ok, not really, but if she had her way she'd watch it that much. I limit it to no more than 2x/weekend (and usually not during the week). And that's pretty much all she watches.

She could care less about Dora and Diego now. Who needs them when you can have the big blue monster Sully?

The downside is that though she's not really afraid of monsters, now she thinks about them all the time and goes to bed dreaming of monsters...

Funny Girl

This morning Angelia woke up in a panic, running to me calling "Mommy! Mommy!" like the world was about to end. I ask her what's wrong and she's too upset to say. Instead she leads me slowly to her bedroom. The door is slightly ajar. I wonder if Chakapu is behind it (who sometimes scares her) or a monster (she has this love/fear relationship with monsters now).

I slowly open the door wider.

She points to the floor almost in tears she's so nervous.

It's her sippy cup. Must have fallen off the bed, startled her awake and scared her.

So I pick it up, tell her it's her sippy cup. It's all ok.

She handles it gingerly. "Sippy Cup! There you are!" (I wish you could hear her voice of wonder and amazement)

She crawls back into bed, but I say it's time to get up and have breakfast. So she puts her sippy cup on the ledge, crawls out of bed, and says "Bye bye Sippy Cup! I'll be back soon." in her most endearing-I'm-sad-to-leave-you-alone voice.