Reflections

They do it with Barbie in TV!

~ Alessandra

My May girl was about four years old when it became clear to me that if or when children are too quiet there is a disaster looming!

The nonni (grandparents) from Florence were about to come for a visit and I had planned to finish the stenciling I was working on in the entrance hall before their arrival. One afternoon my May girl had a playdate with a little nursery school classmate and they were playing in the garden, just outside the open door near me.

I had been concentrating on my painting progress when I heard…silence! It hit me that there was no noise or girls’ chatter coming from outside.

My little May girl with her somewhat salvaged hairdo, finally asleep after an interesting afternoon.

I poked my head out and, WHAT?! Locks and wisps of my May girl’s shoulder length hair were spread out on the grass and she was sporting a spiky hairdo about a couple of inches from her scalp. Her playdate had brought with her the new ‘cut and style’ Barbie doll and had proceeded to ‘cut and style’ my May girl’s hair with the little pink scissors that came with it; I have to believe with my little girl’s blessing.*

When I finally regained my breath I incredulously asked, “What is going on here?!” “I saw it on TV!” The little girl boldly informed me. “She is NOT a Barbie doll, is she?!!” I exasperatedly answered. “But, the hair grows back! I saw it on TV!”

Silly me! I had forgotten to ask the factory my baby came from to provide hair refills for her like the ones Barbie comes with!

*My little girl didn’t have a mirror while she was being so glamorously ‘styled’; when she finally saw herself you could hear her screams blocks away from us. I thought that either the Police or Fire Department, or both, would show up and I would end up behind bars for child abuse**. I run my little girl to my hairdresser to try and re-arrange her hairdo… as much as it was humanly possible under the circumstances. Don’t forget, her Italian nonni, who hadn’t seen their American nipotini (little grandchildren) for months, where about to visit.

Lesson learn! From then on I wouldn’t stop fidgeting unless there was a ruckus wherever the children were playing, whether it was with playdates or between themselves!

**Now that I re-think about it, a quiet prison cell with a nice book might not have been such a bad alternative to the craziness of that afternoon, and a few others that come to mind…Where is the Police when you need it?!

A tavola non s’invecchia!

~ Alessandra

In older times when food was local and fresh expecting mothers were eating healthy during their pregnancy, which is when fetuses get a sniff of food for the first time. Nursing time provides babies with nutrients and tastes that come from what their mother eats, and babies react to things they get through the maternal milk just like if they had directly ingested the actual food or drink. When our firstborn was a couple of weeks old (he was born the night before his father’s business school final presentation) I celebrated his father’s graduation with a glass of champagne. After the next feeding our baby, who usually demanded to be fed every four hours like a Swiss watch, didn’t wake up for a couple of feedings. It took us, young and inexperienced parents, a little while to understand why that had happened.

If introduced to healthy food during gestation and nursing time, children will more likely be willing to eat vegetables and fruits later on, when they develop their taste, between 4 and 7 years of age. Afterwords it becomes more difficult to introduce them to, or get them to try, new things. That is why it is so important to instill healthy habits in them from the very beginning.

I have found it a good idea to keep children interested in, and involved with healthy food: it encourages them to be less diffident about trying something they don’t know. With only my youngest one left at home while her siblings were in school, grocery shopping was a fun game. Keeping my toddler safely (for my safety, that is!) in the cart, I would ask her to point to a fruit or vegetable and literally run the cart towards what she had pointed at enjoying her giggles (it wasn’t always towards what I had meant to get, but thankfully often close enough…) She would later babble with pride to her older siblings about choosing the ingredients for the meal on the table.

Children love to play with water, and will be happy to wash veggies, while becoming familiar with the food they handle. They like to be asked for help in preparing a meal, which will encourage them to later eat with out a fuss the meal they helped to make.

Young children often have to taste a food several times before they accept that they like it; some patience, most often a great deal of it, from their adults will turn out to be more rewarding than endless stressful and messy battles of the wills!

In Italy there is a saying, “A tavola non s’invecchia!” (We don’t age while at the table!) Life has become so hectic that there is no time for the prolonged meals our ancestors were used to. Still, meal times should be happy times when memories are created, occasions to be enjoyed around the table with family and friends sharing meals nutritionally beneficial to all!

Buon appetito!


Lines and poke dots.

~ Alessandra ~ 1 Comment

After the all male deliveries in my husband family, and our own beautiful little boy, we had managed to brake with tradition and got two baby girls. By the time the first one was in nursery school her brother was dropped off at the big kids school around 8:15 am, while the nursery school’s doors didn’t open until 8:45. We usually spent that lass of time with a special cookie at the bakery and chatting between us girls in the car parked near the nursery school entrance. Once, while waiting in the car my darling May girl declared, “Mommy you have lines on your face!” REALLY?! I was in my mid thirties and until then had never bothered checking my face for lines. My darling daughter must have noticed the shock in my expression because she sweetly added, “Don’t worry mommy, you don’t have as many as grandmother!” PFEW!

The look in those eyes…
So sweet when they sleep!

Then, while both her older siblings were in the big kids school, it was our third child’s turn to wait in the car with mommy until the nursery school’s doors opened. We were looking at our faces on the rearview mirror once, and I was pointing to her the similarities between the two of us, “The same eyes, the same nose…” “But, mommy, not the same skin!” WHAT?! “Why?” I asked her. “Because you have poke dots on your face!”

My bicycle…

In a family of repeatedly just boys I had desired to also have girls. What is it that they say? “Careful what you wish for!” Or, like we say in Italy, “You did want that bicycle, now pedal!“

Aggiungi un posto a tavola!

~ Alessandra
Don’t wait up for us!

After the initial disbelief about not being able to return to the factory his baby sister, although she had been delivered missing the birillino… (see: Papa’ can fix it!), our first born and his new sister fell into an amicable enough relationship. He was protective and sort of possessive around her, and she seemed to trust her brother’s often less than orthodox initiatives definitely more than their elders did, mostly sporting an enthralled cheeky-toothless smile on her face when they were together.

Occasional sleepless nights, chronic exhaustion and the likes aside, we felt blessed and were enjoying our little offsprings when there was another knock at the door. My “I will keep going for the girl!” (see: Gun’s collection.) warning had been taken seriously because after our May girl, the first in my hubby’s family in 73 years, we welcomed another beautiful baby girl!* Add a seat to the table!

*Nope! No birillino, again! The factory must have discontinued them.

Our newest baby got into the groove of things in no time, soon managing to boss around her attentive older siblings who seemed happy to tend to most of her needs and whims at any pointing of her fingers towards what she wanted or wanted them to do for her. Because of that our Goldilocks didn’t need to actually speak for a while, the only word she felt was needed, mastered and uttered with great abandon was NO!

Pretty much the reality of those days…

Our Three Musketeers soon established an alliance that, harmless skirmishes aside, is very deep and strong to these days; to the delight of their elders they truly are each other’s best friends.

Tutti per uno, uno per tutti!
All for one, one for all!

A girl’s first and lasting love.

~ Alessandra

It is probably natural that little boys have a greater connection with their mother and little girls with their father. I actually shouldn’t say little as my father was always a very special influence in my life. Before I was 20 I already thought that I wasn’t going to bother getting married unless I found somebody like him. Our relationship wasn’t all roses and flowers, rose e fiori, like we say in Italy. There actually were times of deep disagreements and grudges, but he ultimately was the person I was trying to make proud of me, not an easy task!

There have been many fun and some awkward episodes concerning the two of us. The first time I had somewhat of a serious boyfriend I put a framed picture of him in my room. I soon noticed that my father didn’t look pleased when looking at that picture and brilliantly resolved to put a larger picture of my father next to the one of my boyfriend. (Daughter/Father Diplomacy Course #001)

One time, when I was around 20, my mom and younger siblings had moved to the country side for the summer while I had stayed in Florence with my dad because of my summer job. My dad and I often went out to dinner those nights. While at one of the restaurants a couple of gentlemen that knew my dad but didn’t know who I was entered and, although they passed right by our table, pretended not to see us. “Who is the young woman with him?”, they surely thought. Boy, gossipy Florence was sure to wake up to yet another juicy story! Too bad my mom knew all too well who the young woman was, and with much laughter, that became another fun morsel of our family folklore.

The girl/father special relationship was again obvious to see when it came to our first baby girl and her dad. The little creature was weeks old when she was claiming her father as her own, period! When their dad was coming home from work her older brother, a toddler, would gambol towards the door and throw himself to embrace his legs to greet him; his baby sister would start reclaiming her father’s attention, not stopping her shrilly remonstrances until he took her into his arms.

To these days she is the one who knows how to wrap her often stern dad around her finger, managing to achieve more of what is on her mind than the rest of us put together. Never underestimate a girl’s influence on her father! And vice versa!

Hurray for my first and most trusted critic! Benji, 22 months.

~ Alessandra ~ 1 Comment
Silence please!
MMMH interesting.

The round cheeked expressions and little body language of my cutest and most trusted critic so far while thoroughly critiquing The Scary Monster are precious! That is what makes me going with passion! Thank you Benji!

Today I feel like celebrating The Scary Monster on Amazon and its critical acclaim sharing with you a deliciously easy summer dessert; don’t we also need some sweetness to finish in bellezza (literally in beauty) our pick nicks, pot locks, and all kind of happy gatherings with family and friends?

Fluffy Pineapple Cake.

What you need for 8-10 people:

One can of crushed pineapples, including their juice

1 box of Angel Cake mix

2 tbs of pine nuts*

*In case of allergies, substitute the pine nuts with dark chocolate chips.

From Celery Charles & Pals.

What to do:

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

In a bowl, pour the Angel Cake mix, the crushed pineapples with their juice, and mix very well.

Add the pine nuts and mix again.

Pour everything in a baking pan and bake until the top is tanned (About 40 minutes)

Extract from the oven and let cool down.

The cake will be ready to eat when it comes out of the pan easily.

You might find that the fluffy cake is delicious with a garnish of strawberry spread, or simply with fresh berries.

‘Ant jam’

~ Alessandra ~ 1 Comment

It is known that the sooner children are exposed to different languages the easier it is for them to learn to speak them effortlessly.

When our first born arrived my english was not the best, yet, and my Italian husband, raised in Italy by his American mother and having already lived in the US through college and a few years of work, seemed to have forgotten some of the correct Italian grammar, like the conjugation of some irregular verbs. No! No! NO! So we decided that he would speak English to the baby and I Italian. Little did we know, at 11 months the little fellow started to speak using both languages at the same time. When he wanted to be picked up he would say, “su-su-up!” raising his arms towards us; to be put back down he would squirm and voice, “giu’-giu’-down!” If he wanted to go back home we would hear, “casa-home“; to call our attention to something he would point and exclaim, “barca-boat!” or “cavallo-horse!“. We often wondered how messy it would be when he started to talk full sentences. To our enormous surprise words eventually fell into place in the right language, which was a big sigh of relief! Children are mysteriously clever from day one!

Those bruised legs say it all!
Not to speak of those eyes…

Anyway, our first little rascal was a might to be reckoned with, a firework of what seemed to be endless and fearless energy. When he wasn’t physically active his little brain was working full throttle (even more alarming!) and he would plunge into all kind of awkward situations. Once after looking for him for a while, my mom and I finally found him in a corner to the back of the house nobody went to; he was sitting on a low stone step fully concentrated on following with his index finger, and squashing, a line of ants on the ground. When asked what he was doing, with a proud smile he answered …”Ant jam!” (DAH!) We then realized that he was actually eating the little critters. Well ants, dirt, organic proteins and who knows what else… he wasn’t going to die.

Thankfully there was never a problem feeding our little fellow more orthodox food. One of the meals his nonna would prepare during the summer was zucchini ripieni, stuffed zucchini; a complete, simple and healthy meal that our busy chap happily devoured to refuel his growing body’s bottomless energy… SOB!

‘Ai miei tempi!’ ‘Back in my day!’…

~ Alessandra

When my siblings and I were growing up in Italy a fat child was a rarity. Families eat healthy, homemade, local food, and thankfully neither the fast food industry nor the internet had taken over yet.

Times have changed, not necessarily for the best when it comes to certain aspects of life. Oh, my! Am I starting to sound like my grandmother? “Ai miei tempi!” (Back in my day!), she used to lament, and I would roll my eyes…

Today fast food seems to be the inexpensive answer to an overly worked household. It isn’t easy to break habits and to see that to eat healthy doesn’t have to be expensive, or require a lot of time. To buy at local farmers’ markets (and they are all over), for example, provides us with the freshest of foods with out the high costs of the big supermarket chains.

But back in my day children also were not sitting for hours in front of television, at the time the closest thing to today’s internet. First of all in Italy we just had a couple of channels that provided few programs addressed to children. In any case our mind was not geared to choose sitting down over playing, especially if we could do it outside.

We were eating healthy, but we also were eating a lot! Aside the main meals, in school we enjoyed home provided snacks at recess, and hefty, very nutritious merende (afternoon snacks) in the middle of the afternoon. How come we weren’t overweight? What we ate fueled the energy we continuously relied on for our active life.

Most of us were engaged in after school activities; swimming, playing tennis, basket ball or soccer, and ballet. It is interesting that when in higher grades our studies became more time-consuming and many of us had to interrupt or reduce our afternoon activities, many of us gained some weight because we continued to eat the amount of food we were eating when we were more active. So, it isn’t just eating the wrong food that causes overweight; sitting for hours in front of a computer, or attached to a cellular, or any other gadget, contributes to it enormously.

Admittedly, though, there are times when a cellular is a godsend! What can you say when, at the restaurant, at the table next to yours sits a family enjoying a peaceful dinner while a toddler plays games with one of the parents’ cellular? How does a toddler even know what to do with a cellular?! (OK, mine is just jealousy, since I am not exactly an authority when it comes to technology.) Trust me, I know what it was like to take a baby to a restaurant and try to have a semi-civilized dinner! After all our keys had disappeared under our table, we used to ask the waiter for spoons to entertain our first born; he would play with one for a blink of an eye, and then throw it to the floor. And we would ask for another. By the end of our meal with our keys and dignity there were heaps of spoons under our table. We didn’t dare showing up to the same restaurant twice! EVER!

Imagination, childhood’s precious play pal.

~ Alessandra ~ 1 Comment

Childhood [chahyld-hoo d] noun: That too short time of our life when we are, or should be, totally carefree enjoying ourself with the help of basic toys and, above all, our imagination!

When in the countryside of Tuscany my siblings and I spent our days outdoor playing with cousins and the neighbors’ children. All we had to enjoy ourselves with were our bikes, a few balls, plastic buckets, shovels and rakes. We didn’t know any better and had the times of our lives!

Then, during their summer vacations, my siblings and I took our children to the same little village in the countryside to visit their nonna, our mother. Our offsprings all lived in technologically advanced places: Switzerland, Honk Kong, Paris, New York. Although they were not given a cellular or gadgets until later they were, of course, of a generation that was used to deal with some form of technology from as early as kindergarten.

Every time the kids first arrived at nonna’s they initially sort of… deflated. There was just nature around them and a TV that showed 4 channels on a good day. We, parents, would keep hearing, “What do we do here?!” Given the lack of alternatives the kids enjoyed riding bikes, playing ball and the simple things we, parents, had played with at their age. Most importantly they were engaging their very fertile imagination to pepper their games!

They played soldiers with a bucket on their heads as an helmet and a plastic rake as a rifle. They played house claiming on trees’ tall trunks, or under the long branches of a majestic Blue Cedar, decorating their nests with pillows from some deck chairs and whatever else came to mind; never forgetting to bring some yummy treat or other with them. They played soccer and run relays on the meadow, and biked along the footpaths bordering the fields. Like we had done years ago, the kids had elaborated funerals for little birds that had fallen from their nests. After dinner they still had the energy to count and chase fireflies.

At the end of the summer, we were taking home healthy, strong, tan and, yes, often bruised but very happy children! Our kids, now teens or in their twenties, have often recalled those summer times at nonna’s as the most magical they have spent, ever!

Blue Atlas Cedar
Merenda on tree trunks.

Imagination is a beautiful gift to have and cultivate. Childhood is when we are free to let it run our play times, turning them into magical moments that uncover part of who we are and future enterprises already budding in out brains.

Today things are different, but children are still children only for a short time of their lives. There are beautiful parks near all of us, places where children can still unleash their imagination while playing with others, and where they can benefit their growing limbs by biking, playing traditional ball games or invented ones, chasing each other on a relay, or playing any other game their imagination inspires. The kids will thrive because of it and will be thankful for it later on, when real life takes over, and they will realize how lucky they were for living their childhood to the fullest.