Italian visitors

Alessandra and her friend Fabio have been trying for months to try and get her good friend, Emanuele, to visit them in London. Finally, after many false alarms and hopes, Emanuele finally managed to get himself onto a plane from Rome for a visit to London over the weekend of 12-13 February. We suspect that the fact that Marzia and Federico, more friends of Alessandra, also visited London on that weekend had a lot to do with persuading Emanuelle to take the big leap!

Since Marzia and Federico visited us already, they will be sleeping at Fabio and Kate's house whilst Zio Emanuele will be braving your nightly cries by staying with us!

Friday after they've arrived, is spent playing with you in your little chair. That night, feeling adventurous, we go to a local pub for a (very quick) drink. 

Saturday afternoon Marzia and Fede go to watch Italy playing rugby against England with Kate and Fabio. Alessandra and Ema spent the morning shopping in Clapham for that nights dinner to which everybody, including Agnese, is invited.

Your Zio Emanuele is a very good cook and he spends all afternoon working his magic on a very typical Italian meal:    Pasta al fume (tomato sauce,cream a bacon), polpettone (a big long meat ball) with salad and a fantastic tiramisu.

It turns out to be a very pleasant evening, apart from little Iolanda absolutely refusing to go to sleep until after midnight! It is for us quite a big shock as we've not struggled this much to get you to bed since your birth and a firm decision is made to start working on a stricter routine from next week!

Ema Ale and Iolanda

On Sunday the end of a very good weekend is celebrated with a Sunday Roast at the Avalon Pub in Clapham South. You are very good and fast asleep for most of it in your pram. This weekend you were immersed in the Italian language. Hopefully you found your mom's lifelong friends worth learning Italian for!

Your passport.

With family eager to meet you scattered all over the world, it is time to start the process of formalising your existence by registering your birth and eventually getting you your first passport. Your dad, used to speedy (not!) African bureaucracy, decides that there is no time to waste as our first family trip to Namibia is planned for the end of March!

Things don't get off to a good start when we are told on the 10th of January that the first available slot to get your birth certificate is on the 7th February! Either a massive amount of babies get born in the Lambeth borough of London, or the process is going to be as slow as feared! This however gives us more time to research the passport situation. In today's multicultural world things are not as easy when it comes to nationality and in your case it is particularly complicated as you are entitled to FIVE different passports: Italian, Namibian, German, South African and British! In the end, after lots of research, we decide that the British option will be quicker and make more sense as you will be growing up in Britain after all. It doesn't stop us from making appointments with the Italian and German embassies as a fail safe though!

On the 7th February we arrive at the Lambeth Town Hall at just after 9 am for our 9.30 appointment. A friendly lady approach us while we wait to help us fill in the forms for your Child Benefit. Yes, you've not done single second's work in your life, but you are going to get paid £20 a week!

After this is done another nice man of Oriental origin shows us to his office and begins in a very efficient manner to complete the necessary paperwork. Just after 10 am we leave Lambeth Town Hall with Iolanda von Wielligh's Birth Certificate!

Now for the passport. Our appointment at the Victoria Local Passport Office is on the very next day and for the last month or so Heino has been struggling to get all the necessary paperwork and evidence together. As your parents are European and not British passport holders, one of them have to provide evidence of employment over the last 5 years. With your dad's superior filing system this responsibility fell on him!

Not superior enough it would seem! Tuesday 8th February starts very early again with us in the queue at the passport office and after quite strict security checks, we are facing a (nice enough) young man who is inspecting Heino's paperwork in minute detail. He is not interested in seeing you, all cute and gurgling in your little chair, at all and at one point even says that it was not necessary for us to bring you! What he is interested in is the fact that there are a few months of Heino's work history over the last 5 years missing. And no, it doesn't matter that there is a letter of employment, contract and bundles of payslips!

Three days and numerous phone calls later Heino is back in the passport office with copies of the missing paperwork! Luckily he also managed to find the first German passport issued to him as the official (quite understandably!) wanted to have prove that this person born in Namibia is in fact a genuine German Citizen! Fortunately everything is in order this time and after he paid the (non-refundable) £110 fee, there is nothing left than to wait!

And a surprisingly short wait it turned out to be! After the application was submitted on the 10th February, a quick phone call on Monday 14th informs us that the passport is ready for collection. Still disbelieving, Heino decides to put it to the test and at 6pm that night he collects what must be the first United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland passport issued to a Von Wielligh!

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Nonno Gianfranco's visit.

You've met your grandpa, Nonno Gianfranco, for the first time just after you were born. However, he could not resist to visit you again just after your the end of your first month. We suspect it is also a check up on whether you are growing well or not, and also how your parents are doing with this great new adventure!

He immediately notices that there are quite a few changes. You open your eyes much more than when he last saw you, and overall you are more alert. To help you along on the journey of life, he personally selects quite a few classical songs on the online playlist we've created for you. This is massively helpful as it has to be admitted that neither of your parents are particularly talented when it comes to music!

To round of the first night of his visit, we celebrate the passing of your first month with a small cake. You however, know none of this as you are already fast asleep in your Moses basket!

We continue the exploration of first experiences with your first journey on the tube. This is to take you (joined by your mom's friend Ruth) for your first visit to a museum, the Imperial War Museum near Elephant and Castle. As can be expected you are not too interested in the various displays of tanks, cannons, planes and even a massive V2 rocket fired at London by the World War 2 Nazis!

Valuable lessons were learned though. First of all was the realisation that London is not very accessible by anything that is not propelled by its own two legs! Your buggy has to be carried by hand up and down various flights of stairs to get up to streetlevel again. Secondly is that excursions have to be carefully planned around your feeding time, as the shellshocked bus passengers found out when you, at full voice, started to demand your lunch!

All in all it was a very good weekend. Your nonno was very happy to see you again, and your parents started to learn how to go about normal life with their most precious piece of luggage by their side!

 

First month.

                                                                                                                                                    

And so on the 4th February 2011 we reach the end of your first month... and what a month it's been!

Your daily activities are quite basic, and not so numerous, but it is not to say that it does not fill the day! It is a general routine of breastfeeding, changing (which you absolutely hate!), some time kicking about on your play mat on the living room carpet and then it starts all over again. Within this cycle you tend to change from a peaceful, adorable little baby to a very loud, crumpled face but still adorable little baby!



Beautiful, peaceful little baby girl...



Screaming little monkey!!



Despite this you are generally quite good, and slowly but surely we can see how you are developing. Throughout this first month your weight has gone from your birthweight of 3.250kg down to 3.080 kg, up to 3.190 at 22 days and finally to 3.40kg at one month old. Your mom is still resolutely sticking to keeping you on breastfeeding alone, despite Heino's regular pleas for the mercy of a formula bottle!





You are the size of two books!



But the month has also been full of things outside of your normal routine as well. Loads of people stopped by to visit you and you and your mom has attended our National Child Trust (NCT) group's weekly meetings to catch up with our new friends who all recently had babies. Various trips to health clinics, midwifes and the hospital have confirmed that you are doing well and is generally very healthy. To top it all off you've had your first vaccination which should hopefully guard you against something nasty called TB!



NCT: Isabelle and Charly, Rachel and Kitty Bee.



And so after a month full of firsts (not forgetting your first bath!) we look forward to the month ahead. Registering your birth, getting a passport and a trip to Italy is all planned but who is to say what the month will hold. For now we are just celebrating the miracle that is Iolanda, and savour every minute that we spend with you!



In the living room on my play mat.



On the changing table, not my favourite place!



My first bath!





Out and about on the London buses.