Nonna Mariapia's 60th birthday in Venice.

As if this isn't an important enough year with your arrival, it is also the year in which your Nonna Mariapia finishes her 6th decade!

Your mom has been planning for some time a get-together with you, herself, Nonna and your Uncle Matteo and his girlfriend Benedetta. When your grandmother was initially asked where she would like to go, the question very quickly and firmly came back: Venice!

Nonna Mariapia always found Venice to be a magical place, but exactly how special it was to her was only realised after all of you arrived there as you found out that she has bought a house on this ancient island!

 The birthday lunch itself took place on Isola della Giudecca in a restaurant with tables right on the Grand Canal! A fantastic view of the St. Marks bell tower rounded off a perfect setting for celebrating a special occasion, complete with a birthday cake with 3 candles, each representing 20 years!

Over the following days more sightseeing took place, as well as a visit to Murano to look for a chandelier for the new house. Venice already started to feel like home!

The famous St. Mark's square however, only got a fleeting visit since this great city is not exactly the most baby (buggy) friendly with all its steps, cobblestones and canals! However, many future visits are planned, especially around the well known carnival, as all of you get onto the train to Rome 3 days later, for your first journey by rail!

As is now becoming the norm, your second visit to Rome meant lots of visits to friends, but by far the most important was the visit to Valerio and Federico, twin boys of Sabrina and Raffaele and not even a month old! A very nice afternoon is spent with the Costa family and at the end all of the grown ups are again reminded of how fortunate they are to have such beautiful little human beings!

To cap a great trip for you, you experience for the first time food other than milk. A spoon of mashed apricot is met with great surprise by you, only seconds before it is eagerly gobbled up!

Baby Swimming.

Every Saturday is swim day for you, and it seems that you really enjoy it! Most of the time it is you and your dad in the water (apparently he is in charge of the physical education!) with about 5 other babies and the sweet Hungarian teacher. The lessons consist of a series of simple exercises, all accompanied by nursery rhymes sang (badly!) by the group.

The most amazing thing is the submersion bit! First it is a gentle vertical submersion, preceded by a "Iolanda, ready, go!" and down you go beneath the water! This is sometimes followed by lots of spluttering and coughs, but generally you are very good. A step up from this is where the teacher and Heino stands about one and a half meters apart, she submerges you and push you towards your dad who then catches you and bring you above water!

Some of your swimming friends include Edward, Rosinda, Margaret and a little boy that keeps on falling asleep in the water in his mom's arms! Needless to say, to your parents anyway, you are the best of them all!

Fifth Month.

Your greatest achievement of the past month is that you can roll over from your tummy! It is by no means easy, and it goes with lots of little moans, groans and cries, but the look of absolute satisfaction when you've done it is only outdone by the applause from your parents!

But this is not all! You can also sit by yourself for a good few seconds, even a minute or two at a push! This is always in a forward leaning position, and the fight is always either won by gravity or a huge poo! We've come to realise that this position is the optimal position for a loaded nappy.

It is also the month during which you've left your little moses basket behind for your cot. The base is still set at the highest level, but once again you have acres of space to move in, as opposed to the little basket that you've seriously outgrown!

Even the buggy had to be adjusted so that we always take you around in the seat as opposed to the pram basket. No more lying down as little Iolanda wants to see everything and be part of everything around her!

For your mom there was additional fun as well since she finally decided that it was safe to venture out for a night with her friends, leaving you in the care of your dad.
However, it has to be said that there is no improvement on the sleeping front! You still wake up every two hours or so, making night time extremely hard going!

But overall there is more than enough to make up for that! We've taken you for baby swimming, and you seem to enjoy that immensely! You've also finally doubled your birth weight, and to us you are just the most beautiful baby ever!