Eighth Month.

Continuing the habit of celebrating your months in new countries, you see out your eighth month in France.

It is a month during which you've desperately tried to crawl. It started by you pushing yourself forward from sitting onto your tummy, and for the first few weeks you actually moved backwards! Eventually you got the direction right, but it is still just a shuffle around the living room floor. Staying on all fours is still just that bit too difficult!

Another new development is you shaking your head vigorously from left to right, most of the time with the widest possible smile! This little action clearly makes you very happy.

Solid food is now well established, to the point where you don't need any breastfeeding during the day anymore. Night time is still where the problem lies though, and the good progress we've made in Finale over the summer holiday is all but gone!

Then, on the 28th August, we notice first sign of a little tooth! This is a big event as it follows months of furious dribbling and of course speculation about when the first appearance will be. Could it be that it is because of this that the night time routine has gone backwards?

Holiday in France.

The little intrepid baby Iolanda is continuing her world tour by visiting her 5th country in just eight months! This time it is France on the itinerary and we are looking forward to a short break with some very good friends.

Kate's (wife of Alessandra's friend Fabio from University) family owns a large, beautiful countryside house near the town of Cahors and she invited an Italian contingent for a week of sunshine, good wine and lots of relaxing by the pool! Included in the group are Anna, Paulo, their 18 month old son Flavio and of course Emanuele.

The week is every bit as relaxing as promised with visits to the local farmers market, long walks in between swims and of course lots of Italian cooking. You are a bit sceptical of Flavio's show of affection as a nice caress always ends up as a soft slap! He calls you Danda, a name that we think suits you and that you might hear again once or twice!

Unfortunately your dad can only stay for the weekend, however your mom continues to make the most of her free time during maternity leave!

Seventh Month.

The first half of your seventh month is spent in Finale Liguria, Italy, on your first beach holiday. Apart from the fact that it is a beach holiday, we've all enjoyed this time immensely since it is the first time that you've started to sleep 7-8 hours per night!

As you developed over the months, you've become ever more friendly and it is now with lots of smiles that you greet every Italian person that comes close to your pram. During our daily trips to the beach, we start to get to know some of the regulars, and some of them come every day to say hello to you, and to remark on what a cute little baby you are!

Now that you are sitting well, you have a better view of your toys and that means that you enjoy playing with them a lot more. You especially like the obligatory bucket and spade, and as you are nice and cosey inside your little inflatable pool, it means that mom and dad can enjoy a few minutes in the sun as well!

There have also been developments with the eating process as you are now eating finely blended meat with your vegetables. Your dad, being from a meat-eating country himself, was especially impressed with this until he experienced the new smell in the nappy that goes with the meat diet!

Italian seaside holiday!

Beach babe!

Sun, sea, sand an delicious Italian gelati means only one thing, we are on our first seaside holiday as a family in Finale Ligure, Italy!
Finale is a small seaside town an hour outside of Genoa towards the French border. It originated as a fishermen village, but today it is very much about tourism. Your Italian side of the family has a very prominent place in this town's history as the Pertica's (your great-grandmother is Delia Pertica) were a very successful family of merchant sailors in the 1500's.

For the first two weeks it is just the three of us and we quickly fall into a very relaxing routine. In the morning we set up camp on the beach with our umbrella, towels and your little swimming pool, ready for a good few hours of playing. This is then interrupted by lunch and an afternoon nap (meaning your mom or dad pushes you in your pram along the beachfront to make you fall asleep!) before we all head back to the beach in the afternoon. The only bit of stress is when some of the Italians find you so cute that they have to come over and strike up a conversation with your dad, which basically means them talking a lot and your dad just saying "si, si" all the time!

As if by magic, you've also started to sleep very well at night! You still wake up once a night, but it is a vast improvement on the once every two hours that it used to be! Of course your parents are debating furiously as to what the magic formula is, but whatever it is, we hope it stays around for a LONG time!





The fact that you can sit by yourself now means that you can play in your little blow-up pool by yourself. However, you get tired quite quickly which of course means either getting you onto our towels (which means that you will end up in the sand!) or another stroll in the pram for a rest!



Playing in your little swimming pool.

 You also get a visit from your Nonno Gianfranco who organised a day trip to Balzi Rossi, a pre-historic site on the French border with a very nice beach. After a quick visit to the museum with remains from thousands of years before, it is back to the beach. With the exception of a day trip to the ancient town of Albenga, pretty much every day is spent on the beach which is a very nice change from the very unpredictable English summer! 

Balzi Rossi beach with Nonno.

Sadly Heino has to leave after two weeks to return to work. However, there is still plenty of company as your grandmother, great-grandmother and her carer comes to Finale for a visit. Especially now with so many extra hands to help, your mom enjoys a proper holiday!

4 generations of women: Pertica, Genderini, Foderaro and Von Wielligh!

But that is not all. Over a very hectic weekend your uncle Matteo and Benedetta come for a visit, and as you and your mom prepare to leave, Alessandra's Zio Augusto and her cousin Francesco arrives as well. Naturally you are the centre of attention, but all too soon it is time to return home to London.

Six Months.

You celebrate your first half year with a spoon-full of peaches! Just a few days before you turned 6 months in Rome, you started to eat solid foods. It is a very gradual process, started with some ripe, sweet Italian apricot and it looks like you like it a lot. This was followed by loads of other nice summer fruits like peaches, prunes and bananas.

A big improvement is that in your sixth month you started to sit by yourself for long periods without falling over. It was a long process, but it seems as if you like it, as long as you have some of your toys within reach!

As always, the only area that is still proving to be a problem is sleeping at night. However, you did recently manage 7 uninterrupted hours sleeping which is giving us a lot of hope! 

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!