Christmas and New Years eve 2009 in Italy

Here I am sitting in a train on the way back home and writing this post on my new iPhone. How cool is that? Ok, well lots of people have been doing this for years but I was never able to afford a laptop or other such things. So I guess I've finally entered full geekdom at the ripe age of 40! But now on to business:

Some of you may know that I was concerned about going to Italy for Christmas this year with Dante so little.

The midwife was all doom and gloom about everything that could go wrong. So there was that to worry about. Clearly he's too young to fly, so we had always intended to take the train. A long trip: 11 hours. But just in case we had bought tickets early knowing we could get a refund if we ended up staying home. I was having nightmares about all the stuff to drag along and how provisional the set-up would be.

But we couldn't have been more wrong. I had seen that he was doing better And better with activities and since I'd figured out how to get him to sleep easily at home I decided we should risk it.

Aside from some anxiety that we would miss our connection in Munich due to delays or that it'd be super stressful with kit and caboodle, the trip was amazingly easy and restful. Dante was peaceful and our seats were great. We'd reserved the infants compartment, which is specially designed to accomodate a carriage. We had it to ourselves. From Munich however it was just a regular compartment, but again it was just us. We made the connection no stress at all!

We stayed with Magnus' parents as usual, but thankfully they'd moved the huge wardrobe into another room so M's tiny room had a bit more space for the 3 of us. His mother had fixed up the crib that had been in the family since M's grandmother slept in it and it is beautiful. Here's a picture:

They had also moved one of the sofas into the spare room so i'd have a comfy place to feed Dante.

Since we arrived a few days before Christmas Dante had a few days to get acclimated before the hordes arrived. He did great! I was so relieved. The only trouble we had was that he had real difficulties burping, and he'd cry and cry if he was still hungry, which makes it impossible for him. Our solution was for Papi to do the burping. Oh, also, he went through the third developmental/growth spurt and so he had a couple of days fraught with crying fits. But it wasn't unbearable.

Because everything was so new and exciting he was awake a lot. But that also meant that he slept well at night. Phew!

People were very respectful and I didn't have to pass him around. He was generally very tranquil and happy. He laughed a lot. He also discovered his hand and his eyes can now track things without moving his head. :-)

In 6 hours now we'll be home, so i'd say a very successful venture! Yay!

Oh and Happy New Year to one and all!

Christmas and New Years eve 2009 in Italy

Here I am sitting in a train on the way back home and writing this post on my new iPhone. How cool is that? Ok, well lots of people have been doing this for years but I was never able to afford a laptop or other such things. So I guess I've finally entered full geekdom at the ripe age of 40! But now on to business:

Some of you may know that I was concerned about going to Italy for Christmas this year with Dante so little.

The midwife was all doom and gloom about everything that could go wrong. So there was that to worry about. Clearly he's too young to fly, so we had always intended to take the train. A long trip: 11 hours. But just in case we had bought tickets early knowing we could get a refund if we ended up staying home. I was having nightmares about all the stuff to drag along and how provisional the set-up would be.

But we couldn't have been more wrong. I had seen that he was doing better And better with activities and since I'd figured out how to get him to sleep easily at home I decided we should risk it.

Aside from some anxiety that we would miss our connection in Munich due to delays or that it'd be super stressful with kit and caboodle, the trip was amazingly easy and restful. Dante was peaceful and our seats were great. We'd reserved the infants compartment, which is specially designed to accomodate a carriage. We had it to ourselves. From Munich however it was just a regular compartment, but again it was just us. We made the connection no stress at all!

We stayed with Magnus' parents as usual, but thankfully they'd moved the huge wardrobe into another room so M's tiny room had a bit more space for the 3 of us. His mother had fixed up the crib that had been in the family since M's grandmother slept in it and it is beautiful. Here's a picture:

They had also moved one of the sofas into the spare room so i'd have a comfy place to feed Dante.

Since we arrived a few days before Christmas Dante had a few days to get acclimated before the hordes arrived. He did great! I was so relieved. The only trouble we had was that he had real difficulties burping, and he'd cry and cry if he was still hungry, which makes it impossible for him. Our solution was for Papi to do the burping. Oh, also, he went through the third developmental/growth spurt and so he had a couple of days fraught with crying fits. But it wasn't unbearable.

Because everything was so new and exciting he was awake a lot. But that also meant that he slept well at night. Phew!

People were very respectful and I didn't have to pass him around. He was generally very tranquil and happy. He laughed a lot. He also discovered his hand and his eyes can now track things without moving his head. :-)

In 6 hours now we'll be home, so i'd say a very successful venture! Yay!

Oh and Happy New Year to one and all!