It had been a while since our last visit to this ‘out in the middle of nowhere – how the heck does anyone find this place’ restaurant “La Vigna”. We had initially planned a big group thing, but then most people were out of town or had other plans, so it was again us and Adwoa, plus Thomas (new colleague) and Julia.
Funny enough, though it had been like what, 9 months, they remembered us (ah, those colorful people) … and while it was much emptier this time (only one other small party), it was again very friendly and the food was a-plenty and we spent over 3 hours there.
Food this time:
Antipasti: Melon and tomato / 3 different cold cuts Marinated anchovies in salsa verde Pickled fried eggs Sliced eggplant baked with tomato and cheese Fried bread Peppers topped with bagna càuda (a garlic / anchovy / butter sauce) Marinated raw meat with radicchio and fennel Primi: Secondi: Dolce: |
with that we had over the 3.5 h time span 4 bottles of wine, 4 bottles of water and 3 coffees. We took several breaks just hanging out on the big veranda … and it was again a very nice experience … and I hope we do that again soon. My only regret it that one really does not see much in terms of fresh veggies … a salad maybe … And in the end it was actually cheaper then the other time, only 26€ per pop. Maybe because they had less people and had ‘only’ a choice of 2 secondi .. but we were full and happy and Julius had a great time running around and trying to chase the cats outside.
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AH, all those little things one has to teach a kid … among them: brushing teeth
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Since Ritsu has returned from her Nairobi trip she had the chance to join me in seeing off Julius to the schoolbus (pulmino) and was very busy whiping his nose.
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This great big elephant (Paon) that he got back in 12/1005 is still amongst his favourite plush animals … though he does not really have a special on .. and I wonder sometimes about that … what he needs to fall asleep is one of our ears (preferably one of each) .. which is kinda weird .. but then again cute …
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What an interesting journey … we had Julius say ‘Bitte’ (German for ‘please) about a year ago … but in trying to get him to make up sentences in only one language, we had tried to get him to say ‘please’ .. and he never did .. like as if he was totally fighting it.
He does say ‘thank you’ .. which is pretty cool, but now, FINALLY, he actually says ‘please’ when asked .. so .. I hope soon he will get the idea when to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ by himself.
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For tonight’s dinner I mixed in some black rice with the usual white stuff … and who would have thought that it comes out purple???
Anyways .. Julius loved it.
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What a warped Sunday this was …
We had ventured out to go to the Panorama mall, which is about 20 minutes north from us, for some shopping and since we have not been to McDs in a while, to fill our burger craving … surprise surprise, once we were there, we found out that they don’t open on Sundays (you just never know with these places in Europe) ..
So .. what to do? We kept on driving around and discussed ideas about other mall-like places like Le Gru or Auchan .. and soon we found ourselves semi-lost and paying toll on the highway …
But some informative signs later we found another mall-ish place … which was also closed .. but like a beacon in the dark … we saw the golden M mounted on a high post .. and the place was even open!!! And it was mildly populated (unlike what I would have expected in one of the McDs around the few shopping centers that actually think it is worth to open on a Sunday) … and we had a fun time.
The rest of our odyssey was quite interesting … usually it is somewhat easy to navigate in Turin … you have the mountains on one side and the hills on the other … but with the murky weather we had … none of them were visible .. so I was flying pretty blind and when we finally reached home I checked the map .. and we did a full circle around the city .. kinda cool actually .. but the traffic? And that was Sunday .. so traffic was pretty slow …
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Mama returned from her business trip to Kenya today. We went to the airport to pick her up .. and sure enough, just like last time, Julius had to get into tantrum mode about the fact that papa would not allow him to sulk on the dirty floor.
Long story short, he made sure that everyone at the airport would hear him scream and yell for about 20 – 25 minutes and would shot evil glances at the obviously kid-incompetent daddy. Though there were some voices of support, a British lady told me that she has ‘just one like him’ …
I finally managed to get him calm just 2 minutes before Ritsu stepped through the clearance door.
We then went to have lunch at our favorite Asian place (Where for the first time I noticed that they have a page in the menu with simply grilled items like salmon, but also other fish, chicken, meat … ) with Adwoa (who was along for the ride as my co-pilot) and once we got home, Ritsu unveiled the presents she got for us … a very cool shirt for me and this very fancy outfit for Julius.
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When I told him that we were about to go out … he was all for it …
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Right after kindergarten I went to the playground with Julius again. Once we get close he realizes where we are going and he gets very excited and runs the rest of the way (hard to keep up at times). When we arrived there was no one else, but slowly more and more kids with parents showed up and soon Julius had kids to play with.
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Really not much to say about these pics … maybe only that he is not very comfortable with turtlenecks .. but will get used to it .. and it has really become hard to take a good picture of him …
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… at least here in Italy it is. More exactly, it is St. Joseph’s day, and since Joseph was the father of Christ (at least that’s what Maria kept telling him), the Italians are celebrating Father’s Day today. So Julius made me this sweet picture in kindergarten.
If I get the caption right, it says “With you I want to play, run, laugh and jump”. Which is very sweet. But I am doing that every and all the time anyways 
I think this is more directed at the ‘normal’ dads who hardly find the time to do all that.
I did not get to post about that yet, but Ritsu got recently a nice piece of artwork for International Women’s day, and she posted it on her blog
And last but not least, a cute good night picture:
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Today’s fun activities at the playground were picking up leftover confetti from the ground, chasing after bubbles that an older girl was blowing right in Julius’ direction and of course testing how far sand can fly.
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Again today, Julius napped surprisingly early and when he woke up he was hungry for pasta and had this really funky hairstyle!
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This is actually more of a tech post.
I have recently learned of that media player supplier uxcell, based in Hongkong … and while very skeptical (and most of their business seems to be betting on iPod clones) .. their prices are just too tempting to not try them out .. and after checking out some message boards about how legit they were … I went ahead and ordered the glacier 2GB.
While I am a big fan of apple products and own several iPods … it has become clear to me that apple will never support any of the ‘pirate’ video formats (.avi = divx being a big one, which of course is also being used for legal videos) .. I think apple only wants to display what they can sell on their iTunes store.
So .. comparing several iPod products and their prices (e.g. the cheapest that actually plays video starts at what, 399 USD?) .. to find a gizmo that not only plays video and music .. but also does radio, voice recording, ebook reading, music with lyrics display (your own mini karaoke box) .. well .. basically everything you cram into that form factor … and then it comes with 2 GB of memory .. for which alone I would pay like 30 EU here .. and then it is 40 EU ??? How could I resist ???
Well .. lo and behold .. within the promised shipping window the item arrived … and my impression so far: pretty good. Ok .. the video quality is not that great … and you have to convert the video into some obscure format I had never heard of before … and the conversion software only exists for win .. not mac … but it is great e.g. to put all the Julius videos we have on there and always have them with us. I wanted to get that done before Ritsu went on her latest trip .. but since I had to rely on other helping people, who suddenly lost their online connection .. that did not work out ..
But a first test showed that Julius was pretty impressed by seeing his baby elephant video on that tiny thing …
One word of warning though .. it seems these toys are for the more tech savvy … the manual that comes with it is an interesting language study and the user interface is probably where they saved the money on .. and I heard cases of people getting dudds … so .. if you want to feel safe and happy to spend 300$ extra .. go with apple .. for the more adventurous mind .. this might be some fun for you.
And do not expect to watch Star Wars on it in surround sound .. this is my idea of instead of whipping out kids pics .. you have a little device that actually shows your kids videos … very cool indeed
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Julius is not a heavy sleeper … he seems to be doing his naps at kindergarten, but home at weekends .. it can take until 5 PM for him to feel like napping .. and then of course he will be up late that day …
So, to my surprise, yesterday he fell asleep in my arms around 12:30 PM … and today, bigger surprise, he fell asleep at 11 AM .. by himself … under the dining table (and no, I did not drug him) … I moved him over to the bed once he was completely out .. and there he is sleeping now.
I have finished with all his medications and he seems to be much better. No more fever, a bit of a cough, the rash .. well .. is kinda invisible (under that red stainy medication, can anyone tell me what exactly ‘eosina’ is? That’s what the bottle is saying.) He might even be able to go back to kindergarten tomorrow.
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Last day on medications and Julius is feeling much better, while still coughing some. But when I said we would go out (just to the supermarket) he was very serious and even packed a little bag full of toys and was happy to get fully dressed again and waited patiently (which is very rare) for daddy to get ready, too.
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The ups and downs of being sick …
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… and those who are happy that they don’t!
I don’t usually do this on this blog, but this fantastic collection of pictures that Ritsu sent me is just too good to not share … click here or on the picture below and enjoy them all! (None of them is Julius … I bet he will come up with something much more scary!)
Be afraid … be VERY afraid!!!
This post goes out especially (but of course not exclusively) to Judy & John, Jennifer & Skinny G, Jane & Wataru (they have 2 of them!!!), Sarah & Jan (also 2, but no internet right now), Shilpa & Antonio, Jürgen & Tanja, Sue & Dave, Mark & Moe and all the others who have boys and I am forgetting. (which you always do once you start a name list, forgive me .. right now!)
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Friday morning I was sure that Julius is 100% again, the rash was gone and he seemed fine .. but by Friday evening he suddenly had very red cheeks and a fever … after some thinking and checking we figured it might have been teething (since a set of molars is still missing). But I also noticed that the rash was showing up again.
So we gave him paracetamol for the fever and he seemed fine. Though he did cough again a bit the night from Friday to Saturday.
Saturday started peachy again, but later fever and a bit more coughing, so we added cough medication to the med-mix and it seemed to work ok.
Sunday around noon the fever went up quite some (39.8C), the coughing had gotten worse, his nose was running and he had no real appetite, which is strange for him. So, time to call our trusted doctor who also comes Sunday evenings. And he diagnosed Julius with bronchitis and tonsillitis for which he prescribed antibiotics again. And the rash was now labeled as a fungus, for which I have to apply some red liquid which stains everything deep red (including my fingers).
The very positive thing was that Julius did not have an ear infection, again .. actually he has been without ear infection since May last year … and we are very happy about that … we started contemplating ear tubes for him to be inserted into his eardrums. But this cold / sick season it seems everything is focusing more on his respiratory system.
Let’s see how long it will take to get this out of his system, he is quite a trooper when it comes to taking his meds … but he totally objects to taking those fake-strawberry flavoured antibiotics (But daddy has a no-negotiation policy on that)
| Interestingly, Julius had very similar symptoms exactly one year ago… | |
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