SITREP

In case anyone is interested, here's an update on what's going on in our world...

Wife and kid came back last weekend after 5 weeks in the Philippines visiting her family. Since they've been back Luca has become an insufferable mama's boy. He's 18 months old now and he's still breastfeeding. This might be normal, I don't know, but the X Man stopped after 7 months. In Luca's case, it's obviously a comfort thing. Also, he can't stand to be away from the wife for a second and is constantly clinging to her. It's impossible for her to cook or clean or do much else. We have found one thing that helps a bit though - we put some Sesame Street videos on Youtube and he'll sit and watch them for a while with no fuss. He's still adjusting to the time change and usually wakes up in the wee hours. He's at his happiest when he wakes up too, just wants to play and dance. And man, can he dance. I've never seen a kid who loves to dance as much as Luca. The first sound of any kind of music he stops what he's doing and starts shaking his behind. And not just to music either, he'll dance at anything. The wife has a really funny video of him in the Philippines, her father was sawing a board and he was dancing to the sound of the saw going back and forth. He's got some moves too, I really need to capture him on video and post it to Youtube. We had a firend over for dinner this past weekend and he just could not stop laughing all night watching Luca dance.

The X Man is doing great in school although the schedule is rough on him. the Italian public schools are free but have a shortage of money so not everybody gets to go Monday - Friday for a full day. Kids who have one parent that doesn't work (like the X Man) go to school half a day (8:15 - 1:15) Monday through Saturday. I totally hate this. I mean seriously, making a kid go to school on Saturday?! That's just cruel. Plus it ruins our weekend as we pretty much lose Saturday. It seems to be taking its toll on him too, he's starting to dislike going to school. everyday he asks how many more days he has to go and often pulls the "I don't feel good" routine in the morning.

We're also having trouble with the X Man's behaviour lately. He obviously doesn't like not being the center of attention and often acts out to get some attention back on him. He was good while the wife and kid were away but since they've been back he's reverted to his old ways. I try to be patient but find myself yelling at him a lot which I don't like because I've inherited my dad's bad temper and the last thing I want is for him to grow up scared of me the way I often was with my dad. Also, the X Man's car addiction has been replaced by a Transformers obsession. Whereas he used to not go anywhere without a car in his hand, now he will seldom be seen without one of his Transformers in his hands. Every day day he begs us to watch the Transformers cartoon on Youtube. He is truly obsessed.

On the homefront, things are fine as well. The wife currently is down with the flu - in fact, I'm leaving work soon to go take care of the baby so she can rest and recover. I'm sure i'll be coming down with it soon as well, not looking forward to that. I'm also in the market for a new car and will be test driving a new Volvo XC90 this week. I've already got a loan in place and will be selling the Passat to use as a down payment so if the test drive goes well, I'll be buying the Volvo. We've got friends coming down from Germany and up from Florence for Thanksgiving in a few weeks so we're looking forward to that.

That's pretty much it for now. If you read this, then consider yourself caught up on things...