We are moving

Il blog cambia casa! Il nuovo indirizzo e' http://duefratellini.blogspot.com/ .


To celebrate the new arrival, we are moving to

http://duefratellini.blogspot.com/

The page is still a work in progress, but it will be up and running soon. See you there!

Announcement

Our son (name still under debate, so let's call him "Piccolino") was born yesterday night, June 23, at 9:41. I am just posting a few pictures here, a more complete account of the events might follow later on.

We succeeded in having a home birth, so Piccolino was born on our old trusted futon in our living room. The large night gown covered blob in the picture is the mom :).



Dad cuts the cord...



... and Piccolino gets his first check up. He weighs 7 lbs 8 oz (3.4 kg) and measures 20.5 in (52 cm), if I remember correctly.



There he is, warm and cozy!



And here are the two amazing midwives who helped us out during and after the birth. Piccolino is a bit hard to spot here, but he is snuggled next to his mom.

Appu con mamma e papa'

I haven't been posting for a while, but we have been really busy. There has been some major renovation going on in the house and maybe one of this days I will post some pictures of our lovely new attic. We have also made some rushed last minute arrangements for the birth, thinking somehow that Rohan/Rowan would decide to appear early, but of course here we are still waiting for him. In any case, we are ready now (right...).

There are loads of things I can say about Appu, he has really amazed us in the last month. He has his favorite cartoons now ("Kippo", and sadly "Dora"), his favorite book characters ("Gossie") and he has his preferences on almost everything. He knows what jacket he wants to wear, if he wants one at all, and so on and so forth. He loves puppets and has a lot of fun impersonating various animals. He remembers some words from his favorite books and fills in the blanks when mamma is reading to him. He can can more or less count from one to ten in both English and Italian and he recognizes the numbers when he sees them written (this is making his dad suspect that there might be a brain inside, after all... :) ).He is very very cuddly, as if he knew that these are the last days he gets to spend as the only cuddly baby in the house.

So, since I happen to have a couple of pictures of Appu with his parents - even a very rare one with the mom, self-taken of course, because who would do it otherwise - I thought this would make a nice last post pre new baby (says the mom who keeps hoping for labor to start... now!).

Isn't he so so so cute? And very tanned - sorry achamma!

Names - again - II

A significant number of people whose opinion we value has suggested the name Rohan instead of Roan (or Rowan). As a matter of fact, that was our initial idea as well, but then I proposed we modified it to Roan to make it easier on the Italians who notoriously mess up their 'h's. I didn't even know the name Roan actually existed, but since it turned out that it does (and the variant Rowan is even the name of an actor that S greatly admires) then it seemed settled. I also like that Roan/Rowan comes from the name of a tree - now I couldn't tell you which one, but something that grows in Ireland and has red berries on it.

I guess Rohan is still a possibility, but in the last decade lots of babies have received that name in honor of The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's shadow would always hang on the little one.

Anyway, I think we will put aside Niccolo', for the reasons I already mentioned. I don't think most people could pronounce it right and I wouldn't enjoy having him called Nick by all his friends. Nonna Laura seems to be very excited about the middle name Ernesto (her mother was called Ernestina, after an older half brother Ernesto who died in World War I, so lots of family history there), so we might keep that.

At first I really wanted an Italian name for this baby, but if we end up living in India I don't want one of them to always feel that he fits in less than his brother because of his strange name. I know it is not a big deal, but this is the kind of stuff that sometimes matters to kids, so why risk it.

So:

Roan Ernesto Ashok?
Rowan Ernesto Ashok?
Rohan Ernesto Ashok?

Names - again

Please vote:

Roan Niccolo' Ashok
Roan Ernesto Ashok

or Rowan (S. claims it is pronounced exactly as Roan, but my Italian instinct to pronounce the letters I see makes me suspicious) with the same middle names.

or Niccolo' ... Ashok - and please feel free to fill the dots.

I think we are quite in favor of Roan/Rowan at the moment, but not so strongly that we won't have changed our minds by tomorrow morning of course. It does however have the advantage of being easy to write and pronounce and it cannot be shortened into some dreadful American like nickname. My favorite name Niccolo' doesn't satisfy any of these requirements, so maybe it is time to abandon that idea. Thoughts?

By the way, cheer up! Only one month to go and then this name agony will be over. :)