Back home

We are back in Canada! The temperature is acceptable, the snow is thin and the house is still where we left it. We had a better than expected trip by plane, so we cannot complain. Internet is again available and fast, so I can venture to promise more posts coming soon...
Bye for now!

Sadness

Siamo in Italia da una settimana. Questa e' una visita che non avevamo in programma, ma purtroppo mia zia e' stata molto male ed e' morta lunedi'. Siamo riusciti ancora a vederla e a passare un po' di tempo con lei. Sono contenta che lei abbia potuto rivedere il piccolo Appu, a cui era gia' molto affezionata. Il funerale e' domani e poi saremo in Italia ancora per un paio di settimane.

As I had mentioned previously, we traveled to Italy last week to see my aunt. She died on Monday, but we still got to see her for a few days. I am happy that she could meet again little Appu and see how well he is growing, because she loved him very much. The funeral will be tomorrow and after that we will need to stay in Italy for some more days, maybe a couple of weeks.

The Peanut and other things we cannot know

I haven't given any official updates about my pregnancy yet, partly because of superstition perhaps, but the time has come to draw some attention to Appu's sibling to be, which for the moment will be referred to as "Little Peanut".

Some of you might have noticed that some new tickers have appeared on this page. In particular, on the right you can see a pumpkin in a patch of grass marking the progress of the Little Peanut towards birth. As the ticker says, I am now a little more than 19 weeks along in my pregnancy (note: for those who don't know, the total number of weeks will be 40).
I went yesterday for my mid-pregnancy ultrasound and the Little Peanut seems to be doing well. I haven't received the full report yet, but the ultrasound technician seemed happy. The Peanut was kicking actively to fight the intrusion of stuff being pressed on my belly, so it seems we have another spirited child on the way...

I am referring to The Peanut as "she" just because the Italian for peanut, "nocciolina", is female, but we don't know the sex of the baby yet. I would have loved to find out during this ultrasound, but the technician was not moved by my pleas and refused to look. That is really a big disappointment, no matter what the sex is it would have made me happier to know it. I could start thinking about the name and I would have something happy to communicate home, where good news of any kind are badly needed.

Unfortunately things are not going well in Italy. My aunt is very sick and is at the moment in a hospital with terminal prognosis. I will be travelling to Italy soon to see her and take care of lots of practical stuff. Unfortunately nobody knows how much time she still has or whether she is conscious and aware of her condition or not. It was all very sudden and it is a very frustrating situation.

Appu will be travelling with me and we don't know how long we are going to be in Italy. The only sure thing is that I am expected to be back in Canada by the beginning of March at the latest. Sujay might join us in Italy at some point if he gets all his documents in order in time.

Winter travel

The blog is back after a sad incident with spilled soup that has kept my laptop at rest for some time...

A quick update on our future movements:
S. is leaving on Monday to go back to his job in Chennai. He will reach on Tuesday night Indian time. Appu and I will follow at the end of the month, with a two day stop-over in Torino to say hello to the grandparents. We will be in India for three months, then we will return to Canada in time to see the bears coming out of hibernation...:)

We are a bit worried about how Appu will take these three weeks without his dad and we wish it were December already. On the bright side, it seems there will be a lot of snow here next week, so maybe little Appu will have fun outside. It is time to try on the new snowsuit!

Back to Canada

We had a good trip back, we slept a lot last night - with the exception of a certain somebody who tried to get up around 5... but we made him see reason :) - and now we are about to drop our little one at his new daycare for a few hours. A few pictures of our trip will be posted later.

Home

We are in Italy visiting Appu's grandparents. Unfortunately we no longer have an internet connection at home, so this will probably be the only post until we go back to Canada next Sunday.

Our friend Emiliano got married on Thursday, it was a very nice ceremony and Appu was admired by most people present. Of course, the parents almost collapsed with exhaustion trying to keep up with him while he was running around like an energizer bunny. More details and pictures will follow.

Banff

S. joined us last week and after only a couple of days we flew to the Rocky Mountains for a conference at Banff. It's really beautiful here and I will probably show you some pictures soon, but for the moment here we are, together with the other conference participants. By the way, the last one to the right in the front row is my ex advisor Emanuel.

S. ci ha raggiunti in Canada la settimana scorsa, giusto in tempo per accompagnarci ad una conferenza a Banff sulle Montagne Rocciose. Qui potete vedere me e il piccolino insieme agli altri partecipanti. Nota: l'ultimo a destra in prima fila e' il mio relatore di dottorato Emanuel (!).

Back to Canada

We just reached home. S. should be in Bombay by now and will reach Madras tomorrow.

Rajiv helps me pack - Rajiv mi aiuta a fare la valigia...

Traveling soon again

We will go to Italy next week, from the 13th to the 27th. We will meet S. there and we are all looking forward to it. Stay tuned for the pictures!

Here we are...

Don't worry, it's not always this cold, but it seems we have a few icy days ahead. We are well protected though, one of these days I might post a picture of how we go around in the great Canadian outdoors (ehm, I mean between here and the office...).

We reached Waterloo last Saturday after a very long journey, 22 hours of flight and many little airport adventures. The trip wasn't as bad as I had anticipated, but neither me nor the little one were in our best mood. Rajiv took a little while to adjust to the new environment, but very soon he was happily exploring all the most dangerous corners of the house.

Facts of notice in the past week:

• We seem to have overcome jet-lag at last! At first little one was going to bed "for the night" around lunch time, but yesterday evening he slept a little after seven.
• We went to the daycare center a couple of times and I left Rajiv there alone for a bit more than an hour. He loves the place, at lest now that it's still all new. There are lots of toys and the kids are mostly older than him (they keep together children up to 18 months), so they are quite interactive. There is a kid that likes pulling his hair though, and made him cry twice while I was there. It's horrible, but little one didn't allow this to keep him sad for more than a few seconds.
• Rajiv also met again his babysitter Kelly and seemed to recognize her. He is very happy when he sees her and they seem to be having a good time together.
• Yesterday we went to an "open house" social event at the institute and there were lots of activity for kids. We took part in a demonstrative music class for babies and children and we had fun. Little one liked a little drum very much and played it for a while (and chewed on the stick naturally). Overall it was a very nice afternoon.
  
• Even at home Rajiv is expanding his musical talents. He plays the xylophone by lifting is and letting it fall back on the ground. He seems to be very amused by the sounds he can produce this way. I am also showing him how to leave the xylophone on the floor and drop small blocks and plastic objects on it instead. He likes that, but not as much as dropping the instrument itself. (By the way, I really wonder what we did with the xylophone stick...)
  

That's all for now. I still have lots of pictures from India to show, so I might post those next.

Foto della visita di Emiliano e Ilaria

Our friends Emiliano and Ilaria came to see us in Chennai at the beginning of January. They took some nice pictures, so I asked to borrow a few of the Rajiv-centered ones for the blog.

I nostri amici Emiliano e Ilaria sono venuti a trovarci a Chennai all'inizio di gennaio. Siccome hanno fatto un sacco di belle foto, ho chiesto di prenderne in prestito qualcuna per il blog.

The first two pictures are from our lunch at the Taj on one of the first days of the visit. It was awesome in every respect: not only the food was excellent, but the floor was carpeted and clean and the restaurant not very crowded, so we could put Rajiv on the floor to crawl happily while enjoying our food. Normally when we go out to eat we need to take turns so that somebody is always with Rajiv, so this was a nice change for once. (In the second picture I am not posing for a Coca Cola ad, I am tryng to get our little one to look up at smile attracting his attention with one of his favorite shining objects. Not so effective in this case, as you can see.)

Le prime due foto sono di un pranzo al lussuosissimo hotel Taj. Purtroppo lo sfondo e' un po' scuro e non si vede un granche' del locale. In compenso potete vedere Emiliano con Rajiv e, nella seconda foto, me che cerco di far sorridere Rajiv attirandolo con una lattina di Coca Cola, uno degli oggetti piu' ambiti.





The next pictures are from our trip to Pondicherry, in the last days of the visit.

Le prossime foto sono della nostra gita a Pondicherry, a poche ore di automobile da Chennai.



Here we were walking near the beach at night. Little one is in the carrier and we are both wrapped up in the trusted Lufthansa blanket to protect him from the wind.

Qui passeggiavamo sul lungomare di sera e abbiamo avvolto la fidata coperta attorno a me e al piccolino nel portabimbi per proteggerlo dal vento.



Here instead we were shopping, the main activity of the trip!

Qui invece si faceva shopping!








And after coming back from Pondicherry, here is Ilaria about to hit Rajiv with a big red hammer playing a bit with Rajiv before going to the airport.

E infine ecco Ilaria che cerca di colpire Rajiv con un grosso martello rosso gioca con Rajiv prima di andare in aeroporto.

Lots of Christmas pictures

Here is the rest of the pictures from the trip to Calicut almost one month ago. Not all the pictures, but a lot of them. Unfortunately not everybody is there, please believe that it was not intentional, it just shows that I am not a good photo-reporter. Enjoy! (By the way, it would be really nice if other people who took pictures wanted to share their best shots with us, either by emailing them to me or by uploading them somewhere and giving the link.)

Con molto ritardo, ecco le foto della settimana delle feste trascorsa a Calicut.
Solo per questa volta, permetteremo al superfotogenico Arvind di rubare la scena al nostro piccolo Appu con la prima fotografia:



L'albero di Natale era a casa della famiglia di Shalini.

Qui sotto invece, ritroviamo i soliti protagonisti di questo blog, ritratti davanti a casa dei genitori di S.



E qui di seguito, Rajiv gioca con il papa' e lo zio Vijay sotto casa dei nonni. Dalla foto non si direbbe, ma il piccolino era abbastanza di buon umore.



Nella prossima foto, "Maash" e "Auntie", due amici di famiglia molto cari a S., intrattengono Rajiv.



Rajiv con lo zio che vive a Madras, non lontano da noi. E' il fratello minore della mamma di S.



E lo stesso zio con la moglie Mina.



Una delle attrazioni principali delle feste di quest'anno: il piccolo Armaan, ultimo arrivo in famiglia.



Qui sotto, una vista "aerea" del salotto della favolosa casa della famiglia di Shalini. Riconoscerete credo S. con il piccolino. Poi, in senso orario, la sorella maggiore della mamma di S. "Veliamma", la zia Mina, Shalini con Armaan e la mamma di Shalini, lo zio di Madras, la mamma di S. e l'uomo misterioso (non e' il primo e non sara' l'ultimo temo, troppi parenti!).



Il piccolino sul suo nuovo seggiolino sospeso:



Due foto di Jaydev al tempio dove siamo andati per il Choroonu del piccolino:





Le prossime foto invece sono di una festa a casa della famiglia di Shalini.
Nella prima foto abbiamo l'affascinante mamma di Shalini con Arvind a il piccolo Rajiv intento a mangiarsi una borsa,



proseguiamo con Shalini e Anu (la figia degli zii di Madras),



zia Mina con il piccolo Armaan,



e il nostro piccolo Rajiv alle prese con uno dei suoi primi pacchetti di Natale.



Concludiamo con una foto di Appu con la sua nonna, verso la fine della nostra vacanza.

Blogging pause

We apologize for the interruption due to a severe case of baby jet lag. We are working to solve the problem. Blogging will resume as soon as humanly possible.

A gonfie vele con il piano B!

Abbiamo finalmente comprato i biglietti: saremo in Italia dal 13 al 27 marzo. S. arrivera' dall'India e io e Rajiv dal Canada; ci incontreremo a Milano e proseguiremo per Torino con il mitico "volo" Alitalia Mapensa-Torino.

A casa al caldo

Little one is feeling a bit better. The blocked nose still bothers him and he has thrown up a few times, but we are keeping him warm at home and hopefully he will be in good shape for our upcoming trip.

Il piccolino sta un pochino meglio. Il naso chiuso continua a dargli fastidio e vomita di tanto in tanto, ma speriamo che tenendolo a casa al caldo questo malanno possa essere sconfitto in tempo per il nostro viaggio di dopodomani.

Viaggi

I nostri spostamenti per i prossimi due mesi:

7 Dicembre (Venerdi' prossimo) - partiamo da Toronto alle 19:30 con destinazione Chennai via Bruxelles

9 Dicembre - arriviamo a Chennai alle ore 1:40 del mattino. Sob...

23 Dicembre circa - voliamo a Calicut per le feste

1 Gennaio circa - ritorniamo a Chennai

2 Febbraio - io e Rajiv salutiamo tristemente S. e partiamo per il Canada...

Viaggi - cattive notizie, purtroppo

Siamo finalmente riusciti a programmare i nostri spostamenti di quest'inverno, ma purtroppo ci sono cattive notizie. La mia idea era di passare in Italia a inizio dicembre, ma non siamo riusciti a trovare dei biglietti ragionevoli. La soluzione piu' economica era 2.500$ a testa e non ce la siamo sentita. Abbiamo scelto invece di andare direttamente in India, rimanendo qui una settimana piu' del previsto (il che e' anche positivo per il mio lavoro, se puo' essere di qualche conforto...).

Ora scatta il piano B, che consiste nel cercare di organizzare una gita in Italia attorno a marzo. Come al solito ci sono mille variabili, ma spero di riuscire a far quadrare tutto.

The long journey home

We have reached Canada yesterday evening. This is one day later than planned, because our flight from Milano to Toronto on Sunday was canceled and we ended up taking the same flight the next day. Needless to say, initially we weren't very happy of this development, but in the end it wasn't so bad. We were put in a hotel in Novara, a nice town not too far from the airport. We spent most of the afternoon sleeping - this is itself was very very good - and then we went out for a walk. The town has a nice center and there was some dance festival going on, so the atmosphere was quite pleasant. We walked around, had good ice cream and bought a book about holes for the little one. It was a nice break.

Today was very busy and we managed to accomplish quite a bit. Most notably, we have bought a car. I would write more, but jet leg and small babies are a deadly combinations and I must sleep...

Travel

Our visit to Torino is almost over already and we are getting ready to travel to Canada on Sunday. We will leave early morning and reach Waterloo some time in the afternoon. I wish we could stay here longer, but it is time to go back to work...