Feb 5, 2012 Daycare, Snow, and Parking

Ben started daycare this week.  They have an extended entry process in Italy.  His first day was Wednesday.  I stayed with him, and we were there for an hour and a half in the morning.  Then we came home.  I stayed with him for an hour Thursday morning, then went to work, and picked him up at lunch.  Friday, he stayed about three-fourths of the day before I picked him up.  He had a great time when he was there.  He liked the teachers and the toys.  He came home and slept 3.5 hours the first two days.  His main teacher is Monica. 

Most of the teachers don’t speak any English.  The woman who sits at the front desk speaks pretty good English and was able to answer all of our questions to get him enrolled, and is able to tell us all the necessary information about what they do throughout the day. 

Ben and I are still battling our colds.  He started eating real food again Thursday, so that must be a good sign.  I still haven’t been able to taste anything for the past almost a week, which is really unfortunate in Italy, but I think it's starting to come back.  But, now I understand why he didn’t want to eat his real food.  Without tasting anything, textures seem weird, even though I’m used to them.  Since he is not used to textures at all, he had no idea what we were putting in his mouth.

 Ben ready to go outside.  Don't know why this picture won't rotate.

 

It snowed the whole first half of this week.  It didn’t really accumulate much until the last day, when we got about three inches.  Thursday morning the roads were pretty bad, and then they brought out the salt trucks and plows.  The salt trucks were about what I expected, but they did not have plows.  The plows came out later, and they were hooked to what looked like farm tractors, plowing the streets.  In the center of town, there is a cobblestone pedestrian area, several city blocks wide.  I was wondering if they would try to plow that, and it turns out that they shovel it by hand.  By Thursday afternoon, the roads were mostly clear.  I got to do a lot of driving in the snow, taking Ben to and from daycare at the odd times.  Tuesday was only the first time I had driven here, so I got quite the initiation.  After this week, I can definitely say I feel comfortable driving.  

View from our apartment.

 Snow covered palm tree.

But oh, the parking. Tim and I are both really good at it now, but it is crazy.  We have a station wagon, and the space in front of our garage is exactly the same as the length of our car. 

And the width of the garage opening is about an inch or two wider on each side than our car mirrors. 

But the best part is the car elevator to get in and out of our garage.  When we are in it, there is about two inches of space on all four sides of the car.  Luckily we have parking sensors built in that beep faster and faster the closer you get.  

Actual picture of our sensors.  Maximum red.

Note, the red bars in the picture mean you’re way too close, and are accompanied by the sound that has, by now, changed from beeping to a steady panic tone.  Then you have to sit there in this confine while you are holding the button to take you up two floors to street level.  Lets hope it never gets stuck!

Ben started sitting in the big-boy seats in grocery store carts.

At home, we're still working on tummy time and rolling over. 

 

We went to dinner for Tim’s birthday.  We thought about doing a little day trip up to the mountains, but we decided that there was too much snow up there.  And we went shopping for a TV, but we could not make up our minds, so we’re going to do some more research.  Today we are at Kristen’s again so I can blog and Tim can look at TVs.  We had some guys from the telecom company come and install an internet line, but now someone else has to come bring a router.  That should happen in a few days.  It will be so nice to have internet!