Loredana Valenzano's BLOG

Something about me, my daily life, science, music, news, curiosities and so on...

Thursday, September 28, 2006

A standard working day

Dear all, it is useless to underline that I do not have much time anymore to take care of this BLOG during the week. On the other hand, I want to keep this BLOG updated so I am trying at least once a week to post some pictures dedicated in particular to my sister Chiara who lives in Germany and is missing Emanuele growing up. No to mention all our friends around the world. Ayway, things are going well. I came back to work full time since 10 days or so. Alarm clock is set to 7:00 a.m.... actually no alarm clock is needed anymore since Emanuele is waking up every day (almost) at that time to have breakfast. It is impressive how he can be precise in the timing! After his feeding I prepare myself to go to work. I menage to have something for breakfast and to prepare some "homemade milk" for Emanuele's afternoon. Usually around 8:30 I menage to exit home and to take the tram towards Chemistry. Emanuele stays home in the morning with Maurizio who is in these days very concentrated in teaching him to pronounce the "R". Not an easy job for a three-months baby, even though I must say that Emanuele is already very interested in trying to comunicate both with us and with his grandparents. Between 9:00 and 9:30 (sometimes also before 9:00) I am in front of my PC at work. Morning passes fast and... relaxing actually... if compared with life at home! Even though I have lots of things to do at work, it is very relaxing and more pleseant now than in the past! Around 13:00 I leave Chemistry to go home and pick up Emanuele to bring him to his granparents, some days to Nonni Bagnasco, some days to Nonni Valenzano. Probably the most difficult part of all this is to find an agreement with the granparents who would like to have Emanuele at their place every day! But he has to grow up knowing both the families so the first 2 or 3 days of the week are dedicated to Nonni Valenzano and the last 3 or 2 days to Nonni Bagnasco, closer to my working place. Afternoon passes quickly. I usually check at what time Emanuele has his afternoon milk in order to know at what time I have to leave Chemistry in the evening. Usually he has to eat in the evening between 19:00 and 20:00 so I leave Chemistry sometimes between 18:30 and 19:30. We arrive home between 19:30 and 21:00 according to Emanuele's appetite. Most of the time he can resist to be home to have his evening milk session. Late evenings pass playing with Emanuele who can now vocalize already a lot. He can now stay awake for more than 3 hours without resting a single minute! It is more and more a pleasure to stay with him and trying to teach him things! Last feeding drops between 23:00 and 00:00 and after that the three of us are ready to go for a long and deep sleep until 7:00 a.m. when Emanuele's natural alarm clock will ring again to start a new busy but always exiting day... Obviously in all this, one has also to take care of the usual things: do some shopping, trying (with no much success, actually) to clean the flat in a decent way, do the washing (especially for Emanuele's little clothes), trying to eat something warm (at least once a day!). Luckily I can count on Maurizio for most of the things concerning the house, so that I can concentrate my effort on Emanuele once I am home.

PS: it took me two days to write this post...

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Lots of pictures...

...from the last 10 days or so: enjoy!










Party time!

Last Saturday, while Emanuele was turning his 3 months, Gaia was celebrating her entry in the Christian community with the Baptism. Here there are a few pictures to report the event.

The cake.

Emanuele is trying to impress Gaia with no success I must say...
first heart-breaking for my little one!

"Weird guy... he does not need his mom to eat..."

3 months!

Last Saturday, 23rd September 2006, Emanuele turned 3 months!

Monday, September 18, 2006

Growing up

A new picture to show how Emanuele grew up in the last two months or so.


Sometimes they come back

Our Swedish friend Stefan was back after a conference in Levico Terme (Trento). We had again a nice weekend of Italian food, chatting and walking. We went back and forth Via Roma and we had a short visit at the Dome where the Holy Shroud is preserved. Thanks to Stefan for visiting us! We will surely meet again somewhere some day, maybe in Sweden! Who knows?

Friday, September 15, 2006

Picture of the week

Today Emanuele is 12 weeks old!

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Autumn coming

Autumn wants to start some days earlier than the calendar says. It has been raining in Torino since yesterday evening. Temperatures dropped down from 25-26 to 13-15 degrees.


Our Ikea's chairs on the balcony (very loved by Emanuele... and his parents!) will have to wait some months before be used again every day. We might still have some nice warm days but surely autumn is behind the corner.

While rain is dropping, Emanuele is resting in his longsleeve pijama during his first real autumn day of his life.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Lots of pictures!

With no particular order, a selection of pictures from the last week.

Yesterday afternoon.

Dedicated to our Dutch friends Kees, Anja and Olga.
Thanks for following our BLOGs every day!

Night gym session.

In need of care.

A sunny afternoon.

After dinner.

Stefan preparing for the conference.

At gelateria Fiorio in Via Po.

At Galleria Subalpina.

Enjoying Spumante!

With Nonna Lidia and cousin Chiara at her birthday party.

Talking with mom.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Growing up

It is incredible how Emanuele is growing fast! We cannot remember how he was small... and still he is! But pictures can help: the first one was taken when he was 5 days old (or something like that). The second one was shot a few days ago...


A busy weekend

The last weekend two friends visited us. Our Swedish friend Stefan arrived on Friday evening. On Saturday we had a nice and long walk downtown with him. After a pizza in the vicinity of the University, we came off the tram in Piazza Carlina. We went towards piazza Castello through Via Maria Vittoria, Via Lagrange and Galleria Subalpina. We had the entire tour of Piazza Castello and then we entered Via Po. We had a stop for an ice-cream at Fiorio (where Emanuele decided it was place to do everything…). We continued through Via Po with a slight detour around the Mole Antonelliana and then we reached Piazza Vittorio and Murazzi along the Po River. From there we arrived at Valentino Park and through the Giardino Roccioso we ended up in Corso Raffaello. In Via Madama we took again the tram to come back home. As you see it was a long and pleseant walk around the town. In the evening we had a nice dinner at home based on grilled meat. Our Dutch friend Kees came also to visit us. On one of his “slowfood tour” around Italy with his Alfa Romeo, he paid us a short visit yesterday afternoon. Maurizio prepared a fantastic homemade pizza and we had some nice chatting.

Emanuele's improvements

Every day Emanuele grows and makes progress in interacting with the world around him. He is now 11 weeks old (2.5 month) and his weight is 5.2 kg. He stays awake more and more and he is very active all the time. Sometimes he is only observing stuff around him, often he moves vigorously in his baby carriage or in the bed, often he tries to express himself. He follows people moving around him and he can volountary smile… especially to women! He can vocalize for many minutes now, making some kind of real speech. Since two days it is like he tries to stress some expressions by changing the intonation and the volume of the sound he is emitting. Sometimes I have the impression he is complaining for something and when I try to feed him in these occasions he calms down immediately, so I guess this is his new way of asking to be fed. He used not to like the tram and the bus from his new baby carriage at the beginning, but now he is probably used to it and he simply looks around him falling quietly asleep after a while. Also he has realized to have the feet and with the improvements of the use of his hands, he will probably soon catch them (he did it already three times but probably without realizing what he was doing). He is loosing his hair and the new ones look blond. His eyes are turning either blue or green (I will be surprise if they would ended up to be dark). Last but not least, he can now sleep every night all night through, and apart from those days of hot and humid weather, he eats now 5 (sometimes 6) times a day.

A hot week

And again… back online after an entire week of silence. As the title says, it has been a hot week... in every sense. First, the weather: we had 4 days of high humidity in Torino. None was anymore used to that, so it was not easy to survive at the usual rythm of a busy day. Second, the CRYSTAL school: I had to go to Chemistry Department every day partially for the school and partially to work with Klaus, a German researcher of the group. Despite everything, Emanuele behaved as an angel all the week. He went with Maurizio at work in the afternoon both Monday and Tuesday. It was tough for me to leave home and see Emanuele and Maurizio on the balcony weaving at me while I was going to the tram stop. It was the first time I was leaving Emanuele after the pregnancy. I was worried that Emanuele could be angry with me for “abondoning” him so early and that he could suffer for some kind of “trauma” for this separation. Well, probably I was the one to be worried to suffer! Actually the day passed quickly and I must say that leaving the Department to come back home in the evening was very exciting. I was going to see my little one after a nice and useful day of work. And when I arrived home he smiled at me, vocalizing his “EN’GUUUUU” of happiness. And that was just a terrific moment! Tuesday was easier of course and everything went well. On the other three days of the week Emanuele came with me to Chemistry. As I mentioned above, he behaved very well despite the hot weather and the humidity. He slept, ate and played with the people of the group. Everyone is always surprised by his good mood and spirit of adaptation. At this time I can say that it is not only by chance that Emanuele is behaving so well when not at home. It really looks like he enjoys to be with other people and in new places. And this is very incouraging for me and Maurizio and specially for his future. Let us hope that he will go on this way.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Emanuele's movie #10

Click on the picture to watch Emanuele.
Title: "Speech to the Nation".
Where: on dad on the sofa in the kitchen.
When: two evenings ago.

Daddy's milk

As the next week I will be busy with the CRYSTAL School in Chemistry Department, Maurizio tried yesterday for the firts time to feed Emanuele. Obviuosly with my milk!!! Test passed, at least at home... I hope everything will be all right the next week!

Picture of the week

Yesterday Emanuele was 10 weeks old!

One shot!

Two days ago, Emanuele had his first vaccination: 6 viruses in one shot in his little leg (see picture). He did not cry during the vaccination but he had some reaction during Thursday afternoon (the leg became red) and I supposed it was painful because he cried in a different way from usual. Also yesterday he was a bit weird, maybe bacause he had some degrees of fever. Still today, around the region where the needle was inserted, his muscle is bit harder than usual but his mood is all right.