Category: parenting

Two Magical Years of A Life

Yesterday we celebrated Aleksander’s second birthday, with balls, balloons and even a half-cone of gelato, more or less the priority order of things he loves in his life. Compared to his first birthday, this year he kinda got it. Maybe not the full birthday concept, but at least the fact that it was a special day for him, perhaps even because of him. We sent him to daycare with party hats, loot bags and a chocolate sprinkle cake, and hoped he mumbled under his breath, when the big moment came: Happy Birthday TO ME!

This second year was a continuation, an advancement, and an even further and deeper acknowledgement of the spectrum of joy and challenges of family life and parenthood. If the first year of parenting is a universal reorientation of lifestyle, life priorities and life goals, the second is a leaning into the commitment that those things represent, and a creeping realization of how much of the journey lies ahead.

Two years of moments, hours, weeks, held together by a thread of joy, exhaustion, love, focus, patience, impatience, development (for all parties), effort, thankfulness, humility, overwhelmedness, laughter, tears, diapers, walks, parks, naps, hurried meals, Tuscan train windows, coughs, colds, fevers, beach days, pyjama snuggles, and a billion other things. Parenthood is an absolute fullness of life, in almost all the conceivable ways.

Aleksander took his first steps just a few days after we returned from his birthday trip to Dubai last year. (He subsequently starting kicking balls at pretty much the same time – an activity that he obsessed over for the entirety of the year). And so this year was one of movement, dynamism, chasing him around and holding his hand. Dalia thrived in the green winter parks of Rome with him – swings, slides, kids, balls. They started new routines together, explored and solidified new skills. By the Spring, our budding toddler was proving to be quite the handful for a full-time mommy so we decided to enroll him into daycare.

Thankfully, Italian daycares are supremely civilized environments. Children sit patiently waiting for their three course lunches while parents fret about absconding from their duties. The ‘asilo’ had a several week integration period and Aleksander settled right in, barely turning back to say goodbye by the end of his first week and making it to snack, lunch and nap sessions with record speed. While freeing up Dalia’s time, we also counted seven bouts of sickness after he started his daycare socialization journey. Feverish infant nights in foreign countries are a particular kind of unpleasantness, especially repeated every other week for the better part of four months. But alas, we all survived and hopefully he started to get and defeat some of the microbugs that will help him better survive in this viral planet in future.

As his time at daycare went on, Aleksander’s communication improved too. Sticking with ‘no!’ for a few months, but also humming Frere Jacques and dancing to the Wheels on the Bus. He’s just started saying yes in the last few weeks and is beginning to surprise us with the most adorable Italian phrases (mama mia, andiam-lo, ga-zye) and greeting most passerbys with an audible ciao! on the streets.

We’re often overwhelmed by love for his cuteness, by longing for him when we’re apart. We proudly smile when he shows his resolute kindness to other children in the playground. And despite our baseline disequilibrium much of the time, are starting to think whether the time might not be right to consider adding a sibling to Aleksander’s life. He would make such a great big brother and we could all expand our world, the world, that much more with this crazy thing called love.

One Month Ferragosto with Babula

It seems that we’re always a bit late in learning what’s actually happening in the Italian life right around us. Case in point, in late June we started to wonder about daycare in August as it didn’t seem they accepted our payment. Maybe we already paid and forgot?! Maybe it’s a shortened schedule. Or maybe, daycare, like the rest of Italy, is absolutely closed for the entire month!

Thankfully, Dalia has a good amount of flexibility at work and was able to secure the month off but four full weeks with our dynamic toddler is asking a lot of any individual. So we thought it’s the best possible time to invite and have Dalia’s mom stay with us for a few weeks. She also had some time available away from work and it seemed like a scheduling match made in heaven.

As my mom had come to visit us last Christmas, she had spent some time with us in Rome and with Aleksander after our departure from Canada. On the other hand, Dalia’s mom, babulya Lilia hadn’t seen our little guy in almost a year and a half. Even though we both try to keep our families’ informed of Aleksander’s development in photos, videos and calls, there’s just no replacing the real thing.

So as I mostly spent the sweltering days of August in the office, mom, daughter and grandson explored Rome, made crafts, put together puzzles sang at the piano, baked and had a fun time. Aleksander mastered Do Re Mi Fa So La Si Do at 21 months. It was great to see the growing bond between grandma and Aleksander. Dalia was also going through a significant transition in her weaning journey and having her mom nearby was exactly what the doctor ordered!

This visit, being Lilia’s first time in Europe, gave her plenty of things to google and learn about. One of our weak spots is leaning into the history of Rome and Dalia’s mom could always be counted on to share knowledge and facts about where we’ve been living for almost two years now. Her zeal for history and learning was eternally refreshing and inspiring. Dalia keeps many of these tidbits in her back pocket and shares them with our other guests.

Dalia’s mom left at the end of August with an Italian tan and many memories that we will all cherish. We look forward to creating more memories with babulya, whether it’s again in Rome or somewhere. Alla prossima, Nonna babulya Lilia!

Pre-Anniversary Museum Visit – Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna

So as our fifth wedding anniversary approached, we considered almost every idea under the sun for how to celebrate: Puglia, Tuscany, the Amalfi; but eventually we decided to take it easy, stay in town, take a couple days off work and do the kinds of things that we never seem to be able to squeeze in, like visiting museums.

So we dropped Aleksander at daycare, played hooky for the day and headed towards the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderne

The museum was a welcome reprieve from the ongoing summer heatwave and provided much food for thought, with exhibits ranging from the inspiring to truly bizarre.

We walked, observed, chatted, laughed and reflected. Five action packed years of marriage had passed by quickly, and especially after Aleksander’s birth, taking stock of the days, months and years has become a luxury of time that we’re just not afforded anymore.

We meandered as though we were simply back to being a couple in love, masters of their own schedules! We fought back some parental guilt for being without our little one but washed that away with a glass of wine before lunch and another one with it.

The date was exactly what this couple needed and proved to be a great way to begin our weekend of celebration.

A Magical Year

There was a time in my life, in my late 20s, when I was trying to launch onto a career path and stabilize myself into adulthood, where I became mildly obsessed with the question of where magic had gone. Not card trick, disappearing dove magic, but the kind that we all swim in during childhood, rediscover in adolescence and occasionally bump into in our early adult years. For me, as a little boy, this was anything from garbage trucks, to action figures, to washing machines, midnights and tooth-fairies. Then later, friendships, travel, discovery. As I approached 30, it seemed that all the magic there was to be in life had extinguished itself and been replaced by responsibility, strategic decision-making and mature routine living.

Love, marriage and pregnancy are all magical in their way – in their noble mystery. But there is nothing quite as magical as witnessing, experiencing and supporting a new life from its very beginning.

We celebrated Aleksander’s first birthday a few days ago, in Dubai because why not, and predictably, we reflected on this past year: on the changes, on the challenges, on the absolutely perfectly distilled joy of it all. We looked through pictures and videos, marvelled at how tiny he and his outfits first were, and how our life had become a rearranged and somehow elevated version of its past self.

All while Aleksander sat nearby, chewing our fingers, practicing his baby squats and making us smile. Living his magical little existence without any sense of the impact he’s unleashed in our world.

None of this is to say that it’s been non-stop rainbows and gelato scoops – from day to day, it can often feel like the exact opposite of that. A former boss told me when Dalia was pregnant that parenthood is the hardest thing you’ll ever do in life and also completely worth it. I shrugged that off as hyperbole but one year into Aleksander’s life, I couldn’t find a more accurate description if I tried.

I have a whole new respect for parents, any and all. In fact, now when I see a family out on a stroll, I barely even notice the kids (and how cute and lovely they are) but check for the look of parenthood in the adults’ eyes and want to slow-clap and thank them for their efforts. Parents are heroes. There are other heroes amongst us, but parents are maybe the most important and ordinary of the lot. And since they lack both the time and energy, they won’t even mange to bother you with any outward indication of the fact.

As a first time father at 40, it’s also been a unique experience for me. Exhausting, rejuvenating, all-encompassing, engrossing, focussing. This past year as a new dad, on-going husband, trainee diplomat and transplanted Italian, I feel that in the best of moments I’m operating at 90% capacity – managing all the things, but with a slim margin for error or much ability to add more to the plate. Something like grad school but with your thesis waking you up before the alarm (always), occasionally bumping its head into tears and needing editing a few times an hour, every day, with no deadline in sight. And like grad school, you do it and keep doing it. Because every giggle is an A+, every snuggle a degree, and every new skill an absolute breakthrough.

The magic of a little person discovering the world, moment by moment, element by element, is indescribably inspiring, humbling and moving. And as a parent you’re afforded not only a front row seat but a share of the experience, a sense of co-creation. You see creativity, awe, understanding, joy, desire, effort, discovery, success, striving through a joint view. You witness these little miracles being born into a world for the first time. You feel them, in your heart, all through your bones. You remember the awesomeness of humanity, of love, kindness, sacrifice. You wake up, you go to sleep and somehow a whole year passes by. And slowly you realize, maybe for the first time in a while, that your entire existence is again suspended in a world of magic.

And also that it’s still the beginning of a long journey, and that that’s a really good thing.