What Ada has given me

As we were on the train coming home from Milan, Roommate asked me if I was glad we tackled moving abroad with a baby, even though it has proved to be more difficult at times.

I responded with a definite yes.

*

Yesterday took my last Italian exam. As I left the oral portion and walked down the hall with my professor I had a momentary feeling of pride as I thought, “I’ve done this. I’ve learned a language well enough to do more than just communicate my basic needs and name 100 things. I can speak Italian.”

I think Ada gave me that gift. And what a gift to give your mama for Mother’s Day.

Without her, I would have had 100 fewer reasons to leave the house every day. I wouldn’t have been forced to interact with anyone beyond the grocer or the fruit vendor. I wouldn’t have read dozens of children’s books in a foreign language (and been enticed checked out a few extra just for me). I wouldn’t have gone to the park or the library or up to complete strangers to pet their dog. I wouldn’t have had a large majority of the interactions that have helped me understand and learn to speak a new language.

Ada has placed me in situations where I have had to circumlocute my way out on almost a daily basis.

But Ada has also given me a strong sense of purpose while we've been here. She has filled my days rather than letting me fall into that very real and very dangerous place of isolation, boredom and depression. I watched several other spouses/partners/couples struggle to fill their time and find something tug them out of bed each morning. I am greeted each morning by a chirpy baby who wants to play and explore.

I’m so grateful she has tugged me along with her.

Tickets purchased

We bought our plane tickets last week. (Travel tip for you moving abroad types: look for round-trip fares with the return date during low season. We actually bought round trip tickets and saved over $800 dollars by playing with various return dates. Airfare is super wacky. How is it exactly that it costs so much less to buy round trip tickets than one-ways?)

It seemed to spark a sense of finality to everything we're doing here. It's coming to a close so quickly. And just as the weather is becoming perfect and sunny every day. Of course.

Right now the sun is streaming into the kitchen, Ada is asleep, and I can smell the clean laundry hanging outside the open window. I'm trying to savor this period of my life as one that is uniquely beautiful and peaceful. Time in the park. Bike rides on cobble stones. Trips to the fruit stand. Reading in the library. Toddling around piazzas. Chasing pigeons. Tasting gelato.

Mike and I were talking on the way home from church about how people probably think our life is like living out a nine-month vacation in Italy. It feels a tiny bit like that some times. There are still many days that I pause as I enter the Piazza Maggiore and think, "I live here?!" Or times when I see two old women arm in arm window shopping in the matching coats and hats and smile because they're just so Italian.Other times I'm held up in frustration by how paralyzing a language barrier can be (still) or how difficult simple tasks are. 

I feel settled into the pace, the routine, the idiosyncrasy of living in a Medieval city. And many days, I don't feel ready to go home. Good thing we have 5 weeks left to live it up (or live it up in the library, if you're a husband in graduate school approaching a brutal round of finals) before embarking on the next leg of our adventure.

It's a wrap!

We just finished up three days of filming.  Our weekend was full of new friends that Ada won over immediately. She was called a variety of pet-names all weekend and was constantly being praised for how well-behaved and happy she was. It's true. She was so easy and I was so relieved.

Watching herself on the portable monitor.

I learned all sorts of new things about GVs and POVs and BRoll this weekend and it was honestly a blast to hang with the British crew and some locals here in Bologna. I love the Italian people.

 I can't say what the shoot was for is for until the episode airs, but know that TV is just as magical behind the scenes. We're going to miss the crew, but Ada (and I) are looking forward to naps in her crib rather than the stroller.

Lights, camera, action

We've got a busy weekend. But I'll blog about it soon. When I'm allowed to . . .

Oh Darling, let's be adventurers

When I walk out my front door and look to my left I see this:

Sometimes I can't believe I live here. I'm anxious to get out for the afternoon and take some photos so I have a bunch to paint from. Problem is, I'm always to wussy to take my camera with me for fear of looking like a geeking-out tourist. Hmmm. Probably my English would give me away before my camera would. It needs to happen though. Soon.

We were at the post office yesterday waiting for them to call C20, our number, so we could go and get our permesso di soggiorno.  While we were waiting, a cute mom, her sister and her baby boy Marco sat next to us to wait for their number to be called (an A number. All of the Italians had A numbers to see someone at a different window about something else. The A numbers went quick. I wanted to be an A number after we were there for over an hour before our C number got called).

She asked me how old Ada is, a question I'm really good at answering now.

Sette mese. E tuo figlio?

Nove mese.

Come si chiama?

Marco. Lei come si chiama?

Ada.

Eh?

Ah-dah.

Ahh! Ada.

Si. Ada.

I've just resigned to introducing her as Ada here (pronounced Ah-dah, rather than Aid-da). It's just easier. Otherwise people give me a look and then I spell it and they say Ah-dah anyway.

(Tangentially, my name is even harder. Church was so funny. Come si chiama? Paige. Apegia. No, Pay-juh. Ah, Paygey. Sure. Mike's converts from Chile call me Peggy. Maybe it should be my international name).

With most babies Ada has met, she's been the over-eager friend type. Really into what they're interested in, inquisitive to a fault, maybe a little grabby. Excitable. Squeally. They're not really sure what to do with her.

But when Ada met Marco. . . Oh, Marco. He was different. With Marco, a young Italian bimbo with great, long hair, and brown eyes framed with enviable eyelashes, Ada was perhaps a bit smitten. He smiled, she played coy. He made a little chirp, she stayed quiet. Reserved. Very unlike her usual I WANT TO TOUCH YOUR FACE AND GRAB YOUR SHIRT WHILE I MAKE THESE LITTLE EXCITED NOISES (that sound sort of like squeaky brakes . . .) It was darling.

And the sister? She made me miss mine.

On a related note: We're officially residenti di Bologna!!!

The much anticipated flight

Guess who was a well behaved baby on the flight? That's right, Ada. I got a little fussy, but if Mikey kept feeding me snacks, I was just fine. In all seriousness though, here's how it all went down.

We got through checking our bags and security in no time at all, and had a nice little wait in the airport before taking off. The flight left right on time and Ada fell asleep right after I fed her during take off. She slept for most of the flight to Chicago. Our layover there was short--just enough time to eat, fed Ada, change her, get our boarding passes, and scurry through the gate. This flight was the one I was dreading. All 8+ hours of it.

But the best thing happened: the guy in the seat next to me moved because of the crummy leg room (I'm pretty sure we had more on this flight than any of our others...) so we had an open seat on our row. DREAM COME TRUE! We barricaded Ada in with our backpacks and she crawled around, played with toys, stood up to do some jumping, you know, baby stuff. She got a little fussy before going down for a short nap in her bassinet (also a DREAM COME TRUE) and then again when she got hungry. (By the way, feeding a baby on the airplane is so easy with the baby foods in the pouches. We didn't even use a spoon. By the end of day 2 she pretty much held it and sucked it out herself--mess free!) She slept pretty well that night until we had to wake her up at 1am Utah time to get off the plane. So while the survival kits probably weren't necessary, people appreciated the gesture regardless.

Surprise! We got to visit 5 airports rather than the anticipated 4. Jealous much? I thought so. Our flight number stayed the same but we had a layover in Madrid. I was super grumpy in Madrid. And thirstier than I have ever remembered being.

The flight to Barcelona was short and sweet. The layover in Barcelona was long and sour. I was exhausted, Ada fell and hit her head on the tile floor (and I feared it was a foreshadowing of the next 9 months of our lives), and we couldn't figure out the internet. Boo.

The last flight to Bologna was on the tiniest plane I've ever been in. Mike and I both had the same thought, "There's no way all of our stuff made all it. Especially not onto this pint-sized aircraft." Ada slept the whole time. That was a plus. She was probably the best traveler. I was probably the worst. Always hot. Always thirsty. Always grumpy. Mike held us together (as per usual).

Survival Kits

It's no secret. I'm terrified that we're going to become Public Enemy Number One if (after) Ada cries, screams, and squirms during entire flight. I've been on an airplane with a screaming baby and talked to enough people to know that no one likes the screaming baby. Rather, no one likes the wailing baby's parents. Me. And I want people to like me. Who doesn't want people to like them?

So I've put together some Wailing Baby Survival Kits for the passengers unfortunate enough to sit next to us on the plane. The contents include:

• A book of Sudoko puzzles
• A pencil
• Advil (for those crying induced headaches)
• Wipes (for spills and possible baby-related mishaps)
• Ear plugs
• Gum
• Chapstick
• Chocolate

We also included a little letter to our fellow passengers:


I'm hoping that in the (very likely) event that we disrupt others on the plane, they'll at least give us a bit more patience than they maybe would have because they know we know just how obnoxious we are.

Oh my starry eyed surprise

My mom called me yesterday to ask if I wanted to go to lunch. During our conversation, the topic of our flight arrangements/who was taking us to the airport came up. I`got a little bit choked up thinking about saying goodbye.

Goodbyes are going to be here in 5 days. I can hardly stand it.

I like to pretend that I'm Miss Independent, but when it comes right down to it, I think I'm really going to miss my mom.

Moving Abroad part 5: Packing vs. Storing

We've started packing.

Does it seem overly eager to start packing 10 days early? Maybe for a trip. But remember, this is a move. As in, yes, we're only living there for the first half of Mike's graduate program, but our place in Bologna will be the second longest stay we have had in any apartment. Ever. We're the move-every-four-months type. I sort of hate it.

But moving abroad calls for two big questions to be answered: What will you pack? and What will you store? We hardly own any furniture anyway, so we're going to rent a completely furnished place abroad. There's no sense in shipping a desk, a dresser, and a bed frame (basically all the furniture to our name) just to buy a whole bunch of furniture abroad to furnish a place with only to ship it back a year later, right? We're also not taking hardly any kitchen ware or appliances. I'm taking an immersion blender (for baby food and all that pasta sauce I'm going to learn to make) and my flat iron, but we're going to buy a new blow dryer and iron (to avoid the whole blowing-the-circuits thing).

So much of deciding what to pack and what to store depends on:

1. The duration of your stay abroad
2. What you already own
3. If you have the time (and resources) to ship stuff over on the slow boat (it can take as long as 6 months!)

Wrapping your head around what to pack and store takes a long time. Start early. We started packing by not really limiting what we threw in the suitcases and then as real-estate in our bags (in both weight and space) became limited, we became more judicious about what we were taking and starting paring some things down.

We're trying to pack "light" (if you call 300+ pounds of luggage, plus two bikes "light").

We're checking:

• 2 bikes - if they're boxed in standard bike shipping boxes, they count as a checked bag on international flights
• 4 fifty pound bags - 1 is full of art supplies/my easel, 1 has Ada's bike seat, diapers, clothes and a few other odds and ends, 2 are primarily packed with clothes, but somewhere in these bags we'll be taking other things that will help us make our move feel less like a vacation and more like a move (i.e. a few picture frames, the bins that hold Ada's things, very few books, toys and blankets). 

We're carrying on:

• Ada's stroller (this counts as her "carry on")
• 1 bag full of 2 outfits, our toiletries (but nothing over 3 oz!!), other items that will makes us happy and comfortable if our luggage (heaven forbid!) gets lost
• Ada's porta-crib (a.k.a.: The crib she'll sleep in until our return to The States.)
• Two backpacks that contain our electronics, documents and stuff to keep us entertained/sane on the plane
• Ada's diaper bag stocked with food, diapers, and entertainment. 

We haven't completely finished the job, but here's what we know for sure: we're going to want to buy stuff over there, so we're trying to pack as much as we can take for free, and use the money we would have paid in overweight baggage fees at H&M.

 Other moving abroad posts:

Part 1: Being Over-prepared
Part 2: Documentation
Part 3: Flight Arrangements 
Part 4: Housing and Transportation 

A few things

So here's the deal.

We leave in 14 days. That's two weeks. Which is less than a month. Which means we leave soon.

I'm almost out of shampoo, but I refuse to buy more just to leave a big, full bottle here. I did, however, break down and buy a new stick of deodorant (they don't spill in your bag).

We bought Ada a bike seat and a helmet. She loves riding the bike. Really, really loves it. I like it too because she looks like a mushroom with her helmet on (think a 1 up in Mario). Pictures to follow. Soon. It's just too hilarious not to share.

(Some) things left to do:

Figure out exactly what we're taking v. storing
Get a new camera
Finish the survival kits
Spend as much time with everyone I love here in Provo
Finish Ada's stocking (and find Mike's . . .)

Moving abroad Part 4: Housing and Transportation

We lucked out. Truly. When Michael got accepted to his program I immediately started panicking, "How in the world do I find an apartment!?!" Our first thought was to do what we did when we moved to DC for the summer: contact the local ward.

(For those unfamiliar, a ward is a group of LDS church members, organized geographically, who worship together, and care for and teach one another).

We looked up the local ward leadership and wrote an email to the bishop of the Bologna Ward. He responded right away and said they knew of a few places. This is one of the greatest parts of LDS Church membership: they're every where and you have an instant "in" with the locals.

We also have a great resource through Johns Hopkins who assists students in finding housing for the duration of the school year. He has maintained relationships with landlords over the years and knows of several apartments available. We also sent him a message. We feel really lucky to have such great resources at our disposal for finding housing.

When we arrive in Bologna, we'll stay in a hotel for the first few days we're over there while we look at some apartments and then decide on one that's right for us. We're looking at apartments that are furnished because of the limited duration of our stay.

It is a little nerve-wracking to me to think that we're going to pack up all of our things, fly across the ocean and move away from everything familiar without even knowing where exactly we're going to live. But that's part of the adventure, right?

Once we're all settled in, our primary mode of transportation will be bikes. We both have commuter bikes (Mikey got me a new one while we were in California) that we'll be checking and The Lou will tag along in a seat of some sort (we have yet to work out exactly what we want to purchase but we're thinking the baby seat by Topeak even though it's really ugly. . . Other suggestions?) We won't be bringing a car or renting or purchasing one there. We will, however, use public transportation as we need to. From what I understand, Bologna has a great public transit system. When we travel, we'll take trains (or maybe planes) to get to places further away. (I can't wait to take a train again!!)

Other moving abroad posts:

Being Over-prepared
Documentation
Flight Arrangements 

Moving abroad Part 3: Flight arrangements

While the prospect of living in another country is like a big, happy, bright spot in my near-future, the prospect of actually getting there on a plane with a baby is like this dark, hairy thing lurking in my happy spot.  I'm seriously afraid of it. I wouldn't be so apprehensive if my child liked to sit in one spot for more than, oh, 36 seconds. But she's a mover and a shaker and I think being in our seats for the duration of our flights just may kill both of us off.

I've done a bit of preparation for our flight already that I hope will ease the pain of an international flight with a baby.

Plan flights around sleeping schedules
One thing that gets mentioned a lot is to plan flight times during naptimes/bedtimes. In our case, our total travel time is 22 hours (see why I'm scared?) so we will pretty much hit all of Ada's naptimes and bedtime and with any luck (heaven help us) we might just get her to sleep during them.

Reserve a Sky Cot
This was a revelation to me. A Sky Cot is basically a little bassinet that hooks on/folds down from the bulk head wall and babies (usually up to 8 months) can sleep in it. Not all planes have them, but from what I understand most large "air bus" type planes do. Reserve them early when you reserve your seats. This took a lot of calling and hold music, but I think it's going to be worth it (I'll have to write an update about this). Mostly I'm just trilled that I don't have to hold Ada (as much as I love holding her ) on my lap for 12 plus hours while we fly overseas.

Consider your layovers.
Our flight itinerary has two layovers.  Some people are in the "get-there-as-expeditiously-as-you-can camp" and others are in "layovers-were-our-saving-grace camp." I think we may be in the latter. It will give Ada time to scootch around and us time to stretch our legs. (Plus when you fly out of Salt Lake, it's hard to find any sort of direct flight no matter what you pay).

Pay the lap tax in advance.
If we were more flush, I probably would have sprung for a separate ticket for Ada so she could have her own seat. Even though she can't sit, I think the extra room would be worth it. We didn't. This time. However, regardless of whether or not your baby has their own seat, you have to pay for them to get on the flight. The "lap tax" for infants is usually 10% of the cost of your ticket if you book it before hand. I read someone else's experience which involved several money transfers and pretty much giving up an arm and a leg to get their child on board at the gate. Bottom line, even though you many feel like the airlines should be paying you to keep a baby on your lap the whole time, save yourself the headache (and a wad of cash) and pay the lap tax in advance.

Do your research on baggage policies.
The nice thing about lap taxes is that by acknowledging that your child is a person and therefore needs to pay a fee to board a plane, they are counted like regular people in the baggage department. By paying the lap tax, we got two more free checked items, another carry on, and a personal item. Good thing too since we'll use one of her checked bags for her Pack'n'Play, her checked item is her stroller is her carry-on (by gate checking it) and her diaper bag is her personal item. Sheesh, kids come with a lot of extra stuff. Baggage policies were confusing to me. We're flying Iberia, but the first leg of our flight is "American Airlines operated by Iberia." Long story short, the international flight always trumps the domestic when it comes to baggage policies.

Don't forget to bring your consent form.
Like I mentioned in this post, Mikey and I had to get a little statement notarized giving our permission for our spouse to fly with Ada. It's weird since we're both her parents, but I heard a story from my Aunt about a woman who wasn't allowed to take her child with her because she didn't have this paper. (Needless to say she stayed in the airport and probably had a breakdown).

For more travel tips see:
HERE
HERE
and HERE

Moving abroad Part 2: Documents

I got my moving abroad bible (The Expert Expat) in the mail yesterday. I have yet to read all 270-something pages (and quite honestly, some of the contents are completely irrelevant to our situation so I probably won't ever ready all 270-something pages) but there are certain parts that I have already read and re-read.

There is a great list of things you should probably have in your carry-on luggage. Among the list of "items that solve practical problems" and "items that provide comfort" is a list of documents that will be essential to not only keep safe, but probably handy as well.

Of the over-twenty items on the list, here is the list of documents that I am going to be carrying with me.

1. Passports and Visas
Start early getting these documents in order. We took Ada's passport photo when she was barely one-month old. We are still in the process of securing her visa nearly 5 months later. There is a lot of run-around to deal with, so be prepared to call several consulates, post offices, advisers, banks and the like. I am also taking copies of these things. (Side note: if you change your name, renew your passport within a year of getting your name changed and you could save yourself a chunk of change. It might be worth it even if you don't have impending travel plans because you never know when your husband might decide to move your family to a foreign country).

2. Flight itinerary, plane tickets, and consent form
The itinerary and tickets are a given. But the consent form took us off guard. Basically Mike and I had to give each other consent to travel with our daughter into a foreign country. This document has to be notarized by a bank.

3. Extra passport-sized pictures for permesso di soggiorno and other host-country requirements
When we arrive we have to get permission for residency through the local police in Bologna. Having some photos on hand (the same ones we had to send with our Visa Applications and our passport applications).

4. Ada's birth certificate, our marriage license, our social security cards
Proof that we're American, married and the legal parents of our daughter. I also made copies of these documents which we'll take with us.

5. Insurance Forms
I have yet to figure all of our health insurance details out completely, but my advice is to start early. It takes a lot of phone calls. And time-zones make some calls really hard to make. We're also doing research on emergency insurance in  Italy and deciding how we want situations handled at home (in the States) if an emergency arises. (Submit your heaven-forbid-game-plan to your parents, or whomever you trust the most)

6. Drug, eyeglass and contact lens perscriptions
Even though we're going to be taking a year supply of these things (if we can get a year supply of some things...) we're bringing along signed prescriptions from our doctors, just in case.

7. Health and Vaccination records
This takes a bit of time as well. Unless you're uber-organized and have your immunization record (and your husband's and your child's) up to date and in a nifty little file. We are requesting our immunization records from the county health department and our pediatricians. Then we are taking this documentation to our family physician who will review/consolidate the records and give us the necessary boosters (ouch!) before we leave. It's also a good time to get checked out and make sure we're all healthy before we leave.

8. Address book, check book, emergency contact info

9. School documents

10. Housing documents

All of these documents are neatly filed in my beautiful new Peter Walsh accordion folder (love) and will be taken with me in my "personal item" on the flight.

This just in

So I've been studying Italian via Rosetta Stone for the past month or so. I move slowly because by the time to sit down and do it (after Ada is down for a nap and I have cleaned, folded, showered . . . whatever) I have about 4 minutes and 26 seconds before Ada wakes up. Bummer.

Yesterday while trying to figure out how cheaply we can get some essentials abroad I went on Ikea's Italian site. And I navigated my all research in Italian without even using Google Translate!

You guys, I MIGHT NOT DIE IN ITALY. (I just heard that caps lock is the new cruise control for cool).

Moving abroad Part 1: Overprepared = underwhelmed

The countdown to take-off has yet to officially begin, but the more focused preparation has commenced. Yesterday I was on the phone for nearly three hours with the airlines trying to figure out baggage allowances, checking bicycles, making seat reservations, going over layovers and flight itineraries etc.

(On a tangential note: I used to be afraid to call strangers. As in, I had my mom making my dentist appointments when I was in college. I had to get over that one real quick after I got married. Now I feel like making appointments and calling customer service people is my part-time job.)

I've started making a packing list. I know, it may seem a little early, but some things on the list may take a bit of time and effort to get (enter: prescriptions for a year. Hello insurance company, doctor's office, fax machine, telephone, internet . . . it's a pain. Trust me). Thinking all of these things through in advance will hopefully save me headache down the road.

To say that I've been scouring the blogosphere (and bookosphere) for tips would be an overstatement, but I have put aside time to find ways to ease the mess and hassle of not only traveling with an infant, but moving to another country. Yikes. I want the experience to more closely resemble a well executed battle plan, rather than a three ring circus.

Organizationally, I think that DesignMom had a brilliant idea with this accordion folder to store all of the papers they would need on the way over to France during their move. Now that we have our visas and other documents coming back, I think it will be important to find a good way of keeping this info safe, yet accessible.




I'll be posting more tips for traveling with babies and relocating abroad as I come across them (because I have been looking). In the mean time, you can check out my Pinboard on the subject.

Mug shot

Hilarious, right? Can you tell how excited she is to go to Italy? I took a much cuter photo that I had all stapled and ready to submit on her passport application, but when we got to the receiving office, they told us that she couldn't be wearing a headband. Even a teeny, tiny headband. Like the one she was wearing. To just indicate that, I don't know, she's a girl or something. (But bald is beautiful!)

I read through the photo instructions on the State Department's website probably a dozen times and no where did it say no headbands. It did say no sunglasses or hats or head coverings. But nothing about head bands. And the woman in the example photo had on a chunky necklace and some earrings. I thought we were in the clear. Guess not.

So we took this photo at the office.

The whole time the guy snapping the photo was going "Pssp! Pssp! Pssp! Psssp!" as if that calms babies? This is the only photo he got where she wasn't wide-mouthed and wailing.

And I can't wait for her to flash it as a five year old and say something like, "What?  You don't recognize me from my passport photo?"