Its been over three years since I’ve put a song up here. And here is Good Morning, or Kitty Stew.

Good Morning
©2010.

If you wish to sing along with the melody:

Good Morning
Good Morning
Its time to wake up and go outside
Good Morning
Good Morning
Its time to go outside

I thought I saw you outside
Having a good time
You were throwing sticks
And running fast
Chasing down the neighbors cat (action: Move arms like a pirate)

Good Morning
Good Morning
Its time to get up and go eating
Good Morning
Good Morning
Its time to go eating

I thought I saw you eating
Having a good time
You were having peas
And carrots too

And slurping down some kitty stew (Action: Move arms like pirate)
Ew

As far as the other two, Addie has taken to riding horses. She took a camp earlier this summer and is continuing with classes. She also did her first week camp away from home at Wilson and loved it. Wants to go back every year.

In this picture of Griffin, he has just finished writing his name on the chalk board in our kitchen for the first time. Griffin is sounding out and reading three letter words. He loves to dance and make jokes and sing. None of that is different, however I did discover yesterday that he can sound out three letter words and read them that way on his own. Very cool stuff. He also identifies other words in ways that surprises me.

Both kids have signed up and started Piano lessons this week.

This summer has been a good one. I finished a pebble patio where the mud hill used to be, I laid out squares to make a garden checkers board and bought wooden plaques from Jo Ann Fabric. I painted them to make checker pieces.

Well. That’s the summer for us. LJ is working on her new grant, and I’m focused on yard work and trying to be a good parent.

We decided to not give Griffin a nap and instead chose to drive into the Chianti Region. It was a magnificent and winding drive through what seemed to be hundreds of vineyards. So many grapes vines and olive trees. Spectacular scenery. Just breathtaking.
We went to a place called Radda in Chianti. A pleasant small town where we just enjoyed hanging around in once again another stunning local. We hung out and saw a cat on a roof, we did shopping and bought stuff, and I took a wonderful photo series with the kids. I might just include part of it below.
What I would say about Radda is that it is not so much a tourist spot. It’s a bit out of the way and the shops are geared toward regular lives and the occasional wine tourist. And because of this it has a real quality to it that is often overshadowed at some of the more famous places.

After we left Radda we found a shortcut back to Monteriggioni. A quick word about traveling in this area. Don’t try to use a map except to familiarize yourself with what towns are near what other towns and then just start driving. Look for signs pointing you towards locations that are where, or near where you want to go.
By the time we arrived back at Monteriggioni (which is very near our B&B) the weather had turned very nice and we watched local children playing which gave it a very real feeling. We managed to enjoy this town a bit more with the lack of rain. We did not stop to walk the walls or do other things that are available, but we just took it in before we headed to the room for the evening.
We always took our own food to the Bigozzi because they don’t have meals at night, and taking the kids out for dinner would be too difficult.
I know this is a long post, but it seems we shoved a lot into just a few days. That’s the way it is when one travels well.
The following day we went to San Gimignano. This was another old city that has old history. – a city of towers. If you click on this picture you can see what it looks like from the Tuscan valleys.
We went there and met Laura’s co-worker Alasandra. She is the one who arranged for Laura to come to Italy in the first place. We spent the morning with her and her family and we had a very nice time. Very relaxing. Mostly the kids all played together and the adults talked.
Despite our need to get back to Bologna to return the car, Addie found a museum of torture and she made us take a brief and whirl-wind tour. It kind of freaked her out and she said she hadn’t realize what it would really be like, and she said she didn’t like it very much. The place showed all of the kinds of torture that were used from different parts of the world.
We made it back to Bologna fine. However while dealing with returning the car I somehow lost my wallet, but didn’t realize it until we were half-way home. After dropping things off at the apartment I rushed back. It’s a bit complicated, but someone found my wallet and turned it in at a hotel. I went there and got it and it still had all the money and credit cards!
My faith in the people here is renewed. There are good people in this world.
Well, that’s the word from Italy this week. We aren’t sure what we’re doing next weekend. It will be our last full weekend and, well. It’s almost over.
Ciao

We, Laura and myself, decided to climb the one large tower in town, hauling Griffin and Addie along with us up the stair. Here is a picture of the stairway.
To be clear, it is a narrow, wooden, old, worn and slippery, and at-times-giving-way staircase. The view of the photo is looking up. Notice it’s just wood hanging on beams stuck in holes in the tower itself.
Going up was a little bit frightening. Addie was scared and kept talking about how we might fall and get injured, or what would happen if we dropped Griffin, who Laura carried up a good way, and I helped some. We finally had to tell Adelaide to stop talking about it. I must say that it works the body to climb 500 steps, and concentrate at not falling, especially with a 40 lb. three-year-old. So, advice and input from a loquacious seven-year-old doesn’t help.
We made it to the top and Griffin get’s hungry. He’s a handful when he gets hungry, and we are all tired from the climb. The views were amazing and we try to take them in quickly so we can get right back to work and start climbing down again, before Griffin figures out how to circumvent the iron bars over the turret openings and tries to find a faster way down than using the stairs.
I did manage to snap off a few pictures. Here is a view looking down at the sister tower beside the one we climbed. You can see how far it is leaning. When our friend Jill was here she said that it leaned farther than the tower of Pisa. I don’t know if that’s official but she thought it was scary. Shayne, who also visited us said that it would never pass code in the U.S.A.

(A NOTE – if you click on a picture you can see a larger size of the image.) This next picture is looking down at the street below the tower. See how all the buildings have that old world look? The whole inner city of Bologna is like that. It’s truly an incredible experience to live here for two months. We are now half-way done and I know I will be very sad to leave.

Here is a picture pointed in the direction where we live. Just a little up and to the left of the center (click to expand the photo) you can see a church’s rounded dome. That’s the church with the Michaelangelo statues. Just to the right and a smudge up is the palace of Napoleon’s sister. That building is now some kind of Government office. It’s huge. It’s on the corner of the road where our apartmento is.
Coming down was the most frightening thing I have ever done with a small but heavy child.
If you know Griffin – or Super G as he’s been calling himself recently – then you know that he can not hold still. He wiggles. He leans. He wants to grab and explore the world around him as any energetic three-year-old should. I carried Super G – that ball of eternal motion – down those same awful steps I mentioned earlier, and believe me they are four times as frightening going down as they were going up (note to travelers: leave the baby at the bottom).
He would lean way out to look down.
I would ask him to hold still.
He would wiggle around and slap my face and say, “I love you, daddy.”
I tried to yell at him to hold still and he’d ask, “Are you mad, daddy?”
It was so cute. I had to work on not laughing because of both of our immediate danger.
He would grab hold of the hand rail and bring us to a sudden and twisting stop.
My legs and arm ached. “Don’t touch anything,” I’d say. “Stop it.”
“You aren’t yelling at him, are you?” Laura would ask.
“No,” I’d say. “I just don’t want to fall. I need him to hold still.”
Griffin would then wrap his arms around my head so I couldn’t see and he would give me a kiss and say, “I love you, daddy.”
Addie would chime in. “If you drop him will he fall all the way down? If Griffin dies I will be really sad. Mom, what would happen if Daddy drops Griffin?”
And so it went, down 500 stairs – my one arm killing me because I kept him on the inside wall.

We made it down in one piece, all of us hungry. We stopped in what is probably the only Chinese restaurant in the main center of town and I embarrassed Laura by trying to practice my rusty Chinese from when we lived in Taiwan. I wasn’t too bad at it, and because the waitress spoke no English, and I spoke no Italian, it actually worked a little and we were able to communicate.

I include this last photo of Double-A (Griffin’s name for her) and Super G. My name is Daddy Sonic Boom Butt, and Laura is Mister Shaky Bobble Head. We have all sorts of fun with this. A baby was crying and Griffin said, “Super G to the rescue.”
“Oh. no,” Mister Shaky Bobble Head said, “A baby is crying. What will you do?”
“I’ll throw it in the fire.” (He’s fascinated by the Lady Gaga performance at the grammies.)

I registered yesterday (Saturday) by paying 5 euro and NOT filling out any paperwork – I gave my money and got a shift – no bib, though, because it’s not a timed race. The race started Sunday at 9AM and I was PSYCHED! I took yesterday off of running and seriously carbed up. I was taking this race more seriously than any other prior because I’ve been really working out since we got here – about 4 to 5 good runs weekly (usually 5 miles each) – but the key is that I have running HILLS, because that’s my only option. I typically run away from my house for about 30 minutes straight up and then return coming straight down. I’ve assumed that I must be getting very strong because these hills are HARD.

The alarm went off today at 7AM and Ian informed me that it was raining – DRAG! I told him to turn off the alarm and we all went back to bed. I will admit that I was more happy than sad to stay in bed, even though this run was important to me. At 8:30 Griffin woke us all up and Ian informed me that the rain had stopped. I now had no excuse — I dragged myself out of bed, chugged a cup of instant coffee -Nescafe’- (that’s what we do when not at home in the U.S.), and jog-walked down to the city center, about .3 of a mile away. I got there well in time to get in the queu and stretch before the gun went off.

I should point out that there were three races – the mini, the moderato, and the maxi – all starting at the same point (or, alternatively, the 3K, the 5K and the 10.8 k). I really wanted to be running the MAXI, and I think I did, but I don’t actually know when the mini’s and the moderato’s veered off from the pack, because there were no signs or anything. (Or, perhaps there were, but they were in Italian and I simply didn’t notice!).

What was spectacular about the run was that it was all contained within the medieval streets of Historic Bologna old towne – weaving through the tiny streets, all lined with porticos, much of it well over 500 years old. I tried to take it in as much as I could, in part an effort to stave off my deep desire to quit! Yes, despite all of my practicing, the run started out HARD. I do not do races well. Everyone passes me and I feel angry the entire time – ticked off because I feel like I should be doing better. I have a constant refrain in my head as to why I am going slow (today it was: my hip hurts, I have a blister, I should lose five pounds, I’m tired, I did a hill run two days ago) and why everyone else is faster (they’ve been running for 10 years, they’ll peter out soon because they started too fast). The first 20 minutes were really negative and I almost dropped out – it would have been very easy because the whole time we were in the city centre and I could have just turned off and headed home! I stuck with it and everything got easier with time. I stopped thinking about being passed and focused on either pacing with a person in front of me or tuning my attention to the glorious architecture or, most motivating, being present with the fact that I was running a race in the middle of Italy.

The last mile was the best – I kicked up to a nice pace and achieved a resounding personal best. If my calculations are right, and IF I actually ran the maxi (10.8 km or 6.7 miles), I think I ran about 9.5 min miles – which is much faster than I have ever done before and a lot better than I had hoped to do (I think my time was about 1:01, and I had hoped for 1:07). Ian was there to greet me at the end but actually missed me running under the finish line – so I turned around and re-ran through the line so he could get a snapshot. He pointed out to me that in my last race, when I got to the end, he couldn’t even talk to me as I staggered to the edge to recover. This time, I happily turned around and re-ran the finish and then hauled Griffin around on my hip. I felt really great.

The “swag” (the give aways) at the end was a riot. For drinks and food for the runners, there was cold tea (somewhat different than the Gatorade we do in the U.S.) and hunks of white bread coated with Nutella (Griffin ate mine). Everyone who finished got a small bottle of juice and a BIG bag of pasta in a plastic shopping bag – I thought that was hilarious until I realized it was somewhat akin to running for a pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving (which I did this last year).

It was a great day – a personal best (unless I actually did the MINI course, in which case it was my personal worst!) –and I got to run through the heart of one of Italy’s greatest cities. I also learned that Italians know how to do a great run – great cheery atmosphere, everyone chatting away as I have found is pro forma no matter what Italians are doing!

This is our last weekend in Bologna. Next weekend we are in Venice, the weekend after in Tuscany, and then finally a long weekend in Rome before coming home. And in between the glorious weekend trips, a bit of running coupled with great collaboration with folks here at the University of Bologna that will result in a very interesting paper on preterms’ risk for language disorders.

Ian’s Notes: Laura did fantastic and we were all very proud of her. Here are three pictures. Her finishing a second time (she’s there in the green) and one each posing with the kids. Great Job Laura.

We visited St. Stephano down the road, at what has become our favorite part of town. And what is incredible about this church is that there are additions to the additions so that you can walk back into time, as well as into chapels tucked in nooks and throughout the compound. It is said to be 7 churches in one. If you only visited the first three buildings, you missed out. No cameras inside – although some tourists seem to ignore the signs.

The main church down on the square is the Patronius. It was destined to be the largest cathedral in Europe, but one of the popes long ago put and end to that – because the Vatican had to be the biggest. It is still a hulking building in the center of Bologna, and either the 5th or 7th largest cathedral in Europe.
It’s great to see for many reasons, including the incredibly large sun dial that runs at an angle in the church. It was so large that it helped to discover the actual time it took for the Earth to travel around the Sun.

Outside, marble only covers part of the lower half. And in the back you get a sense of what the building was going to look like. Since it is so large I have this picture of Neptune, a statue in the square out front of the church. Water squirts out of the bosoms of four women at its base. One of the museums nearby has a stone neptune that is almost equally fascinating, just no water squirting out boobs.

With all there is to see in Bologna, it’s a wonder there aren’t more tourists. I’m glad of it, personally.
Tomorrow Laura will run the Bologna 10K. There should be a posting about that.

I leave you with a photo of some of the many porticos. Notice the intricate paintings on the ceiling, mostly ignored by people casually passing by underneath.
Ciao

Front of the Florence Duomo