how did I get here?

Hello fellow pilgrams. Welcome to a new day.

When you think about it, that's pretty great. Yesterday always goes away and tomorrow always comes. Sometimes I wish time would stop for awhile, but it's probably a good thing that it doesn't. I haven't really thought through all the ramifications, so lets just leave it as it is for now.

No muckin about with time today.



Don't show this to your kids. It will MESS THEM UP. Actually, you probably shouldn't watch it either. BTW, am I the only one who gets a little wierded out when you can see a muppets' feet?

I am in the mood for a little catchin' up. I've been reading lots of new blogs during NaBloPoMo and have been seeing some new people poppin up here. How nice. So I thought instead of my usual daydreaming about life, or this great world we're in, I'd tell you a little bit about myself today.

One question that has been asked is: Why am I in Italy? Here goes:

I met my dear M in graduate school. M is Italian as in born and raised in Italy, fresh off the boat, and I met him one night at a party of a mutual friend. I start with that, because I'm not sure I would have moved to Italy if I hadn't married an Italian. I've always wanted to live abroad, but didn't really have a strong preference as to where... anyway... I remember he said something about my dimple (there you go boys, the big pick up line). We hit it off really well, like immediately, if you get my gist. My thoughts were, "well, that was fun" and just chalked it up to life is good, cause there is no way that someone that charming is actually interested in homely old me. But then he kept asking me out. I just went along with it in a mild state of disbelief for a few months before it started to dawn on me that he might actually really like me. Then I let myself really fall.

Jumping over the years of sailing pregnancy marriage babies house job (yea, that's all in the order it happened)... we find ourselves in California with a mortgage the size of Montana and couple of cute punks... life is good.

But M had been scouting for a new job since forever. One day he asks me, "I have an interview with a company in Italy. Do you want me to do it?"

It's an interview. Why not? Of course I want him to do it.

So he has the interview. The first one was in California. Then a second one in Boston. Then we fly out to Italy for a week. We suddenly have a big decision to make.

Some years earlier M had figured out what it would take financially for us to move to Italy. The offer was enough. M wanted to change his job anyway. My company was willing to hold my position for two years (we're going on three now, so thank you ;). The kids were still in pre-school. We figured in the worst case scenario it doesn't work out and we move back to California after a couple of years abroad. That's a pretty sweet worse case scenario. We wanted to go and just couldn't find a good reason not to. So we went. And here I am.

That said, all this happened after we had given up on ever moving to Italy. We tried for years to do so, but never found a situation that wouldn't mean flushing away our work experience, or savings, and starting from scratch, first in Italy, and then again in the US if we had to move back. When you go for so long on graduate stipends, the thought of doing it again can really sour the deal. Of course, this happened after we finally decided to buy a house. Murphy's law can be a real kicker. I've learned to roll with it (ie, the title of this blog) and life is good.

feeding green

I'll let you in on a little secret. I breastfed my kids because I was lazy. They were great nursers and I had buckets of milk. It was insane. When Punkone would nurse and the other breast started shooting milk across the room, I was proud as a little boy pissing his name in the snow.

I wish every mamma could have as much fun nursing her kids as I did. Hats off, hugs, love and support to any mamma struggling with this issue. Cause, if you can get a good solid breastfeeding relationship going, there's at least a 101 reasons to breastfeed your kids.

It's Think Green Thursday, and breastfeeding is definitely the Eco-friendly way to feed your baby.


A breastfeeding mom needs an extra 500 calories everyday (more than during pregnancy) but this small increase adds little stress to the impact on the environment we are already making. Especially when you consider what it takes to get formula to a baby. It needs to be manufactured, packaged, shipped, and stored. Furthermore, breastmilk is always warm and ready to go. No bottles or artificial nipples to buy. No energy required to warm the milk. No water, cleansers, and energy required to clean the bottles afterward.

Go green! Breastfeed your babes!


There is no food more locally produced or sustainable than breastmilk. Yet, the promotion of breastmilk substitues continues to undermine breastfeeding. The International Baby Food Action Network has been working for 30 years to stop formula manufactures from undermining breastfeeding by innappropriate promotion of their products.

smoke

When my kids were young, one thing I was really good about was getting them comfortable with their health care providers. The doctor and dentist office was a place where we went to get taken care of and received trusted advice. They were good people we could talk to. We never had any problems going to the doctor or dentist. Even when faced with scary problems, my kids knew that they were going to get good quality care.

That all changed when we came to Italy. I'm sure part of it is my fault as the kids must sense my own uneasiness and troubles trusting a system I don't understand and struggling to communicate with doctors who don't speak my language. But a part of it is also the fault of the doctors.

The case in point is my Punkette and her dental issues. She had several soft spots when we left the states that were likely to become cavities. They did. I got her to the dentist. She went voluntarily, had a cleaning and it was confirmed that she did have cavities. An appointment was made to fix them, FOUR MONTHS later!

We survived until the appointment, but things are worse by then. But she's still cooperative. She allows them to drill two of the smaller cavities out without any medication. When they tried to fill the holes, they jabbed a plastic spacer and this caused her a lot of pain. She refused to open her mouth for them after that.

This is where the core of her problem starts. Not one, or two, but now THREE different dentists reach a point with her where she refuses to cooperate and they just give up. They come to me and say, I'm sorry, I can't help her, she won't cooperate. I've been in the office with her, I've made her go in alone. They all ultimately hand the decision over to her, saying, "Do you want your teeth fixed or not?" Her answer, "No." And they give up.

Finally I had some hope with this last one. We had scheduled several appointments for Punkette just to get comfortable. Just cleanings and sealing the molars. The first visit, all she had to do was open her mouth. Finally, this dentists laid down the law to my very determined punk. The dentist told her what was going to happen that day and she couldn't leave until that was what they did. It took her an hour to open her mouth. A f@#!ing hour, but she did it. The next appointment was the cleaning. Half an hour, but again, she did it.

I thought FINALLY we are getting somewhere.

And they just friggin flushed it away today. Today was sealant. The dentist needed to use a few more tools for this. Punk didn't like how many tools were going in her mouth. TODAY, dentist made the fatal mistake. Put the damn ball in Punks court. Punk said no. Dentists looked at me in defeat, said, "lets cancel the next three appointments and have you come back, end of January."

So I'm fuming. This makes no sense to me. What happened to no way out? Cause if my Punk knows there's a way out, by all means, she's takin it. What happened to working her through this. If three tools is too much, isn't there a way to compromise. It may take longer, a lot longer but you can't just give up. I thought this dentist would be flexible and do what ever it takes to help this kid. The suggestion was that I punish her in some way so that she cooperates next time. I just can't imagine a scenario where this would help. She needs to be in that chair, letting the dentist work in her mouth. ARGH. They got her to the cleaning and now were back to zero.
ARRR!!!!!

Ok I'm done. I'll get Think Green up right quick. Thanks for listening.

edited to add:
I blocked comments because I was too mad yesterday and really just needed to vent. All better now. I'm ready to jump back into the fray.