Do you want the finger mom? - Vuoi il dito mamma?

Vuoi il dito? (Do you want the finger?)

This posting will be brief as it is only meant to record yet another, hopefully transitory, strange obsession of my son. In the last few weeks Tronk has discovered the most exciting thing ever: "il dito" (the finger) and our reactions when he moves his index finger up and down towards us. He does that to copy his dad, who likes to tickle him. When Tronk first raised his little finger towards us John and I couldn't help showing him that we were scared; typical reaction of the parent treating the child as a grown up! The problem is that he got a real kick out of it while we were in Italy and continued to raise his little finger to nonno and nonna (the Italian grandparents) and even to strangers in the street, hoping to get the same reactions from them.

Unfortunately, nonno turned out to be the only one who went along with the game, by producing a fake expression of terror and a scream (causing us to be scared) each time Tronk's finger was approaching. Strangely, nonna's reaction instead turned out to be an attempt to eat the finger. Sadly, everyone else Tronk came across in the two weeks he spent in Turin, did not get the message.

We are now back in Boston, still trying to escape from the little finger and get some sleep.

A Lost Dream - Un Sogno Abbandonato

Warning: Sorry, Folks, but this posting DOES NOT end with my decision to finish my PhD.

Last night I dreamt that I was having lunch with other students at the Imperial College canteen, as usual, and that nobody (supervisor included) could explain to me what "normalization" is and when is needed or not in an equation. Everyone looked so confused and lost at the table. I left the room totally frustrated, then I woke up. The memory of that dream (with the recursive Bayesian equations mentioned in the dream) was haunting me while I was feeding Tronk breakfast this morning.

Recursive Bayesian Equations

My Facebook Status:

I dreamt that I was working on the last chapter of my doctoral thesis and that nobody at Uni (supervisor included) knew what normalization is for. Painful dream.

Comments:

You need to get back to studying...

You need to finish

You can do both, just have to wait until William is a tiny bit older and at school

There is no reason why Enrica can't finish once William goes to school. The first baby is most certainly not dead. Just hibernating. : )
4 solid hours a day over 6 months. I bet you finish

Here is my reply to these comments and to all the people who will ever raise the question why I didn't, whether I should, should have or will have to finish my PhD at some point in my life.

I'll start by telling you this. One month ago, a PhD student at Harvard emailed me to ask me to go to her office to talk about  "the state of the art in automated human behavior analysis", a chapter of my PhD dissertation, the thesis I never finished writing. Buried under negative thoughts, I said "NO", with all the pain resulting from that reply. To be frank, the sole idea of having to reopen and look through my ex PhD work was putting me in a state of anxiety and was making me feel bad. The reason is hard to explain.

Since I had William, for a year or so, I could not accept my decision to stop working on my PhD thesis. That PhD in Bioengineering was all it mattered in my life until I met my husband. I had already published three papers with promising results obtained from the analysis of 220 programs I wrote from scratch in Matlab and run on ten different subjects (of which three were real), with complicated equations of Bayesian Inference and of particle filtering.  And I had already completed four chapters of my PhD thesis, that my PhD supervisor had already read and edited. All I was missing was the last two chapters, the one containing the final analysis of the data sets (work which was killing my back) and the chapter drawing the conclusions. I had difficulties understanding some aspects of the complex wavelets that I used in my first year to implement the face detector but I was slowly overcoming these difficulties as I have overcome others. I knew on the other hand that without some foundations in maths, science or social sciences, with or without the PhD,  I could not go very far. See? The more I talk about this the more I feel bad. 

Before I had William, I was hoping to finish my PhD in Boston. Then, after talking to two Professors, one at MIT and another one at Brandeis University, I realized that if I had decided to finish my PhD here in Boston, practically, I would have had to start it all over again and I really couldn't bare such weight, both financially and physically. I have had enough with the four years spent working in the lab, sometimes until 10 pm, sometimes until later. I reached a point  all I wanted was to be done with my PhD, to recover from my back problem, to get a job, to pay my debts and have my personal life back.

But life took a different spin for me. At the end, I was forced to choose between two options: (1) to continue to destroy my health in London with an herniated disk, bank debts and a long distance relationship (2) to move to the US and have a family. I chose to have a family and by family I mean a husband, not a child. My initial plan was to recover from my back problem, get used to living in the US and find a job. I had not excluded, however, the possibility of having a child later in life.

Yet I became pregnant as soon as I moved to the US and this is the first question I had to answer: who is going to be always at home with my child? No doubts it would be me, as John was in full time employment and my parents could not help me from Italy. So I chose to give my child a full-time mom for as long as I can and I don't regret this choice. I am glad my child has a mom at home who feels the duty to take care of his needs and education full-time.

I often wonder what I will do when my child goes to school in two and half years time. I ask myself how my life will change. This is the scenario I often imagine:  me taking William to school, then going back home to hurry to prepare lunch to then go to pick him up and take him home to give him lunch. Then find things to do with him in the afternoon. In this scenario I really cannot see my thoughts going on Bayesian equations and on particle filters. 

I am only certain this: I will not be that permissive working mom saying "yes" all the time to overcome the feelings of guilt from not being at home when my child comes home from school and this by itself is worth a thousand PhDs.

At the same time, when someone asks me what I do for a living, when I am thinking of going back to work or someone mentions something that even for few seconds brings my mind back to the PhD I never finished, there is a fire inside me that starts burning. And I feel the urge of talking about my past research experiments as if talking about it could serve the purpose of making me feel better.  As a matter of fact, by doing this, all I accomplish  is make myself feel bad.

So, to make it clear to you, the PhD I have not finished is a bit like a baby that I have not been able to save, a baby who died. After that I had a second (far better) child and I am now responsible for taking care of this second child. Remembering the days (or dreaming of) when my first baby was alive no longer makes sense and it only makes me feel bad.

To John, for his birthday - A John, per il suo compleanno

This posting is dedicated to my husband John. Happy birthday dear husband and amazing dad!!!

Tronk has learned a rather strong expression from his dad: God Dammit! It all started in the car when Tronk started imitating his father expressing his anger against the well known aggressive Massachusetts car drivers (see video below)

This wasn't a single episode. Tronk is in love with this expression and I initially found it rather embarrassing to stand next to him at the doctor's office while he was greeting the people next to us with his sweet loud God Damnit. Not that it was making me feel any better to hear that on the train. In those situations it was always the parent (me) who was getting the dirty look from the old lady, not Tronk!

Today, I was typing an email on the computer when Tronk came to me with a rather frustrated expression of the face and said these exact words as loud as he could possibly do: 

"Questo computer! God Damnit Mamma!" (This computer! God Damnit  mom!)

I know very well that cursing (swearing or cussing, as you prefer to name it) is a form of disrespect towards other people but when I hear him say God Damnit these days, all I can do is hide and burst into laughter, hopefully without Tronk seeing me. It is funny and I don't see a reason for telling him to stop saying what his father says all the time. Not to defend my husband's colorful language but God Damnit does not seem to be such a bad expression, according to the Urban Dictionary:

"The expression God Dammit is used in situations relating to anger, annoyance, or frustration. It is a phrase used to ask God to damn something, usually a situation, and it in no way means that you want to damn God. Also, when used at a person, it does not mean that you want God to damn that particular person, it means that you want God to damn the situation that the person caused, indirectly damning him or her."

Italian readers, would you be concerned if your children used the expression "Maledetto!" in public? Not really. So stop giving me that dirty look, old lady. Let my child be and wait until real cursing begins.

Tronk, would you please sing happy birthday to daddy? Below are our first and last attempt.

Houses with the roof - Case con il tetto

So Tronk has a new obsession. It started in early January just after Santa's arrival (Tronk's former obsession). This time, there isn't a cartoon character involved, nor a car. I don't know what has triggered this new obsession but Tronk seems to be in love with houses and roofs. One day he discovered that there was a house with a roof. He was convinced that all the other houses didn't have one. I had to point at several houses in our neighborhood to explain to him that all houses come with roofs, except in Ireland of course, but he did get the concept.

Few days later, we were in the car for a trip and Tronk was pointing at every single house with the roof he could see going past. "Mamma, una casa con il tetto! C'e' una casa con il tetto! Oh, un'altra casa con il tetto! Qui c'e' una casa con il tetto e qui c'e' un'altra casa con il tetto! Che bello!" (Mom, a house with the roof! Here there is a house with the roof! Oh, another house with the roof! Here there is a house with the roof and here there is another house with the roof! How beautiful!). Comments of this kind went on and on for at least fifteen minutes. That was only the beginning, unfortunately. Not only I have had to conduct a thorough analysis of the roofs in our neighborhood each time we took a walk outside our house. More recently, Tronk has come to the conclusion that "mamma ha il tetto!" (mom has the roof), while daddy hasn't. He is not quite sure whether nonno and nonna have one but he is working on this one to find the answer.

I had days when I really didn't want to hear talking about roofs. It is easy to say "ignore him". As soon as Tronk was pointing at a brand new roof with his little hand and was asking if I liked the roof with his irresistibly sweet voice, I was back in the same exact dynamic I described six months ago; I couldn't help showing him excitement,  no matter how frustrated I was. "Oh si', che bella!" (Oh yes, how beautiful!), even if the house he had just pointed out was covered with peeling, dirty white paint. 

But today I came across these roofs of Turin, my home town, bathed in the kind of snow that I saw few times in my life. These sunshine lit white roofs bring up memories of high-school mates throwing snow balls at each other, scared of getting their coats dirty, while waiting for the 64 bus in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, cups of hot chocolate with friends and the infinite pleasure of waking up at 10 am the day after and realize, with surprise, that I didn't have to go to school.

I wonder where the chimney sweep has gone

Could be Via Accademia Albertina, the street where I used to live in a loft

Ci sono due campanili, hai ragione! (There are two bell towers, that's right!)

Thanks to these photos, my whole perspective on houses and roofs changed. I was ready to share my excitement with Tronk but instead, as soon as he saw the pictures, he went: "Che bello il campanile che fa din don dan! Fra Martino Campanaro..." (how beautiful is the bell tower that goes din don dan!  Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques...). No matter the effort I made in getting him to appreciate the beauty of my favorite roofs, Tronk got excited with the bell towers and continued to talk about them. Luckily, there are not many bell towers that look like that in Arlington, Massachusetts.

The Days of the Blackbird - I Giorni della Merla

Blackbird complaining

Monday. Feeling sleepy. "Ti piacerebbe che fosse venerdi'!" (You wish it was Friday!) my mother would say. Another day started like this: oh no, it's Monday, and it is almost 11 am. William's cheeks are no longer hot like fire - the poor guy has been sick for almost a week and my foot has not recovered as fast as I would have liked - There is nothing to eat in the fridge. Let's get out of here!, I said like a volcano erupting. Come on Tronk, where are your shoes? Sono qui mamma. (There are here mom)

We managed to share a pleasant hot buffet at an Asian restaurant not far from where we live, although I must say it turned out that Tronk enjoyed spitting most of it in the floor. I don't envy the guy who had to clean the mess. Then Tronk asked for two things, two things without which he never falls asleep: a binky and his white muslin blanket (the one we used to swaddle him). It has become his security blanket. I put him in the stroller and covered him with his warm sleep sac. I immediately saw his eyes wobbling, as if I had put him under the effect of a powerful sleeping pill. Sooner than expected  he was knocked out. My original plan of taking him to the local kids playground was out the window. I was looking for anywhere to take Tronk to. I decided to set my mark on Walegreens (another five blocks). By the time I got to Walegreens,  I could hardly feel my hands and my foot was still attached to my leg but it had become like a dead rat. William had no intention of waking up. If I could have gone three more blocks I could have taken him to Isis Maternity, where they have a small indoor children's playspace. The sort of place where Tronk would have been able to do a bit of walking, socializing and playing and I would have had the luxury of browsing through nice expensive clothes without too many interruptions.

Didn't happen. "You stop here, find a place where to rest and wait until Tronk wakes up.", said my foot with a rather authoritative tone. Ok. 

Starbucks was too far. I went inside the closest cafe' at the local cinema. For the Italian readers, this is a place with a bar which only sells ice cream topped with candies, blue Italian ice in winter and popcorn topped with liquid butter - Don't ask me why but here in the US these are considered treats. Not the sort of thing I was dying for yesterday. A real coffee? Not quite. Dirty water topped with milk foam was the best I could get there. I settled with cranberry juice, one of the few drinks I could have there which I knew would not make me feel as if they were giving me a sugar IV. I sat at one of the tables in the empty cafe' of the cinema and watched Tronk sleep while I was taking small sips of cranberry juice. Unfortunately, I didn't have a book to read.

Hey, who do you think you are? Sleeping Beauty?

3:10 pm. Tronk knocked out

3:40 pm. Tronk still sleeping. Only me in the cafe'

4:15 pm. Not the slightest move in the stroller. Still only me at the cafe'

4:30 pm. Wish I had purchased a ticket to watch a movie! 

He eventually woke up when I noisily took him to the bathroom, probably on purpose to wake him up. I was expecting to see a very happy boy after such a long nap but no. Tronk was in rage. John came to pick us up and, with his help, I took Tronk home as soon as I could. Once home, Tronk was happy.

Nevertheless, I was so exhausted and couldn't accept that once again I started the day with good intentions but in the end I found myself stuck in a rather unattractive place, this time in a movie theater without being able to see a movie. What a day to start the week. I can't even blame it on the snow as this year we hardly got any. This reminded me that in Italy the last three days of January are called "i giorni della merla" (the blackbird's days). It is that time of the year when all I want is to emerge from the dark tunnel of winter to  see some light...

Long, long ago in Milan there was a very hard winter. The snow was falling from the sky and covered the whole city, the streets and gardens. Under the water spout of a building at the station Porta Nuova was the nest of a family of blackbirds, which at that time had feathers white as snow. There was mommy blackbird, daddy blackbird and three baby blackbirds, who were born after the summer.
The little family suffered from the cold and struggled to find breadcrumbs to eat, as the few crumbs that had fallen from the tables of men were immediately covered with snow.
After a few days daddy blackbird made ​​a decision and told his wife: "Here there is nothing to eat, if this continues we will all die of hunger and cold. I have an idea, I will help you move the nest on the roof of the building, close to the chimney of the fireplace, so while waiting form my return you will not be cold. I'll leave and will go look for food in the places where the snow has not yet arrived."
And so he did: the nest was placed near the  chimney  and  daddy blackbird left. Mommy blackbird  and her baby blackbirds were all day in the nest, warming each other and also absorbing the smoke from the chimney all day long.
After three days daddy blackbird  came home and almost was not able to recognize his family! The black smoke coming out the chimney was painted black all the feathers of birds!
Fortunately, from that day on the winter became less rigid and the blackbirds were able to find enough food to get to spring.
From that day, however, all blackbirds are born with black feathers, and to remember the family of blackbirds whites become blacks, the last three days of January are called "Three Days of the blackbird."


I am glad there are over.

De Gustibus is a relative concept - De Gustibus e' un concetto relativo

"Dress Casual!", says every store in the mall

I better stop making fun of the Bostonian fashion. In the last six months or so I've noticed a strange phenomena in my wardrobe. It slowly seemed to have changed from a well of colorful treasures to a closet that I can barely recognize. I pick one thing, then another, then another, yet I don't seem to be able to find anything I fancy wearing.

Something similar happened to me when I moved to London. After only a year I was living there, I couldn't help finding stuff that I wasn't keen to wear, mostly large, straight cut, Italian garments in black color. Although classy, they were ideally suited to old Italian widows crying behind a Saint in religious processions! "Io quella pelliccia li' che mi hai dato per Natale non la metto piu'! Guarda che vivo in Inghilterra, non in Italia! De Gustibus Mamma!" (There is no way I will wear that furry coat you have given me for Christmas! I live in England, not in Italy! De Gustibus Mom!).

Amazing how perspectives and matters of taste change relatively to the country where one lives. Winter was not winter in London without me wearing my double-breasted extra small long coat alongside my sleek black leather boots. Similarly, summer was not summer in Ireland without me wearing my Capri pants in khaki color with cargo pockets. Funny how I used to dislike those pants before moving to Ireland! Same with my pairs of bright blue pants (with rope tightened around the waist) that I was wearing constantly when I was living in India. Back in the UK, I was keeping them in my wardrobe hoping to find an occasion to wear them. Few months later, I was hiding the pants in a suitcase on top of my wardrobe.

I now look at the first shelf of my wardrobe and all I am able to find is a pile of long sleeved striped tops. If they don't have big ass stripes either in the colors or in the pattern  - not that the prep thin blue stripes on a cream color from Anthopologie look any better! - they have a washed out look from the colors fading away or some other hippie details which make my clothes look old and worn out. Then on the top shelf, I see a couple of intimidating looking polos starring at me as if they were saying: "I know I am casual but at least I am plain! Go on, wear me! ". Tired of looking at them, my eyes go to the bottom shelf of my wardrobe and I see a large collection of tee-shirts with either sport themes or comics printed on them, the sort of thing which only children would wear these days in Italy. It is cold, maybe I should just put on my North Face jacket. No, that one no! I am lost.

Buy them, wear them and chuck them away. Understood?

Yet another top with stripes, which costs three times more than the others

Here in the US I simply cannot help sticking everything in the washing machine and in the dryer constantly. As a result, the nice sweaters I used to wear (and not wash) in London have now all turned into rags for cleaning floors. How about my pretty tops and dresses from French Connection and Monsoon? Where are they? The answer is in the attic and this is the simple reason why I put them there. What is the point of wearing expensive and uncomfortable clothes to cook spaghetti al ragu', to walk in neighborhoods where there are only houses and few people jogging in sweats and to wash dirty clothes? There simply is no point.

And, to tell you the truth, now that I have a broken sesamoid in my left foot I cannot help but praising the advantages of the Bostonian fashion. Quick and easy and, above all, pain free. Now, if you would like to excuse me, I am going to the nearest mall to see if I can buy more tops with stripes to put in my wardrobe.

UPDATE ON 7 FEBRUARY 2012

At some point I discovered LOFT and Ann Taylor, stores where it is possible to find fairly nice merino wool sweaters.  I started ordering items from them online.

This is the ad they have just sent me today...

Spring Fashion from LOFT

More exciting than Santa - Piu' emozionante di Babbo Natale

While last year Christmas in Tronk's eyes was equal to tearing at colored ribbons and wrapping paper, this year Christmas has revealed a few more interesting things to him. Even if he probably understood very little of the birth of baby Jesus, the shepherds and the bright star with the tail, no doubt Tronk has learned all about Santa and the good things he brings on Christmas Eve. He enjoyed meeting him in person on December 16th and he became obsessed with wearing his hat (he wanted to wear it to eat, to sleep, to shower, basically all the time. To keep our sanity, at some point I had to tell Tronk that Santa needed his hat back!). No wonder he turned sad when I told him that Santa had gone. Luckily, I had something better to tell him to cheer him up.

"La Befana", the most loved witch in Italy

Mamma: "Tronk, verra' presto la Befana, volando sulla sua scopa, con un sacco carico di doni. Se fai il bravo, ti portera' dolci e giocattoli. Se sei cattivo, ti portera' carbone" (Tronk, La Befana will soon be ‘flying’ by on her broomstick, with a sac full of gifts. If you have been a good boy, she'll bring you sweets and toys. If you've been bad, she'll bring you coal)

A puzzled look on Tronk's face followed. The movies on you tube did not help.
Tronk: "Ma e' brutta e vecchia!" (But she is ugly and old!).
Mamma: "Si, e' brutta e vecchia ma se sei buono, ti porta dolci e giocattoli. Non sei contento?" (Yes! She is ugly and old but if you are good, she will bring you sweets and gifts. Are you not happy?)
Tronk: "Si!" (Yes! meaning: I don't know what the hell you are going on about but I'll say yes so you'll stop talking about this)

Surprise, surprise... he was more excited than on Christmas day. At first, when he discovered the long stocking  with a message from La Befana hanging on his whiteboard, he was very hesitant to touch it and was disappointed to find out the pieces of coal that I put on top to make him think that he had been a bad boy, just like my mother used to do to me. He soon realized, however, that there was more to it... Cookies and even cars, his favorite things on earth. The last time I saw him so excited was probably the day he discovered how to open doors!

Thinking about it, there has not been a single La Befana day in my childhood without me being excited. This is because after receiving presents on Christmas day, I knew that the Christmas season was not over until the 6th of January, the Epifania day (from ancient Greek: the manifestation of God). On that day, my last day off before school, I was expecting extra gifts, including the carbone dolce sweet and, for some reason, I have such special memories. So it was only after the Epifania day that I would consider Christmas over and would come to terms with having to postpone my wish to receive gifts until Easter.

What is this black thing? Coal for me?

Mmm, cookies!

Oh, a present for me

Ah, ah, ah, ah ah! (noises of excitement)

"Apri mamma? Apri mamma?" (Open mamma? Open mamma?)

Hey, I like the ugly witch!