Sunday School

A new vicar started at St. James's Church in Florence this Sunday. So the Sunday school and choir sang for him!

Year 3 - Final year in Materna!

School started again on Monday. New trainers but same everything else! Started well, half-day Monday while the comune got its act together re meals. Antonia bounced in to see her special friend Oliwa - prounounced Olivia but this is the Polish spelling as that is where she is from. Big hugs all around!

She came home with a lovely song all about the school rules! It was very well done and included one about how everyone is the same even if they speak two languages. I thought that was a good way to put it! Not you aren't Italian but you speak another language as well as Italian!

Ballet started again. I thought she would be in Grado 1 this year but it seems she has another year of Gioco danza. She seems fine with it but as there is only 1 other child there from last year and all the rest are new and much younger I think she will get bored repeating everything all over again. Or is this normal with ballet?? Em?!! Suppose you do have to keep practicing over and over but I thought she was ready for grade 1... We will see.

Anyway, this morning all went awry! As I was combing Antonia's hair I touched her forehead and realised she was burning up!! She seems fine but her temperature is around 38 so no school today! Consequently, I'm updating Facebook and my blog while watching "The Sound of Music" with Antonia! I wanted her to see the singing Nuns. Seems to be enjoying it so far!

Things We Can Do Now...

Since my last post Antonia has learnt to ride her bike without training wheels. It's amazing how far a little bribery will go! She learnt and her reward was a Transformer named Bumblebee....yes, she has an older brother! Currently she is obsessed with his old Transformers, of which he has many!

Her counting and adding abilities are really good considering she has only really done stuff at home with me. School, such as it is here at this age, has just started teaching her a few common words to write, like Mamma, Babbo, Sole etc. which she really enjoys doing. My task is to get her reading in English. We are finding her remembering the patterns that go with the names of the alphabet the biggest challenge - it is coming but slowly!

She got roller blades for her birthday, although not fast she can now get up without help and is slowly moving further and faster. Next I would like her swimming but that is more of a challenge without transport here - I was going to get a seat for my bike but when I looked at it it is way too low and she is too big!! My excuse anyway.

On Saturday she had a nasty fall in the Cascine. She looks like she has been in a car accident. She fell and nearly righted herself twice before completely going onto her face! Her nose took most of the impact, luckily it isn't broken, but then I think it is almost impossible to break at this age, but she did take a chunk out of the bridge and severely scrape the rest and below her lip, as well as biting her top lip - no pictures of this one! I have taken some but mainly so I can see how she is improving! We doused her in water thoroughly and disinfectant from one of the snack stands and then got in a taxi home. There we put here in a bath with the shower running - now I am applying Streptosil to try to reduce the scarring. There was no skin to stitch and we got all the grit out, so as she was hysterical at the thought of going to the hospital we didn't. Having gone through a few of these falls with Alex I know that all the hospital does is keep you sitting around for too long and then sends you off with instructions to do exactly what we did, so I have no concerns about not going, I have to be honest! Anyway, hopefully all will be well and she will be okay!

Ski photos