Moving Forward

We are living in a scary, dark time. I don't think that comes as a surprise, but sometimes it hits a little closer to home, and we are reminded. I live approximately 4 hours east of Paris (by TGV), so for me, the Paris attack was too close to home. I have friends living in Paris; I recognize places in the photos. That is why this attack is causing more of a stir than some others; many of us have been or know people in Paris.. it's more real.

I am not sure how it feels to be in the US right now; I would imagine it feels far away, and you feel safe. I don't feel in danger, but I am certainly aware that I could be. I don't foresee Stuttgart as being an ISIS target, but then again, you never know. But I am not going to change the way I live my life to "protect" myself. Of course if one avoids events, train stations, and airports, you lessen your chances of danger, but then you are just doing what these animals want: giving in to fear. That is what these people, if we can even call them that, thrive on. They declare to do all these acts in name of Allah, but in my opinion, they are doing it only for the sense of power it gives them. It is a great human tendency to promote your own agenda by declaring it as inspired by religion (hmm hmm, politicians).

So now the questions is, what do we do in response to these attacks? I like the French response of bombing the crap out of them, quite frankly. Contrary to American stereotypes of the French being sissies, they actually have a pretty decent defense system, and it would appear they're going to put that to work. We are all still waiting to see how the US responds, but so far I am not impressed. It seems to me that we are going to wait until there is an attack on US soil to do anything again, although my hope is that the West will join together to fight the terrorists. 

I must say that I'm ashamed of the reports that so many US states are refusing refugees. First of all, the US is only taking 10,000. Let's put that into perspective: that is approximately 200 for every state. Nothing.  Stuttgart, a city of 600,000, is taking 11,000 Syrian refugees at the moment. More than the entire US.. that makes sense. Some may say that Germany is overcompensating, but so far, they are managing (Wir schaffen das!). Of course there will come a breaking point, one country can only handle so much. Anyways, 10,000 is not many at all. Is it possible there is a terrorist hiding among them? Of course, we would be naive not to think it could be so. But do we really think we don't have ISIS extremists already there? In the Paris attacks, it seems only 1/8 was a fake refugee; the others were EU citizens. If they hadn't had the one refugee, they would have managed, or found someone else. My theory is that ISIS just wants to show that they can sneak someone in. They don't actually need to, there's enough support already there. How many people have left to go fight after just being influenced by the Internet? Let's not kid ourselves into thinking refugees are the only way these people are going to get into our countries.  

Furthermore, it is much harder to get into the US than it is to get into Europe. US refugees are vetted before they arrive, and there aren't thousands arriving by boat every day to complicate the process. The EU is so inundated with refugees right now, without having a proper standard protocol to deal with it, that it is a real crisis. 

It is so easy to forget that the reason the US was founded in the first place was as a refuge from religious persecution. Over the centuries, many tired, poor, huddles masses have fled to the US in different waves. This one is different because the people are not white and Christian, but we are a land of freedom and opportunity, so that shouldn't matter. These are in the end, people, people fleeing from horrors most of us have fortunately never had to experience. I have met several of them, both as schoolmates and neighbors, and all were very nice, respectable people, simply trying to protect themselves and their families. And we think the right response is to shut them out? And worse, many (most) of the ones protesting the loudest against refugees also claim to be Christians? I can simply not imagine that Jesus would be anti-refugee. As I recall, the Bible says to do for the least what we would do for Him (Matthew 25:40). I bet you wouldn't tell Him to go back to his war-torn country.

Food for thought.

Ciao for now,

Kathleen Powers

Oktoberfest, Wasen, Wiesn, Whatever

Guten tag!! I must warn you in advance that due to not having internet at our new house until mid-November, I am writing this on my phone. There will be errors.

So yes, we are moved into our new apartment finally.. It was a long process; you never know how much you have until you have to move it all. But now we are here, all the furniture except the couch is here, the washing machine was installed (hallelujah!), and now Paolo and AJ are in Italy for a little over a week. I was left out because I have class, and more importantly, my big German test next Saturday. It's the B1 level test, which basically shows that I am intermediate level, and has speaking, listening, reading, and writing sections. So yeah, shoot me now. 

Anyways, I wanted to write a little about Oktoberfest since its that time again. First of all, if you have been to the Cullman Oktoberfest, then just know that that is not even remotely close to what Oktoberfest is. The main festival is in Munich, and is actually called Wiesn. The second largest is in Stuttgart, where I live, and called the Cannstatter Wasen. It is basically an enormous fair, with rides, food, the whole nine yards. The rides are way better than county fair rides, but still.. I'm a bit skeptical of any ride that can be transported. Then you have the "beer tents". These are not actually tents, but these huge hall buildings, with live music and food. And after a certain hour everyone stands on the chairs and dances. I went to Wasen last year on my 2nd or 3rd day here, and I really felt it was the most stereotypically German thing ever. Think guys with big bellies eating sausage and drinking beer. And of course, wearing lederhosen. It is so magnificently Deutsch. I was terrified.   

Now I have my own dirndl and my own group of friends, so we're going to check it out tomorrow! Stay tuned for "The American who fell out of the German Ferris wheel" :)

Ciao for now,

Kathleen 

Endlich

Well guys, it's been a big week here in the De Longhi/Powers (still haven't changed my name) household. We finally got an apartment!!!! I was really beginning to think we might be homeless in a few weeks, so this is a huge relief. How is it possible to be homeless when you have a family and a steady income, you may ask? Let me tell you how things work here in Stuttgart, Germany...

First of all, most apartments are privately owned, not corporate apartments and whatnot. Secondly, there are far more people looking for apartments/houses than there are places available. Which also means that the prices are very high here. Not London high, but relatively high. So what this all means is that the apartment owners have basically all the power in the situation. They can price things how they want, choose who they want, discriminate how they want. Where else can you actually get someone to live in a totally empty (no kitchen, no light fixtures), run down, apartment for double the market price except in a place where people are desperate?

We began our search in April, and started off being picky and thinking we could negotiate with owners. That attitude quickly changed, and by July I was emailing every 2 bedroom apartment I could find within a reasonable distance of Paolo's office. Some wrote back that we could visit, some wrote that due to an unreasonable amount of people applying (300+), we weren't eligible, and most didn't answer. The search began to consume my life, until we finally thought we had one. I felt comfortable enough about it that I went to Italy on vacation.. then we found out we weren't chosen, for reasons that are still unclear. So my vacation was cut from a month to a week, and I came back to continue. The past couple weeks have been grueling, with apartment visits almost every night. We've been to a 300 year old house with ceilings so low we could touch the ceilings with our heads. We've seen showers in the kitchen. We also saw several decent ones that we applied for and were unceremoniously rejected from

I really couldn't tell you why exactly we were rejected, except maybe the other candidates were somehow better. I'm not sure how someone can tell solely from an application who is better, so I'm going to assume it's because we're foreign, young, with a 2 year old, and only one income. It sucks because we couldn't help or change those circumstances. I did my very best managing and keeping track of all appointments, all in German, mind you. So by last weekend, we were kind of at a breaking point. I had lined up 7 appointments over the period of 3 days, none in the same area. The first one went really well; the owners talked with us for a long time and seemed to like us. The next ones were ok, there was one AJ totally destroyed all of our chances of, and the last apartment was truly horrifying in every way possible. And then, finally, we got this magical phone call from the first of the weekend that they chose us!!! I was so shocked, I almost asked them why they would choose us :)

So we are incredibly relieved and grateful. We have already signed the contract and have the keys. I'm going today to take measurements so we can start furniture shopping (yay!). In the end, the one we got is probably my favorite one that we saw. It is in a quiet little village, with a train straight to the city; it has a nice kitchen, and bonus: a garden! I was dreading having to give up my little garden, but now we will still have one, and they told me I could do what I want with it. So, I guess you could say that good things come to those who wait (and frantically check their email/voicemail every 5 minutes).

Ciao for now,

Kathleen

Upside Down

Did you ever have one of those days where one little thing changed, and it turned your world upside down? I can think of two of the top of my head: the day I found out I was pregnant, and the day Paolo found out he got the job here in Germany.  Now that I've somewhat recovered from the latter, I've been thrown for a new loop: I didn't get into university.

Now that may not seem like such a huge deal to you, but to me it's kind of made my life crazy. Firstly, I've never been outright rejected from an educational thing before, so it's kind of humbling me. Secondly, I had all my eggs in that basket. I didn't realize how very limited places there were for international students, and how many people would apply.. only the top 6.7% got in, and most were in university partner schools. Had I known that statistic, I would've found more solid back up plans. Anyways, now my plan is to just keep taking German classes until I either find a job or am fluent enough to work speaking German.

So no big deal right? Nope.. See, we live on the south side of the city, and Paolo works in the north. It's about a 1 hour commute each way for him. So we were trying to find a new apartment somewhere with a better connection for him but still south, so that AJ and I could be close to our school. Well, now that I have no school, AJ also has no school because his daycare was (apparently) only for university students. We have no ties left here in the south, so now we're moving our apartment search north. Which is ok in general, it just means starting back from square one. But then we also have to find a new school for AJ. Ideally, he can go to the little half day school at my school while I am in class, but he's on a waiting list. Not to mention that even for a half day school, he has to have a three week integration period, which means I have to be there, and he can't stay full time (not that he's been in daycare since he was 11 months old or anything). That doesn't work for me because you know, I have class 4 days a week (just upstairs from the daycare). It's so impossible here. It's hard to find a daycare, and then hard to start the daycare. When we find out which area we'll be living in, we can expand the daycare search.

It doesn't help either of these things that AJ and I were planning to fly to Italy in two weeks and stay the whole month of August (we are both on summer vacation then). Sounds like a lovely time, but if we come back homeless and school-less, I bet that'll be kind of a damper on things.

These transition times are always hard; we always manage to get through them, but so many things have to fall into place in order to make it work. I keep hoping these uncertain times will be fewer and farther in between, but I guess that's just life. It always works out in the end, so I'll just keep on keeping on. At least today the kindergarten AJ is in now showed some mercy on me, and told me he could stay through the end of September while we're still living in this side of town. That's a huge relief; we have one more month to search for a daycare. We have three houses to look at this weekend. Who knows, maybe one will be "the one". Now here's for hoping that when we find "the one", the owners choose us. Yes, the housing market is so competitive here, you must be chosen. No room for negotiation at all, you just hope and pray you're the lucky one that gets to pay for that overpriced small space.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Ciao for now,

Kathleen

9 Month Progress Report

Hallo everyone!! It's been a busy couple of months! We are now AW, otherwise known as "after-wedding" in my family. It was lovely, really a perfect day; we are so thankful to everyone who celebrated with us both in body and in spirit. I will devote a whole post to wedding details when my pictures get here (the disc is in the mail now!). But today, I'll just give a little life update and check-in.

I realized today that tomorrow marks 9 months of us living in Germany! I can't believe how fast time has gone by! This is the longest I've ever lived abroad, and the experience has been unlike any other moving experience I've had (and there's been a lot). What makes this one so different? Well, firstly, it's not a temporary move. When I left Cullman, I knew I would be in Auburn for four years. Since then, life has basically been a period of moves with a deadline or goal in mind. Now I just know that we're here at least until April 2018. However, by then, we hope to be somewhat settled here, with both of us working and such, so who knows how long we'll be here. Am I crazy to be ok with that?

When we first came to Germany, I really wasn't sure what we were getting into. Out of all the places I've visited, Germany was not one of them, and I didn't know a word of German. The first 3-4 months were hard; I had no idea what I was going to do, and we weren't even sure if Paolo's internship would result in a job, so I didn't even start trying to integrate. Once we knew it was a go, our attitudes definitely changed. That was when I started my German courses, and really trying to get to know the area and make friends. Fast forward six months, and I'm understanding a lot, and speaking enough to get by. It's not an overnight thing, but 16 hours a week is no joke. And I have made lots of lovely new friends in my class.

One of the first questions friends/family from home always ask when they see or talk to me is "how are you liking Germany?" It was hard to answer the first few months; it's really always a hard question. People asked me the same in Italy, but it's always hard to say because my circumstances have always been a bit weird. If you go to Italy to study abroad, you're probably going to have a much different experience than me, who went there to try to learn some of the language and culture before giving birth to a half-Italian. Not that I don't love it there; in fact, having my family-in-law there is awesome; I get to experience the real Italy, not the tourist Italy. It's just different. So back to Germany. Now that I've gotten over the initial shock, and had some time to settle in, I actually kind of love it. I'm not saying that Germany is perfect, but it is definitely a functioning society. People are so kind here; Paolo lost his bus pass yesterday, and today someone messaged him on Facebook that they had found it. I'm not saying that doesn't happen other places, but it seems like the normal standard here. People pick up litter as they see it laying on the street, no joke. People don't try to take advantage of the system; they seem to realize that the only reason the system works is that everyone plays by the rules. For example, the public transport here is great. It is on the expensive side of what I've seen (80 euros/month or $88), but everyone buys a ticket. When the controllers check on the subway and someone doesn't have a ticket, everyone gives them a really dirty look. In Italy or France (the only other places I've had much public transport experience), everyone just got off the train/bus whenever they saw controllers getting on. And the transport companies were always late or on strike. Here, everyone pays, and everything works on time.

Although we are settling in, we're still having some struggles. Right now we're searching for a new apartment (ours is 1 bedroom and approx. 450 sq. feet.), which is very difficult. It's hard to find the perfect location because of course neither of us wants a long commute, but we want somewhere quiet and green like we have now. And since I'm still not working, of course we must stay on a budget (which is hard here).  After some flip-flopping, I've decided I really want to get my master's instead of going straight to work. So now I'm enduring an agonizing wait to see if I got into the program. If I don't, I have to resort to Plan B, which is about 6 more months of German classes until I'm good enough to work. Reallyyyyy hoping for Plan A (although I'll still do more German classes either way).

Sidenote for all the people out there who like to criticize foreigners for not speaking English ("we speak English in this country"): try to have mercy and be kind to people. You don't know their situation or how long they've been somewhere. Of course if it's been 20 years, go ahead and judge, but it is difficult to learn a new language. Not to mention all the other difficult things to adjust to when you move to a new country. I am fortunate in that most people here speak at least some English, but there a lot of people here that don't speak German or English, and I think it's much harder for them. I am not saying that it's ok to move somewhere and not bother learning a language; I'm just saying it's not an immediate thing. Have mercy.

No comment on all these crazy political posts I've seen on Facebook lately other than to try to look at the bigger picture on things. There are so many really important or horrific things happening in the world, imagine if we spent all that time and energy dealing with those issues?

So with that, ciao for now!


Kathleen

Step One: Marriage; Step Two: Wedding?

I know; that title is blowing your mind right now. But here I am in the throes of wedding planning, and it's kind of dominating my thinking right now (well, that and all this German). Yes, I am already married. BUT, we decided to get married and move so quickly that I couldn't plan a wedding that both families would be able to plan and attend. So we're having our wedding in May.

Let me just tell you, it is not easy to plan a wedding between two nationalities. First, I had to decide where to have the wedding; Italy or America. I know many people would jump at the chance to get married in Italy, but to me, the whole reason to have a wedding (we're already married, after all) is to get all (or most) of our friends and family in one place. Having a wedding in Italy would knock out 80% or more of the guests on my side. On the other side, it does the same to Paolo to have a wedding in the US. But whose family pays for the wedding? You get my point. Also, Europeans tend to be more willing and able to go abroad (possibly due to those mandatory 6 weeks of paid vacation?). So we settled on Alabama.

So now it's my task to create a lovely wedding that lives up to both European and American standards of weddings. Italian weddings tend to be all about the food (hello 10 course meal), and American weddings (at least the ones I've been to) are more buffet style with a touch of dancing. So, my wedding is a hybrid, although I would say I lean more towards the European style; ceremony, aperitivo hour, sit down dinner, cake, and dancing. It will probably be longer than most receptions, particularly Baptist ones I've been to, but hey, if you rent a place for a whole day, take the whole day, right? There will not be, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your standpoint, a four hour 10 course feast. In the US, that would blow my budget to the moon. Sorry, Italians, but it will still be good, I promise!

I am also trying to plan this super fabulous wedding from the other side of the world; this is also quite a feat. Fortunately, almost everything can be done from the internet, and I have a fabulous bridal party and mother who fill in the gaps. Those two months I spent without Internet were prime planning time that I missed out on, so now I'm having to make up for lost Pinterest time (of course after I started school).

However, there are some benefits to having a wedding after you get married. First, you don't have to deal with any of the legalities. It's already done. We probably have more legalities than most because of the dual nationality. Thank goodness, no one was suspicious of a green card marriage; I guess the kid gave us away. One legality I have yet to take care of is to change my name. I know Facebook says Kathleen De Longhi, but I'm still a Powers. I changed it on Facebook, because I originally planned to change it. However, to change your name means you must also change all documents, including your passport. I did not have time to get a new passport before I needed to use it, and now I have my residence/work permit here with Powers on it. So I may actually never change my name. I am afraid to change my Facebook name back because I don't want it to look like we got divorced (silly, right?). This is really a cultural tradition anyways; Italian women retain their family name. German women take their husband's name, like Americans. We'll see.

The other cool thing about already being married is that there are no jitters. We're already legally bound, come hell or high water. No escaping!! :) This also takes a way a bit of the excitement I suppose, but we already had that moment. Our marriage ceremony was actually very sweet, and a moment I will always treasure, so I in no way want this wedding to copy it or try to change it. I am finding ways to make it unique, and a "celebration of love and marriage" rather than an actual marriage.

To be very honest, marriage is hard. People tell you that, but until you're there, you can't know. There is suddenly this other person around you all the time, with an opinion on LITERALLY EVERYTHING, things you didn't even know there could be an opinion on. Add a child, new country, and new job into the mix, and let's just say, there are moments when I wonder why we're celebrating this AGAIN.

It will be fun, though, right? Let's hope; for now it's back to the drawing boards (Pinterest) for me.

Ciao for now,

Kathleen

Tower of Babble

Gut morgen!! I have just come back home from a parent-teacher conference with Ale's teacher. No worries; I simply requested the meeting to see how he's doing with the new language, new class, etc. Everything is fine; his most violent offense was pushing down another kid and exclaiming the Schwaebische (regional dialect) equivalent of uh-oh (Oh-pala (sp?)), which she admitted was actually hilarious and had to suppress laughter at the time. Otherwise, he is doing well, so good news!

One of our main reasons for starting Ale in a German kindergarten was so that he would learn German. We've already got our hands full with English and Italian in our home, so this kindergarten has proven to be effective for language purposes. I get a lot of questions on how we're handling languages with him, so this post is going to focus on language, which happens to be basically the center of my life right now. I am certainly no expert on the topic, but I am studying my 3rd foreign language, so I'm seeing what works and what doesn't.

First of all, the best way to learn a language is to start as a child. They say that until the age of 6, a child can learn up to 6 languages as a mother tongue. Which brings us to Alessandro's situation. We obviously want him to learn English and Italian, just because that's what he needs to be functional in his whole family. So Paolo speaks to him in Italian, and I speak to him in English. His English is currently by far the best of his languages, but I would attribute this to the fact that he has been living with me since birth, and has only consistently been around Paolo since September. But it is amazing what a sponge he is! He has learned so much Italian since then, and the two weeks we were in Italy over Christmas were great for him. There are certainly some words that he favors in one language more than the other, for example "scimmia" (Italian for monkey), but in general, he will speak in English to me, and Italian to Paolo. So now we bring in German. He is now spending 7-8 hours/day in his German school, where they only speak German. But he rarely speaks in German at home; certain phrases, yes,  but not the way he speaks the other 2. According to his teacher, he speaks mostly German at school, sometimes English, but as he learns more German, he speaks less English. Isn't that cool? His brain has compartmentalized German as being what he speaks at school, the same that he has learned English is for mommy, and Italian is for Papa. Moral of the story; teach your kids new languages when they're young!  Trust me, it gets much more difficult as you get older.

Which brings me to my language learning experience. I spent 5 years off and on learning French, and now understand very little French, and speak even less. I think the problem was that my foundation in French was shaky and inconsistent because of the years in between. Then I started learning Italian, which is similar in many ways to French. That helped my Italian, but made my French even worse. Italian I learned much differently than French;  I have almost no formal education in it (minus the couple months I spent in a free course while living there), but instead learned by listening and being there. As a result, I understand almost everything, can speak enough to get around and hold an ok conversation, but my reading and writing is weak. So now I need to learn German, and it needs to be working-level capability. The good news is, I've got the language learning basics down. When I first learned conjugation with French, I was horrified. Now it's not so daunting, and just something that has to be done.

Let it be noted: English has it's complexities, but it is overall a relatively easy language to learn. I don't know why they always tell you (in America) that English is the most difficult language to learn. I mean, maybe if you're coming from just knowing Chinese, but then everything is hard coming from Chinese. The beautiful thing about English is that there are no gender assignments to words. Yes, in most other languages, nouns are masculine or feminine. Which you must know because they require a different pronoun depending on their sex. And as my German teacher said, there is no rhyme or reason as to why they are a certain gender, just learn them, and embrace them.

So how is my class? Well, it's 16 hours a week of German. No, seriously, it's not that bad. I'm almost done with the first level, and I've learned more than I could have imagined learning in 3 1/2 weeks. I did the math and each 5 week level we have in this school covers approximately what you cover in one year of high school language class. This is because it's longer, more frequent, and more intense. Oh, and it is taught entirely in German. I know it sounds impossible, but German is actually the only common language in the class. At least 1/3 of the class doesn't speak any English. I thought it would be super hard, since I didn't know any German (other than basics that you get just from being here), but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I understand most things, and that it forces you to learn much faster, as well as expanding your vocabulary without you even realizing. Another advantage I have is that German is surprisingly similar to English in both structure and words. Pronunciation is another story.

In total, I will take 6 courses, which is about 30 weeks. At that point I will be at the B1 level, which is to my understanding, when you are considered good enough to be able to function in society. I look forward to that; it is difficult to get around here with neither Paolo nor I speaking good German. He took one class last year, and is better than me, but not even close to functional. One of his job benefits now is a German class during work hours, so hopefully he'll start improving too. As they say, if you're going to live in a country, you have to learn the language!

And so, meine freunden, alles gut hier!

Ciao for now,

Kathleen

New year, new plan

Good morning!

Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season!! We are back in Germany after a couple weeks in Italy; it was a nice break from everyday life, and was great to see everyone. Actually, the past month has been by far the best month we've had since moving here, despite my last post's air of desperation. Alessandro is doing a bit better, although it's a day by day thing. He's enjoying his school and "new friends", as he's still calling them. We finally got internet, after 10 weeks!! I would say that it was a time of rediscovery, or something like that, where I learned to not depend on the internet, but that would be pretentious and a lie. We are grateful to finally be in the 21st century. Anyways, the best news is that Paolo has been offered a full time, permanent position with Daimler! Daimler is the company he's been interning with, headquartered here in Stuttgart. If you don't know, it's a huge company, housing several brands, the most famous being Mercedes-Benz; he works for the financial branch of the company. All of this to say, it's an amazing opportunity to launch his career with a global company, so I'm super proud of him.

Aside from bringing financial stability, this job is also a big deal because it means we're here until at least April 2018, which is good news. The past several months have been a bit uncertain as far as where we will be, and what we will do, which has made it hard for me personally because I am tryin
g to find my next step. I have been looking for jobs here, but it is quite hard without speaking German and/or being a student. I have been putting off taking a German course until I was sure we were staying. That being said, I'm beginning an intensive German class next week, which is 4 days per week, 4 hours a day. I will be doing that for the next few months, and then will enroll in the university here, and go back to school to get my master's in October. It's something I really never considered doing before, but the opportunity is right in front of me, and school is free here for foreigners, so why not?

In other news, I am also learning to drive a manual car. To my non-American friends, we almost exclusively drive automatic cars in the US, so I have never had to learn before now. I've always gotten by in Europe using public transportation, but if we're going to be here long term, it's something I need to learn. Paolo has taken me out driving a few times now, and I'm making improvements, although I'm really terrible at getting the car moving without the engine dying. I was happy to find out that Alabama is one of the states that Germany allows to apply for a license without having to retake any tests. It's actually difficult to get a licensed here otherwise; they require driving school, first aid training, and both a written and practical test. I will still take some driving lessons; I am nowhere near comfortable driving here in general, much less with a manual transmission.

I actually like not being completely dependent on a car. Of course, there are times when it would be nice and convenient to just hop in and go somewhere, but without that ability, it forces you to walk a lot more. I walk almost 8,000 steps each day (according to my pedometer app), just dropping Ale off and picking him up from school. It's not always super fun, since it tends to be cold and rainy here, but you get used to it after a while. Germany has actually been having a mild winter, from what I hear. It's much colder in AL right now than Stuttgart.

Oh! Another update on Alessandro: he has learned how to climb out of his bed. We've actually had him sleeping in a playpen with a full mattress (our apartment is 1 bedroom, 540 square feet), so it's a bit deeper than crib would be. It's quite impressive to watch him climb out; he's kind of a ninja. Anyway, we will be transitioning him to a bed in the next week, and are slightly nervous about that. Ale has been a bad sleeper since Day 1, so any change to sleeping arrangements always brings back memories of the days when he refused to sleep unless he was being held, or when he woke up 50 times a night. We can't go back to that place, it was a dark place. Happy thoughts.

Ciao for now,

Kathleen