A belly book moment for LTB

Just to jot a few things down before she arrives…

• cravings: peas, granola plus fruit, chicken and also chocolate until recently when sweets have suddenly (and unusually) lost their luster
• exercise: brisk walks in Villa Borghese with headphones and the lightest hand weights in Italy
• my weight: I’ve gained less than I did with Phoebe but still feel (and look) very big!
• her weight: our ultrasound technician, who speaks at least two other languages before English, said on Thursday, “Eats not so big.” Meaning, she’s over 6 pounds now and expected to be 7 or 7 1/2 pounds in the next couple of weeks. That’s exactly how big Phoebe was (see below), and also myself, so I think we’re in good shape.
• times a day Phoebe kisses my belly and says “bebe?”: 287
• things that trigger movement: eating, especially chocolate
• favorite maternity outfit: purple velour sweatsuit from H&M (I call it my “fancy sweatsuit”)
• biggest issue: heartburn, oh and crankiness
• the thing I miss most: a normal-sized bladder, followed by wine with dinner
• compared to the first pregnancy this one is: almost exactly the same except I’m more tired but definitely as restless in the last month as I was then
• recent movies we’ve seen: Easy A, Inception, Elf
• books I’ve been reading about babies: The Birth Book, Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, Supernanny, Shepherding A Child’s Heart
• books I’ve been reading for fun: Half-Broke Horses; The Help; And I Shall Find Some Peace There; Women, Food and God
• top news stories in the US: President Obama calling for civility in politics, Representative Giffords shot in Arizona
• TV shows we’re watching: Modern Family, Glee, NCIS
• push present: a Prada bag (thank you Italy!)
• OBGYN: Doctorre Giuseppe Grimaldi

Places our Bambina has visited as passenger:

• Croatia
• Florida
• Washington
• Paris
• Prague

And most importantly…

• due date: February 1

Help Around the House: A new project launched

On behalf of CC Mathews, LLC I’m thrilled to report that the task-a-day calendar that I’m working on for HGTV.com launched at the beginning of the month. And even better–it looks great! Here’s a preview of January…and of course there’s a new item every day for the rest of the year. Phew!

Cooking with a crew

During Jill and Drew’s visit over Christmas, we took a cooking class along with friends Molly and Giuseppe. Paul was originally planning to join but due to a broken ankle (more on this later) he had to sit it out, literally. But that just meant more chocolate cake for me, er, the rest of us.

And don’t worry about Paul on this night; Shiyama our lovely housekeeper and nanny brought him dinner on a tray. A tray! Meanwhile, the rest of us were paying money to cook our own dinner…

It was actually really fun–and tasty.

Pasta with Roman style artichokes were first.

Plus a baked pumpkin dish and Roman chicken–one of my favorite ways to eat chicken prepared with peppers.

And cake. The funniest part about the cake was this: it’s the only time I’ve had a chocolate torte in Italy that was actually moist (aka delicious) but the instructor kept saying how it would be much better the following day when it had time to air out.

Oh well, Valeria really knew her stuff and I’d recommend her to anyone. In fact, here goes:

La mia Cucina di Casa

Via Germanico 197, 00192 Roma

+39 063216620 +39 063216620

http://www.cuochepercaso.it

Christmas 2010, a belated recap involving a mini kitchen

It was a very cute Christmas. This year Phoebe really got into the spirit of things–meaning she knows how to open presents now. Plus our friends Jill and Drew came to Rome from Boston and Barbra joined from Paris. We started Christmas the same way everyone with kids does — drinking coffee and opening stockings.

But the sweetest part was Phoebe’s reaction when she saw the little kitchen next to the tree, “Ooooh!”

Grandma and Grandpa Mathews also sent her a grocery cart full of food and kitchen supplies, so she’s quite well stocked. This is a good thing because she spent nearly every waking minute of the next two days cooking up a storm. There was broccoli, lemon and potato stew and more tea than anyone (or any group) could ever drink. It’s really the best imaginary food you’ll ever have.

Thanks so much to Mom and Wade for sending so many goodies too (the puppets and pink books were an especially big hit!) Barbra, the hat is hilariously chic and the penguin beloved. Jill and Drew, your adorable pink water bottle is used each and every day.

After opening all of the great gifts from everyone everywhere (thank you Bob and Charlene for the flag and monogrammed pillow cases!) we had a big breakfast…then a big walk.

Can’t wait to do it again next year…with one more stocking on the mantel.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

 

In 2010, there were 118 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 373 posts. There were 400 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 1gb. That’s about 1 pictures per day.

The busiest day of the year was February 1st with 357 views. The most popular post that day was Welcome Phoebe Ann Mathews .

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, expat-blog.com, google.it, google.com, and mowrerfamily.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for rome report wordpress, romereport, phoebe ann mathews, romereport.com, and what does spqr mean.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Welcome Phoebe Ann Mathews May 2009
7 comments

2

About Us November 2008
14 comments

3

What does SPQR mean? January 2009

4

Carter (2001-2010) February 2010
12 comments

5

Say it with a shirt: Phoebe’s big news August 2010
6 comments