Mumsnet Little Italy 4

[Rosa]

Ciao - Everybody Welcome.

Magari ...The doc who assisted at my cvs was lovely but he has gone into semi retirement . My ostetrica who delivered dd was lovely ( better than the one who admitted me am so glad she wasn't on duty !)
I find that the more I tidy up the more mess seems to appear!
I stick to the cleaning basics and then the odd blitz when dh takes dd out for the pm. I have just slept on the sofa for 40 mins !!

Rosa what are starchild shoes, how do they work? How can he not take them off? Getting quite over excited at the idea of getting one over my son

I think the website is www.starchild.co.uk .
DD has them as slippers as we have marble floors but before she could walk she was in them from 6mths!
There are other makes as well shoo shoos ,Daisy roots A bit pricey but worth it in my books !

Opinions please when you wash dc's hair do you always dry with hairdryer if it is warm in the house and they are not going out?

never use hair dryer on him, or on myself, thinks it dries the hair unnecessarily, and i am also very lazy...

Me neither, a) because she won't let me and b) because her hair is so fine it dries by itself in 15 mins. I really don't see the point tbh, I never use a hairdryer on mine either, even in winter.

Lol at the English blood! I also use the fact that we're "nordiche" to offset some of the more bizarre comments. People then nod sagely as if our DNA must be different, like we're aliens. Today DD only had a long sleeved tshirt on (it was about 25°) and I could here other mothers in the park tut tutting. Their children still had puffa jackets and woolly hats on (and were all red in the face from overheating, I smugly noticed).

We don't use a cycle helmet but DD doesn't possess a scarf -I've never actually thought of buying her one. Should I? (the scarf, that is, we actually do have a cycle helmet but it only gets used in the house).

Well, after 8 yrs in the UK I'd have to say: take the helmet!!!
Scarf, yes, being Italian I can't bear the sight of "colli scollati" in the winter, esp if windy. Not today though. Today is perfect weather to show off spring jackets, which get to be worn only 10 days a year ...
hair drier.... we use it from november until it gets warm enough. But then again, we are italians, with weak blood.

in winter we use hairdryer simply as the temp in our house is not consistent.Don't bother in the summer
DD wears hats , scarves , bandana etc when needed as the damp here gets to you big time. Plus its easier just to comply rather than cope with the wrath (wroth?) of nonna and SIL but I have stopped them saying in front of me meglio caldo che freddo as I would take the blanket off dd when she was little .I would go for the cycle helmet purely as there are some total nutters on the roads.
Off to see 2 houses today have nil hopes for either but at least we can get depressed about what we cannot afford.

poor rosa, with this house business. i suppose venice being so tiny there is just not enough around.
ds doesnt have a scarf, always worried he might strangle himself with it (freak accident emoticon).
do you let your kids naked on the beach? we do, and we always get odd looks from italians, and odd advice like 'stai attenta che gli viene un'infezione', o 'non sai mai chi lo sta guardando' . I adore naked little children. Another thing Italians do is tell their kids off for running on the beach (ti riscaldi troppo), jumping on the beach (ti puoi fare male), making holes in the sand (non sai mai cosa trovi sotto la sabbia). Hence lots of fat italian depressed kids under the umbrellas with mamma e papa.

Rosa, chin up, something will come up that you can afford. When we were looking we kept seeing houses that were either horribly expensive or just plain horrible (one was practically all corridor and tiled from floor to ceiling). Then we saw one that we kind of liked and was vaguely affordable but our offer got turned down, which was a blessing in disguise as we then saw this place which we liked a lot and was much cheaper. Is there anything da ristrutturare in your area? Or are there still silly prices?

Hot, you make me laugh. I've seen families just like that. When I was a babysitter I used to carry the boys naked from the shower to the sdraio to get dressed and used to hear all the nonne tut tutting. One little boy wasn't allowed to do anything but his parents were quite happy to let him burn to a crisp. My DD is quite frequently naked on the beach and I've not had any negative comments, but I suppose it's where you go, where we go there are always lots of Germans or Dutch around and their kids are always naked.

LOL at the beach . IN Spain dd had her UV suit on and hat and when the wind got up sunglasses as well She has very delicate skin (like her dad) and within 24 hrs of arriving her eyes were red and sore from the wind. She normally wears a costume / t shirt in the Uk as its cold!!! . SHe does wear a hat in the summer here again as she burns so easily and of her eyes. But she runs and digs and eats sand like a true brit !
...well we both really liked one house this morning ...It is expensive though but we will go back next week and look for defects!
As for re building the problem with doing something from scratch is that you never know what you will find underneath they don't seem to have in depth surveys like in the UK.We have seen several to re do but just don't feel we can do a complete overhaul.

I'm sorry but this time I'll have to disagree . Have you seen on mn how many threads dedicated to little girls in bikini? Never heard anyone tut tutting in Italy when kids play on the beach naked, while dd was the only little girl wearing just pants when we went to the beach in devon last year.
What I have instead noticed and I'm a bit about this is that there is less women going topless. I used to love going topless

gosh, yes, it must be a nightmare finding a house in Venice. I have heard also that they are selling a lot to foreigners. How did it go today?

and I was never stopped playing with the sand. What kind of places have you been to Hhell???

We liked it Franca but it is so expensive Euro 100,000 more than our budget we need to do some serious finance thinking !

To be honest I haven't frequented many 'Italian' beaches more ones with an excess of Brits and germans. Venice Lido is far to gucci bikini and probably gucci bikini wax as well for me so we head to jesolo / carole when we do go ...

bleurgh at gucci bikini...
Rosa, have I told you already that I used to go to duna verde as a child? is it near caorle? I loved it!

oh no! could you make a lower offer and see how it goes? you need more space now !

vile gucci bikinis, hate those kind of beaches.
what's the house like Rosa? How big are you looking at?
Have just been to see an apartment to rent. Really liked it, in a great area, walking distance to centro storico and loads of shops, bars etc near by. Is in a GORGEOUS condominium, massive internal garden which can just imagine ds running around driving i vicini mad . BUT it's 75 sq metres and I was looking to go a bit bigger. We currently are in 70 metres. This one I've seen makes better use of space plus has una cameretta for ds which is the main reason we are moving. Is 75 metres too small ladies? there is loads of storage space, the location is perfect (plus 5 mins to metro)...

sounds gorgeous Gio! And those beautiful palazzi romani!
We are currently renting a flat of roughly 90 square meters, and we are 4. the dc are sharing a bedroom. the good thing is that being quite old it's got really high ceilings. Can you actually use the internal garden? Our building has a really nice (bit shabby, but I kind of like it this way ) but noone can use it . Like the majority of internal gardens in Milan, where up until 40 yrs ago children iused to play .
Anyway, I suppose we could have rented something a bit bigger by going towards the periferia, but this area is very comoda, and lots of public transports.
Yes rosa, give us a description of the house.
Pippi should have got back to london, shouldn't she?

It depends on how it's laid out. Some places have no space with 90mq and others are better thought out and you can get 2 bedrooms in 70mq. Ours is 90ish but no corridors etc. so we can make use of it all.

I've seen the strange sand people, but it's usually been the nonni. Most parents don't worry so much, except the ones with the pfb syndrome. I also remember being told that dd was bound to get an infection if I didn't put pants on her, but again it was by an anxious nonna. Most of the other parents never batted an eye, but in truth dd was the only bimba italiana without a costume, all the others were German, or Croatian or something. This was in Sardegna and once in lido delle nazioni btw.

Dunno really. Have been on holiday with many italian friends and the costume on children wasn't used constantly. I'd say that on some spiaggie I wouldn't fancy sitting down with a naked bum, but then I'm schifiltosa...

Me too. Once sunbathed on Brighton beach then got up after a couple of hours only to find I'd been lying next to a mummified rat[puke]. I hadn't noticed it before because it blended in with the pebbles. Have never sunbathed on that beach since.

PMSL!!!
Were you living here already when the Adriatic sea got hunted by the "mucillaggine" in the middle of the summer holidays?

Yes, in the first month I used to swim every day and come out of the water with these brown tendrils attached. In August it was disgusting, the sea was like zuppa di fagioli. I went windsurfing once and the wind died when I was quite a way from the beach. It took me about 1.5 hrs to get back to shore practically blowing into the sail as there was no way I was swimming back[double puke emoticon].

che schifo!
will have to go to bed now, dh has switched his bedside table lamp off m(he wants to sleep btw). and I still want to read a bit. che barba che noia, as mondaini would say. 'notte.

Che barba, Dp's in bed alone with my laptop. 'Notte

I was gia nanna da un po !
THis flat is on 2 levelli . Its a 2nd floor in condo di 4. ENtrata large with a staircase wood going up to this huge mansada ( stand up in) which they use as living area / sala di pranzo. They have made loads of storage and we could bring tubi up to make 2nd bathroom. In a futuro you could make 2 bedrooms out of this area .
Back on main floor the entrata is big enough for 2 posti divano childrens play area kind of thing. Then there is cucina abitabile not huge. 1 matrimoniale 1 doppia and a big bathroom . The kitchen would need to be done but the rest nil. ( apart from an extra starirail dd could fly out in the middle) It would mean a mortgage of 25- 30 yrs and also me going back to work in the future.It is lots of money .......But we need to go back again and see the defects!
Gio We live in 100 messo male with no storage and have bags on boxes in every corner. I said I could live in about 90 as long as there is a good mansada/ cantina so I do not ahve to live with seeing the Christmas tree / carozzina every blessed day !
I remember the yuck in the adratico I was in Le Marche and there was panico when the wind blew it down . Went on day trips to Venice and it was foul !