MN Little Italy 18

[DemonBradleySlaysPippi]

Where are you????

They do at children's party , but the costum is starting to catch up here in italy too. Boh!

Actually the way I prefer is when you hand the pressie over at the beginning of the party and they open it on the spot, otherwise the scarta la carta thing can go on for ever and become a bit strained.
Still haven't hosted a proper kid's party, DD's birthday is slap bang in the middle of holidays.

Yes, that's my favourite way too

Yes that's how I did it! DD happy and the giver was happy too to see the face of dd opening it and explaining what it was etc and often even playing with it. I must have shocked some parents!
I saw the other way, the 'english' way of piling up presents, putting them away to be taken home and even opened staggered for a few days!! What!? Where's all the fun?
When I was little on the day of your birthday you were the Queen/King of the day and you'd request your favourite food and your siblings had to do what you said . 'twas bliss.
(Maybe that's why I am so demamding with dh on my birthday and never any other day.)

I will start a thread! Not in AIBU though.

Oh I also committed the other sin of giving them the birthday cake there and then rather than cut a slice, wrap it up with a napkins and give it with party bag. DD could not understand and kept saying: "Why can't I eat the cake?".
God how many mistakes await me...

i am a fan of the british way with presents, mostly because of the very real danger they'll either get something they already have (Mamma! ce l'ho gia'!) or something they don't like (I DON'T LIKE IT!). it is too mortifying so i would rather do it privately.

the cake in the party bag, otoh, is just plain weird. i've seen it done only once or twice

dd2 with a fever (38). tool dd1 for a haircut today and the cow did such a bad job, one side is shorter than the other! what do i do? bring her back to even it out (it'll be really too short...) or wait a couple of weeks to give it a chance to grow out a bit?

Party manners thread.

MM I am an expert re messed up children's hair. I have done it all: cut it myself, adjust it myself, take her back, bear it for a few weeks and then adjust it. The latter is the only good option you have got! Everything else ends up in a disaster and you going "poor bigMM" every time you look at her. Trust me on this .

Yes opening presents immediately makes it impossible also to hide them for xmas, recycle them (not that I ever done it ), and those embarassing momnets you mention but it is all part of the fun, no?

i don't know i have a very low cringe threshold plus am a big fan of recycling presents . but i don't write thank you cards, usually i send a text the next day or an email. all this card writing does my head in!

SG question for you: what's the UK position on vaccinating pg women for swine flu? friend of my mum's asking. i can imagine that in italy they are hysterical as usual... friend of mine just went back to italy to have her baby (after a very good and uneventful pregnancy), and within days of arriving she'd been promptly put on bed rest; - seems to me that you cannot possibly escape bed rest if you are pregnant in italy! whereas in the uk i have only ever heard of one friend, who had a very real and serious case of placenta praevia.
i think in italy pregnant women are treated as though they were seriously ill... ok so perhaps here it's the other extreme, colleague of mine drove herself home 6 hours having dd2...

pippi i will heed your wise advice and let my poor big masseuse walk around with directional hair for a few weeks...

calpol's worked its wonders and now both masseusettes are dancing along with upsy daisy. just in time for bedtime

Yes, I agree that potential embarassing moments are part of the fun! It's children at the end of the day, they do/say embarassing things

Oh poor bigmm! I'd wait a few weeks and then bring her back. But then I find small children with not perfect haircuts very cute!

I escaped bed rest in Italy when pg.

My family must be very common and unMNy as we have always opened presents as soon as the guest hands them over!

Phew back - She diddn't sleep I went out in horrible weather minirosa bundled up and covered up . Me with my buggy brolly but its cra*p in the wind I got to dd school at 15.55 and there were 2 children in the class .....It seems that they opne the doors early when its bad weather so I probably could have gone nad got her at 3.30 .....Domani more rain , wind and yes right at school time Aqua Alta - SO the old crappy buggy is ready.
SF- Here it is rampant it seems and they have done tests.
We have to take a packet - multi pack of tissues at the start of the term also 1 thing of liquid soap. We also had to pay Eu 10 towards paper , pencils, Christmas , end of term parties / san Martino - PLus the rata that we pay monthy and I paid the heating today !!!!
Franca good that the dcs are better.
Gio take it that ds is better as well.
Sput glad you had a nice time with teh rellies .
Xmas for us I love in the Uk as we have the kind of real Christmas chocolate box house.Plus the gps go really OTT on celebrations. DH has taken to our customs as he never had any really ( MIL was the kind who would prod the kids presents and spoil suprises) - LAst Natale we went for pranzo at her place - to be honest I would have done better myself even with minirosa at 6 weeks !!!!
Right if I have forgotten anything sorry

Oh presents - Dd opens them after the cake - eaten at the party - on the floor surrounded by friends - We have started to club together to buy things for friends. I remember in the Uk though going home with cake in a soggy napkin and usually a balloon and possible a small gift .....that was xxxxxx years ago !

awww rosa, sounds like a lovely christmas, can I come ?

Bucharest, so what is this penguin your dd wants for xmas?

If anybody is doing a order i am after Tomy squeaking eggs ....Minirosa played with some playskool ones at a friends house and loved them. Amazon don't have them in stock - only another seller and postage is daft.....Boots don't have any in stock online and Mgp can't find any in town .....
We stil odn't know if we will be in the Uk for xmas ...Bloody Cacciari ...he hasn't given out the shifts for december .....

Saw the penguin Buch - good luck! It looks like the kind of toy that would drive the parets insane b boxing day !

MM you are right about italian bed-rest. Most of my friends were put on bed rest and off work very ealry into the pg. All shocked at me 8 months pg with dd2 and flying in and out of the country with dd1 on my own and going home after 4 hours with dd1. odd.

Really? I don't know of anyone who's been put on bed rest here.

back from ikea with my boxes, both DC surprisingy washed and asleep and I'm sat here testing my new ikea laptop cushion tray thingy, lovely.

party - if at a venue like this year, we opened presents afterwards at home as there was no space at the place, otherwise always open presents in front of people; I personally found it rude when on 2 occasions i brought presents for friend's dd b-day and first year it was kept for the followinng day as the b-day was the next day though celebrated on that day (only friends and family, she was 1) second year, the present we brought ended up in gran's car who left with it and went home, I was pretty p'd off as I was theoretically a godmother. the cake in the bag I hate because it gets all squashed and sticky, cake eaten AT the party for us. no thank you cards if we thank in person, which is normally the case.

pg, I wished I'd been able to go home within 4 hrs with DS, never mind DD (ok, couldn't stand after DD), but I sooooooooooooooo hated it at the hospital, on the other hand my friends in italy where better looked after, so maybe I wouldn't have been in such a hurry.

MM, one of the reasons DS has long hair is that he's only ever let my hairdresser back home near his hair, only time DP took him to the barber here, he ended up with half is head done.... not funny

I was on bed rest, and drugs to stop contractions which I've never heard of in the UK.
I do wonder what would've happened in the UK though, I had a 3cm dilated cervix at 6 months but as they don't do internals routinely like they do here no one would've known.

I bumped into a friend the other day and she had been on bed rest and anti contraction drugs too. The day after she came off them she went into labour, so definitely worth it in her case.

Camo I bet your DS was happy you relented and took him to Ikea again

Did you get those boots btw?

You have a laptop cushion?

I'm knackered, my eyes hurt.

Gosh, I suppose that 3 cm and contractions at 6 months really call for bed rest.
How awful .
To be really honest, I think ante natal care in Italy is on average very good.

yes, ds very happy in smaland

I would have definetly preferred to be in italy when I had dd - friend had exactly same problems, but because she had a routine scan to check baby durin labour they knew he was face up and dealt with it, with me, I kept telling them there was s.thing wrong as she was "going back up" no matter the amount of pushing so she ended up with ventouse mark on her forehead as they hadn't realised she was face up, after me begging them to get her out.

didn't get the boots, went back tonight before ikea, but again I was offered the display pair they had last week which again I pointed out has a hole on the right foot. no luck on other store last sat either, might try victoria tomorrow if I have time, I now really want them but too stingy to pay delivery

franca, it's a lovely laptop cushion with built in pocket for remote/charger etc, add it to your list, and they had lovely big xmas tree boubles