Urbino

We finally arrived in Urbino last Tuesday. We didn't get to unpack and settle in right away, though, because the apartment turned out not to be as nice as we'd hoped, and we ended up arranging to stay in a different place outside of the old town. We moved Friday night, and since then we've made ourselves at home. Hopefully Eddie can start catching up on sleep!

Eddie's head finally healed from his fall in Monterchi, so yesterday I gave him another big scrape! We were at a playground by the Fortress at the top of town, which Eddie had all to himself. The first time Eddie visited this playground, it was packed with dozens of kids, but on a sleepy Sunday it seems that nobody's out! (Or maybe they all went to the beach—it was pretty hot!) Anyway, there was a carousel with elephants and caterpillars to sit on, so I helped Eddie sit on the caterpillar and started spinning it around. He was laughing and having a good time, when he fell off and went skidding into the dirt. He seemed okay, but later we noticed he had a great big scrape above his elbow. I don't think this poor kid will ever be uninjured.

He's been learning some Italian words and animal sounds! Back in Rome, Loredana taught him to say "Cucú" (Coo-coo), which is what Italians say for peek-a-boo, and he glommed on to that right away. He likes to play Cucu with Nonno, and now that seems to be his name for Nonno! Whenever Eddie sees him, he'll say "Cu cu cu cu." Once when we talked about Nonno while he wasn't there, Eddie went running from room to room saying "Cu cu" (rattling all the door knobs, too.) We have to lock the doors here to keep Eddie out of rooms where he shouldn't be, since he's learned to turn the door handle and walk in. He's been turning the keys—it's only a matter of time before he figures out how to unlock the doors. Then we're in for it.

Eddie has also done a pretty good job saying "kikiriki", which is how Italians say "Cock-a-doodle-doo" for roosters. Since his triumph in saying "neigh," he's also learning to say "mooo" (which is the same in Italian), but he usually says "booo" instead. He's also starting waving to people Italian-style (opening and closing the hand.) And he's begun imitating the sounds of bells and other collisions by saying "bing, bong" or "bang." The other day, we had just come out of Urbino's Duomo when the bells started ringing, so they were really loud. Eddie was drinking some water, but he was so surprised that he spat it out. Then he said "bong, bong!"

At another playground, not far from our apartment, Eddie met a little girl named Veronica, about a year old. It turns out her mother is Russian; we both assumed that the other was a native Italian who would be able to tell that we don't speak natively, so it took us a while to figure out that we were both foreigners! We were standing on some gravel when Veronica fell down on her rump. Her mother picked her up and shook out some rocks that had stuck to Veronica's hand. Eddie watched, then he said "Boom ba-da boom!", picked up some rocks, and shook them out.

So, he's definitely getting better at imitating, and it seems like he might be stringing some words together, too; he might say "big boy" and some other phrases (but it's hard to tell.) We think throwing all this Italian in the mix might slow down his talking. But it's supposed to be a lot easier than learning it when he's older.