Monday was the time to leave for the summer holidays! The atmosphere was strange though, by looking out of the window you would see a grey sky, while if you were to go out you would notice that the temperature was much cooler than few days before. Summer already finished?! Brr…

We started the holidays by working on our luggage and Jacopo’s as well! 😊 I could not believe my eyes when I realised that all the things we had accumulated could fit in our car without even sacrificing the passengers seats. I am really satisfied with the capacity of the trunk of our Octavia (although the water pump recently abandoned me, leaving me on the motorway with a overheated engine)!

One last thing before leaving…

In our plan we had one more appointment to attend to: we agreed to meet Marco, Maite and Peio for the first time since one year! We did not meet them since the last holiday in Schinoussa which happened exactly one year ago. Since then three major event changed our lives: the birth of Peio followed by Jacopo’s and last but not least my hair cut (which now is really short!). When we arrived in Dino we were overwhelmed by the amount of kids that were there, as almost the whole family of Marco was there.

Could you imagine?! The living room where I and Marco have been learning for hours during high school first and university later was now filled with kids and babys… Out of which, two were our children!

Trip to Celerina

After some chatting with Marco and Maite, we left Dino and began our trip to Celerina: Jacopo started complaining after one hour since we left, therefore Natascia decided to seat next to him in order to play together and to keep his pacifier in place: we were told that this would help him contrasting the difference in pressure due to the change of altitude. All in all I believe it took us around 2 hours and 45 minutes to arrive, which is 15 minutes more than usual, the trip went very well!

Driving with a baby on board changes your style of driving, at least a little, as you are aware that in the back there is someone who is not capable of anticipating what is going to happen next, either because he does not see it, either because he does not have the strength. Therefore, driving on a mountain road, I had to refrain a little from giving full gas at the end of each turn… Which otherwise is great fun (more so with a diesel engine, having a lot of newtons to discharge on the road)! Diabolic grin!

Arrival

Slightly before arriving it was clear to everyone that Jacopo patience was at its limit, he needed to get out of the car, have a walk and a smoke… Err… As soon as we arrived he had his milk! But we were not organised for all of his needs, a lot was still in the luggage, meticulously packed in the trunk of the car! With some effort, tired from the driving and hungry (we did not eat much during lunch as we were packing), not only we unloaded the whole car, but I even managed to inflate the exercise ball. The exercise ball: what a failure. It needs a dedicated paragraph, if not a dedicated post.

The exercise ball

Since Jacopo was born we started to use the exercise ball as it was very effective to calm Jacopo’s colics attacks. We used to bounce on the ball while holding Jacopo in our arms: the rhythmic movement would help Jacopo to tranquilize and fall asleep. A very important tool for us… I would suggest it to every new parent.

It has a big disadvantage though: once inflated it is not easy to fit in a car which is already quite full! Luckily enough I found a second ball, which was already deflated, thus much easier to transport… Yeah, wait, but why is the ball deflated? Maybe it is perforated? And how should I inflate it?

I was so lucky that in the past I had already bought adapters for my bike pump, so I decided to test the pump and its adapters by inflating the ball! And it worked! The pump was a bit small therefore I had to keep a good rhythm in order to have some progress in a reasonable amount of time… But you know, being such an important tool for us, better to be sure that everything works! Since inflating the whole ball took me a lot of energy and sweat, while packing the car I tried not to deflate it totally as I did not want to reinflate it starting from the beginning: as long as I tried I could not manage to make it fit without deflating it almost totally.

I packed also my old bike pump (a great gift that I received from my father when I was a boy) with all the adapters and… Hopp we go.

Arrived in Celerina it was time to re – inflate the ball (second time during the same day) and… As soon as the ball regained its spherical shape, my precious pump broke. Ouch. This was not foreseen during my tests at home! Still, thankfully I managed to slowly inflate the ball until it reached a decent strength and size. Quite happy for my performance I decided to test the ball with Jacopo… And there you go… It is not enough bouncy. Jacopo does not even feel the movement! Snap!

We were lucky that night Jacopo was quite tired and fell asleep almost immediately. We followed as quickly as possible!

Good night everyone!

Andrea