The Maestro

I come from an Italian family, so to us soccer is like a religion. I am a Napoli fan, the biggest team in the area from where my family comes from. Napoli was big in the 80s, when Maradona was playing for them and was decent for about half of the 90s. I am old enough to remember some of this so I became a Napoli fan. In the late 90s and early 2000s Napoli was bad and playing on the 2nd and 3rd tiers so my brothers did not have a chance to follow them. Instead they are Roma fans.  Because of this now there is this big friendly rivalry whenever we are together Roma Vs. Napoli. Part of it is trying to get Lucas to root for one of the two. My brothers have gotten him Roma gear, but until now my influence has prevailed and he confidently states that Napoli is the best team. When he plays soccer he will tell me that he is Hamsik or Insigne (Napoli players).

However, this Sunday there is a game in Boston, Juventus Vs. Roma. It is going to be Lucas's first experience on a soccer stadium so I have been building it up for a couple of weeks. I want him to be excited and for it to be special. I found out that Roma would be training today in Harvard, so I had Lucas skip daycare, dressed him and Matias from head to toes in Roma gear and went there.

The day was cloudy and it looked like it was going to rain, but luckily it never did. We were at Ohiri Field at about 10 AM and I was amazed of how little the crowd was. It had to be about 10 people tops. The players just walked in from the hotel, no bus, no crowds. They must love the anonymity the US gives them. The players started walking in and I kept whispering the names in Lucas's ears. He would shout De Rossi! Florenzi! Perotti! and they would all wave. De Rossi actually came to him and gave him a high five. Lucas was beaming with happiness and so was I. I kept telling him to yell for Nainggolan but he must have gotten scared with his haircut.

In the end he was asking where is Totti? I had to explain that he was no longer playing for Roma. "Il Capitano" retired. Then an interesting conversation started: Why did he retire? Because he is getting older and the older you get the slower and weaker you get. But I am growing stronger, when I'm 4, I'm going to be very strong. Yes, Lucas but once you turn 30, it all goes downhill and he was 40. Now my son is scared of growing old and he's only 3. Meanwhile Matias was just hanging out in his stroller, smiling as always, no complaints about spending a couple of hours outside under an overcast sky.

What did I watch?
A lot of Pokemon again, that's what I get for making my kid skip school.

UPDATE: They took our picture and posted it to Instagram

The Visa

This year both Alegna and I were eligible to become US citizens. We filled out all our forms together, got our fingerprints taken and went through the interviews at the same time. But, for some strange reason, we received our invitation to take the oath of allegiance on different days. Today Alegna became an American citizen while I have to wait until probably September.

We woke up this morning and debated on whether Lucas should attend the ceremony or not. Luckily we decided against it and dropped him off at daycare on our way to Worcester, where today's ceremony was scheduled to happen. We got there at 10:30 AM and Alegna went through all the process while I was sitting in the guest section with Matias. It was a long ceremony that consisted of mostly waiting for everyone to come into the room. Lucas would have lost it. It finally started at 12 and it lasted about an hour. During this whole time I was sitting with Matias on a very crowded theater with not much wiggle room, but he was great as always. He didn't cry once. He kind of complained a little bit when it was time to eat, but once I fed him his bottle he was OK again.

The ceremony was very nice. They did their oath, then recited the pledge of allegiance and listened to the national anthem. There were some nice moments like when they started calling country names and anyone originally born there would stand up. It was a very festive environment designed to make the new citizens feel welcome. The oath of allegiance is interesting in that you are renouncing allegiance to your own country. I think it is kind of a bittersweet feeling. On the one hand you are becoming a citizen of the most important country in the world, in my opinion as significant as being a citizen of Rome during the Roman Empire. But on the other hand you are renouncing the country that made you who you are. These bittersweet taste quickly went away with some very wise and moving words from the judge presiding the ceremony. "You are renouncing allegiance to you government, not to your country or culture". That's when it hit me, I have already renounced to the Venezuelan government, probably about 17 years ago, renouncing to my "Venezuelaness" is probably impossible because it is part of who I am. I am always going to enjoy an Arepa and celebrate goals by the Vinotinto. But, I'm sure going to be proud to also become an American. The country where both my sons were born, where I had the opportunity to get a job, buy a house and live in peace. I most certainly will enjoy my rights to live, be free and be happy.

What did I Watch?
Kong: Skull Island: The best word I could come up to describe this movie is "Blah". Apparently they are setting up this whole "Monsterverse" where they will have Kong fighting Godzilla, Mothra, etc. in future movies.

The Da Vinci Sleep

The closest you will unintentionally get to polyphasic sleep is when you have to feed a baby and in my opinion it will convince you that it does not really work. The hardest part of taking care of a baby is dealing with the sleep deprivation. Easy tasks like changing a diaper or preparing a bottle suddenly become super complicated. I have been very lucky with Matias. He is a very good sleeper that on his worst nights he might wake only twice. Last night for the first time in his life he slept through the whole night.

I fed him yesterday at 11 PM and put him to sleep. After that I spent some time writing yesterday's post and then loading the dishwasher and went to sleep too about an hour later. I vaguely remember hearing him complain at what I think was 3 or 4 AM, I reached for his pacifier and found his mouth to try to calm him down so I could get a few more minutes of sleep. Next thing I know it is 7 AM and he is still sleeping. I freak out a little bit and confirm that yes he is still breathing. At 7:30 I decide to wake him up, it has been 8 hours since he last ate. He wakes up happy and then proceeds to eat all day like a troglodyte. He cluster fed all day today 6 ounces every 3 hours, that is a lot for a 3 month old, but it gives me hope that he is just catching up and preparing for another full night of sleep.

The rest of the day was uneventful, I did the grocery shopping and laundry work that I had decide not to do yesterday. And in the evening we all went for a pizza dinner to celebrate Matias's first of many full night sleeps.

What did I Watch?
A Guy Named Joe: It's supposed to be Steven Spielberg's favorite movie, so much that he actually remade it. Unfortunately, it was too corny for my taste. It happens a lot watching some of these old movies, some do not age well because they look too innocent for us that have grown accustomed to a more cynical world.

The Couch

Today was a rainy day. The kind of rainy day that makes you not want to do anything at all. We woke up early but I was in no rush. I saw through my window all that heavy rain and decided to wait until it got a little better so the trip to the daycare wouldn't be that bad. I let Lucas play with his toys after breakfast and joined him for a while while Matias was napping. At around 9:30 I saw the rain getting a little lighter so I got the kids dressed and left for daycare. My plan for today was to go to the grocery store, but the weather is not really motivating me so I decide to go home.

Alegna calls me, she has been getting sicker over the weekend and now she is in bad shape. She's coming back early from work. Matias and I have done absolutely nothing today but sit on the couch. It's been a lazy rainy day and we are taking full advantage of it. I believe he is starting to teeth because he keeps sucking at his hands and his pacifier. He has also been a little restless and wants to be on my arms more than usual. But when I'm holding him he is all smiles. It has been a very unproductive day but we have taken complete advantage of it to make it a good day, just the two of us hanging out on the couch

Tomorrow I will have to pick up everything I left undone on this off-day. I need to do some laundry and go to the supermarket. Let's hope the weather is more motivating than today's.

What did I watch?
The Revenge of Frankenstein: I think I like the Universal monster movies more than the Hammer ones, but this one was a completely new take on the Frankenstein story, starting with that there is no Frankenstein monster in it. From my experience Universal had great monster movies like Dracula, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, but the sequels kept getting worse until something as bad as House of Frankenstein came out. The Hammer movies are a little bit more consistent, they are all of equal quality, but none are really great.

The Paradine Case: It is a Hitchcock movie, you realize this in the first few minutes, even before his cameo. It's not one of his best though, but I can see why he was attracted to this story. I was more interested in the story arc of the lawyer ruining his career and marriage on account of his infatuation with his client rather than with the trial and discovering who was the murderer.

The Wait Out

Matias behaves all day like an angel. He will get hungry when it is expected and maybe cry a little but I am usually prepared with a bottle and as soon as he starts eating he will calm down. If he is sleepy he will usually just go to sleep. .He does not suffer from colic and burping him is a walk on the park. Except at 7 PM in the evening. Alegna calls it "Aleli" time, I have seen it mentioned online as "The Witching Hour" but I like to call it the "Wait Out". He has been waiting patiently all day to spend some time with mommy and now he is demanding her attention.

It is very surprising that it comes like clockwork, every day around 7 PM. It does not matter if he just woke up, if he just ate or anything that has happened the rest of the day. This is the only time when he seems to be inconsolable but I think I am getting to the bottom of it. I have noticed that the cry is very similar to his cry when he is hungry. At first, I was incredulous because at 7 he has usually just eaten so he shouldn't be hungry. But by reading online I have found out that there are some babies that cluster feed in the evenings so they can sleep through the night. Thinking about it, it fits his pattern of behavior. He has been getting better and better in sleeping longer hours at night. So the past couple of nights we have tried just feeding him a bottle when he gets this way and it seems to be working. Hopefully this will lead to even better nights, who knows if soon I will be sleeping the whole night for a change?

What did I see?
Take Me Out to the Ball Game: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Esther Williams in a Busby Berkeley musical about baseball. I am a big baseball fan and I had really enjoyed On the Town with Sinatra and Kelly. But this one was kind of disappointing, nothing really memorable about it.

A Touch of Zen: The winner of this week's poll and it was a gem. Although it was 3 and a half hours it did not feel that long. You can see how this movie influenced the newer artistic martial arts movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. The monk character is really cool, he is so bad-ass that he bleeds gold. It has one of the best endings I have seen on any movie. Beautiful movie!

The Seven

Sometimes raising a baby unconsciously becomes a race to the next milestone. Does he hold his head up? Does he follow your face? Then comes turning over, sitting down, crawling, walking, talking, etc. These are all important milestones in their development and of course you want to help them achieve them. I try to do some tummy time every day with Matias so he can gain some muscle strength for his next milestones. But I have another set of milestones that I find more interesting and amusing that I observed on Lucas and I am curious to see how Matias develops them. I will call them the Seven Vinciguerra Milestones.

1. Holding their own bottle: My least favorite part of taking care of  a baby is feeding it. You are pretty much trapped and you can't do anything else except just sit there. When you can finally free your hands while he is feeding feels like a great advancement.
2. Understanding the concept of blowing their nose: There is nothing worse than hearing your baby breathe through some nasal congestion. I have become an expert in using the suction nasal aspirators but it is a relief when you can just put a tissue on his nose and say blow and he knows what the hell you are talking about.
3. Understanding the concept of pointing: The moment when a toddler finally understands that when you point at something he should be looking in the direction of your finger instead of at your finger feels like a great advancement in abstract thinking.
4. First fart joke: This might be a boys only milestone, but I can't deny I was very proud the first time Lucas imitated a fart sound and had that grin that said to me "See what I did there?". I find the whole process of developing of a sense of humor very interesting.
5. Jumping with both feet at the same time: Apparently this is one of the most complex motor skills a human can do. Try asking your toddler to jump at different ages and you will see how hard it is for them.
6. Kicking a ball: I love soccer so it's obvious why this is important for me.
7. Sitting through an entire movie in the theater: As you can probably tell from the blog movies are important for me and being able to share that with my kids is important for me. I tried having Lucas watch a Star Wars movie for the first time in a theater but it didn't work, he was too young and Rogue One was darker than your average Star Wars movie. Disappointingly, his actual first movie was Despicable Me 3. I hope I have better luck with Matias on this one.

For the other parents that read the blog feel free to comment on what other non-traditional milestones you enjoyed watching on your kids.

What did I watch?

The Misfits: It was good, not very special or memorable. Clark Gable's performance is pretty good but the movie felt too long.

Please remember to vote before noon tomorrow on the Friday poll.

The Truth

Having a three year old means that you have to be answering questions all the time. Lucas is a very curious kid, as as most kids his age he'll start asking question after question. I find this interesting because I can see how he is starting to grasp most of the concepts that we take for granted as adults but it is also exhausting. This morning he was sort of in turbo mode. Since we got in the car at home until we parked a the daycare he asked questions non-stop from "What Pokemon is bigger Charmeleon or Charizard?" to "Why is my hand shaped like a rectangle?" I have also made it more difficult to myself because of two choices I made.

The first one is that I want to answer every one of his questions as accurately as possible. We have taught Lucas to not accept an easy answer. If he asks you a question and your answer is "Just because" his immediate reply is "That is not a valid answer". I'm sometimes half paying attention at what he is asking and a "just because" will slip and he will always catch me. This is how I have sometimes found myself talking about the states of matter, atoms and the properties of light to explain why the sky is blue or talking about the nervous system to explain why his finger hurts. It is very rewarding when I'm in the middle of one of these explanations and he will ask a follow up question related to what I am actually saying. I know that he is not grasping absolutely everything I say but sometimes he will surprise me. His teacher the other day congratulated me because he knew what gravity was. What amazes me is that I explained gravity to him in Spanish, how he translated it and explained it to his teacher in English just baffles me.

The second difficulty is that I am not a very religious person so I lose the what I think would be a very useful cop out "Because God made it that way!". But I have also learned that he understands that sometimes I don't know all the answers, so he will sometimes accept an "I don't know". When this happens I make it a point to actually make my research so I can find an explanation for him. So his questions actually help me learn about stuff too.

Friday Movie
It is that time of the week again and here are the choices for the poll. Please vote on the top right corner under Jerry Seinfeld's head:

• A Touch of Zen: This has been called the best Kung-Fu movie ever, not just because of the visuals but also because of the artistic quality and story.
• The Paradine Case: I have seen every Alfred Hitchcock movie from 1938 until 1976 except for this one.
• Chimes at Midnight: Falstaff is a Shakespeare character in three different plays. In this movie Orson Welles creates a sort of biopic of the character across those three plays.
• Shall We Dance: A Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie. It would be the fourth most popular pairing of the two after the three I have already seen: Top Hat, Swing Time and Gay Divorcee
• The Revenge of Frankenstein: The second installment of the Hammer Frankenstein series starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

What did I See?

Birdman of Alcatraz: You can see how some more recent prison movies like Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile were inspired by this movie's tone. From what I read of the real Robert Stroud the movie was very kind to him by omitting most of his worst traits.