4am

Adjusting to a new time zone with a baby is truly a challenge. Luca is in our bed and he manages to squeeze me to the very edge with his tiny little body. Sleeping in the crib wasn't working. He's been through so much transition lately that I think it scares him to wake up in a new place again. We've slept at a few houses since we had to be out of ours a week before we left. It seems to make him feel more safe if he wakes up looking at us instead of an unfamiliar wall. He's needed to be breastfed almost every hour. He doesn't eat, he just needs to be calmed. Right now it's 4am. I just fed him and couldn't go back to sleep. It seemed easier to get up than to try to silence my thoughts for another few hours. I wish I could take advantage of him sleeping now. But alas, as soon as I lay down again (which I plan on doing after this post) he will surely wake up hungry.

This is our third night here and it still feels like a vacation. I think it will until the holidays pass and everyone who is visiting will leave. Then the fear, anxiety and claustrophobia will come crashing down. That word came to mind today when I was in the middle of the city center. It's a beautiful cluster of alleys and narrow streets but for a minute, when I had to remember how to get home, I felt it closing in on me.

There are a lot of things I didn't think about when I imagined life in Rome. I forgot about public breastfeeding and diaper changes. Oh Portland, you make life with a baby so easy. Changing tables in every clean bathroom, little signs in areas that are good places to breastfeed (I noticed the breastfeeding symbol most recently at the zoo). I tried to distract Luca today so that I wouldn't have to sit on a dirty curb, being passed by hundreds of people, trying to breastfeed. We managed to get home before the hungry cry started in. I did however change him in the middle of an alley; a truck narrowly passed and honked at me. The fat bald guy inside yelled something and shook his hand at me. Screw you mister, baby trumps fat Italian guys in trucks.

It's different than Portland, but as my sister-in-law wisely said, moving anywhere from there would be an adjustment as it's so comfortable to raise kids in the Rose City. It's also funny to see Luca here and think of him as a little Italian boy, as I think of him as a Portlander. His first word may very well be in Italian.

So even though he's a little criminal at night, trying to adjust, this kid is all smiles during the day. I think he's gonna like it here.