Danielle Contemplates Italy: Pros and Cons (birth of her blog)

Ever since December, when we learned we'd be spending the 2008-09 academic year teaching at Loyola University's Rome Center, we've been rhapsodizing about Italy to Danielle. At six, Danielle soon caught our excitement: in her eyes, as we'd convinced her, she'd be moving to the land of pizza, pasta, and gelato. In short, we were heading to a Danielle-food-paradise. When we added Pinocchio, pine nuts, Pompeii, and churches, churches and more churches to the mix, her excitement doubled. (Although Danielle has yet to attend a Catholic service, she is completely infatuated with all things Catholic, especially the "baby Jesus." The thought of seeing nativity scenes in every Roman shop window has especially captured her fancy).

Recently, though, as she approaches the end of kindergarten she has begun to voice some ambivalence about the upcoming Italy move. The first hint of ambivalence came with her comment to me the other evening; "Mom, there is something you are going to be really upset about if I tell you...so I can't tell you." After 30 minutes of coaxing and promises that I would not be upset no matter what (as my imagination ran the gamut of possible things so horrible that she dare not voice them), Danielle finally confessed: "I don't want to move to Italy anymore." Turns out she was so enamored with performing in the school spring musical (Cats) last month, that she didn't want to miss being in Cats again next year. So, we reassured her that if her school was performing Cats again next year, we would cancel the move to Italy... lucky for us the elementary school introduces a new musical each year! Relief. This week, after learning that Cats is not being performed next year, we had a repeat of the "Mom, you are going to be sad if I tell you something" drill. This time, she learned that in first grade kids get to check books out of the library and she didn't want to miss this exciting new first grade privilege. So again the reassurances that she will probably have the same privileges at her new school in Italy (sure hope this is the case!).

Finally, we went on line and found the blog of a San Diego boy who had moved to Italy for a year with his grand-parents when he was about 8 years old. His accounts of his adventures, especially his pictures of his birthday pool party with his Italian classmates, his visit to a medieval dungeon in an Italian hill town, and his photos of the Skittles candies visiting American friends brought him, revived her flagging enthusiasm for the move to Rome. (Thank you Casey, if you are reading this). And we decided that we would create her own blog of her year in Italy... Welcome to what, from here on out, is to be Danielle's blog of her year in Italy.

(In case you are wondering why this is called "Daniela in Italy" and not "Danielle in Italy," its because "Danielle in Italy" was already taken...But, hey, she'll probably be called "Daniela" by her Italian classmates, so we might as well start making the shift now....)