Checking In

Still alive, and still Stateside for the moment. We had a bit of a setback in visa land last week, but after examining all our options and talking to wiser and more seasoned world citizens than ourselves, we've decided to through caution and American order/efficiency to the wind and forge on ahead, sans documentation, to the land flowing with cheese and pasta.

Dave has his work visa, but the boys and I are essentially illegal aliens once 90 days elapse from our arrival in Rome. According to various and conflicting sources, what this means on a practical level is either  an arduous return flight for me and the boys to Chicago or NYC sometime before March 9th to procure our stubborn papers, or nothing at all, because Italians couldn't care less about your papers. Except when they do.

Clear as broken crystal.

Meanwhile, I've been drowning my anxieties by packing and repacking our remaining worldly goods into 8 suitcases and watching season 3 of Downton on a newly (illegally?) obtained british DVD which can only be played on a Mac. Weird?

Anyway, just wanted to drop the internet a line and let you fine people know we're alive, mostly well, and suffering sleep deprivation at the hands of baby Mussolini who is sleeping inches from my head at my family's house. Night waking is a bitch in the best of circumstances, but night waking in a house crammed with 9 people and 2 animals is an even surlier canine. I spent the hours between 2 and 4 am this morning alternating between nursing and letting my 20 lb 'newborn' sleep in a sweaty heap on my neck, trying and failing to not feel sorry for myself and thinking of someone whose suffering is so much more intense. I personally like this list for a schedule of Jen's foreseeable future.

Hopefully the next time I post, I'll be in a verrry different time zone.

Ciao!