Zoe Estelle Schiappacasse

She is spending more time observing her surroundings, staring at our faces and is definitely more vocal with a wider range of sounds.



Last Tuesday, we attended a birth class reunion at the Birth Center. We were able to see everyone's babies and hear their stories. There were actually quite a few great stories including twins born in the car on the way to the clinic and a breached baby who was delivered naturally. A couple of the babies had more hair than Dan and one even looked like Elvis with sideburns. Unfortunately, there were also horrific stories of doctors pressuring mothers to have a Caesarean. In fact, it was announced this week that Italy has the highest rate of Caesareans in Europe.

We also found out this week that our midwife's son (Adriano) is a friend of a friend and stayed with us at our house during a visit to San Francisco. What a small world! His wife Vittoria, who is already overdue, is in the picture wearing orange.



This week we also started giving Zoe a bath, and she actually enjoyed it (most of the time). During the first week we tried giving her baths but she hated it so much we gave her sponge baths instead.

We also started massaging her with almond oil and making sure we oil her skin folds to avoid rashes - she already has a pretty nasty rash on her neck.


The other big news this week was that we registered her birth abroad with the US consulate, so Zoe is officially an American citizen. Her passport will arrive in two weeks. Poor Zoe almost ended up with my two last names - Schiappacasse Valenzuela - since the Italian birth certificate names both (long story). After an hour discussion with consulate personnel, a form was finally found that allowed us to drop Valenzuela from her official US name. We weren't allowed to bring our camera into the embassy, so there are no pictures commemorating the event.

Grandma Marcy has also been a big help this week cleaning up after all of us.

Gotta go, it's time for Zoe to take a nap. She loves her sleep sacks sent by Carola and Hernan (gracias!!)

# posted by Dan and Amy @ 9:07 AM