May 1^st – Spending the day at a soccer tournament then a dinner party we had forgotten about until the last minute, treasuring the friendships we’ve made since moving here.

May 2^nd – Slipping out of a sermon that interested me not a bit to chat with other moms in our church’s unofficial nursery.

May 3^rd – Rooting out the scary dust bunnies (and elephants) from under the girls’ bedroom furniture and discovering beloved lost toys in the process.

May 4^th – Finding a quiet stretch of afternoon for yoga and jasmine green tea.

May 5^th – Being ordered onto a tiny plastic chair by Sophie for an impromptu picnic of plastic pie doused in invisible milk and sixteen cups of pretend coffee, all of which were hers.

May 6^th – Refilling my favorite pink vase with fresh-picked daisies from our little balcony garden.

May 7^th – Staying up two hours past bedtime for a round of Settlers with friends… then staying up another two hours for a second round because none of us was psychologically capable of stopping at one.

May 8^th – Sleeping until noon and curing the subsequent daze with pancakes.

May 9^th – Finding the breakfast table loaded with hand-drawn Mother’s Day cards and our new tent—a promise of camping adventures this summer with the dear little family that made me a mother.

May 10^th – Being the first recipient of Natalie’s newly-invented “flower kiss” (patent pending).

May 11^th – Easily revising an essay, usually my most hated job ever.

May 12^th – Rocking my tired baby to sleep and forgetting for a few magical moments that she’s not actually a baby anymore.

May 13^th – Attending a friend’s piano concert and being swept away by her thunderous interpretation of Chopin.

May 14^th – Going through our photos from the last couple of years and savoring each sweet, silly moment captured.

May 15^th – Helping the girls introduce their Uncle Michael to basketball… on the Wii!

May 16^th – Biting into melt-in-your-mouth Snickerdoodles hot from the oven.

May 17^th – Amusing myself throughout the day with the stupidity of a neighborhood bird who was overcome with the need to fly through our balcony door.

May 18^th – Making a tough decision and shortly realizing it was unquestionably the right one.

May 19^th – Trying out a new video game with Dan and losing track of time like we used to back in our Unreal days.

May 20^th – Befriending another mom at Natalie’s English class’s open house and finding myself one step closer to belonging here.

May 21^st – Honoring our viral mint with afternoon mojitos on the balcony.

May 22^nd – Discovering that the Flower Show is less a floral display and more a place to watch Venus Flytraps in action, stock up on obscure spices, and chat with friends while pretending not to see our daughters eating a meal worth of piadina samples.

May 23^rd – Glancing up from our gardening work to see skydivers like colorful butterflies parachuting into the stadium just below our house.

May 24^th – Catching up on my correspondence, taking the time to connect with loved ones who may be out of sight but not out of mind.

May 25^th – Spending a wonderful evening with friends we’ thought we’d lost.

May 26^th – Launching Popsiquest 2010, a highly yummy research endeavor with the girls for the best popsicles in town.

May 27^th – Sitting down to have six years’ worth of mysteries answered in the “LOST” finale. (The anticipation turned out to be more satisfying than the actual watching, unfortunately.)

May 28^th – Using a wretched head cold as an excuse to spend the afternoon in bed listening to This American Life and looking through family photos.

May 29^th – Beating sickness with a game night and my self-prescribed remedy of salted fudge brownies.

May 30^th – Tucking a pair of apple-scented girls into their beds early, leaving a deliciously long evening to spend with their daddy.

May 31^st – Flouting a [mistakenly] dire weather forecast by spending the afternoon in front of an open window, soaking up every sun-tinted breeze.

April 1^st – Sneaking up on two beautiful little ballerinas in a computer game trance.

April 2^nd – Throwing open the windows and letting spring come bounding inside.

April 3^rd – Devouring Frito Pie and day-before-Easter chocolate in our new tent and feeling quite at home.

April 4^th – Hiding eggs full of sugary treasures around our campsite for the girls to run and dance and climb and twirl and stumble upon throughout the morning.

April 5^th – Ordering drinks at Natalie’s 2,000-year-old thermopolium in downtown Pompeii.

April 6^th – Unloading a haul of bright, zesty Sorrento lemons and imagining the many ways we’ll enjoy them this spring.

April 7^th – All of us feeling more relieved that we realized to swing back into our weekday routines.

April 8^th – Commencing Operation Limoncello 2010 with visions of sparkling Christmas gifts dancing in our heads.

April 9^th – Falling asleep after a difficult day on my beloved mattress with my beloved husband and a new day waiting in the wings.

April 10^th – Picking out the brightest, friendliest flowers we could find [on sale] to color in-between the lines on our balcony.

April 11^th – Spying on the girls as they channeled their engineer dad and constructing amazing, imaginative worlds out of Duplos.

April 12^th – While flipping television channels just before bed, stumbling onto an incredible burping rock duo and falling in love with Italian programming all over again.

April 13^th – Being quite literally floored by a kiss attack from Sophie.

April 14^th – Finally finding the words that had been eluding me all week and revising my position on life being over, etc.

April 15^th – Saying good morning to the new flowers blooming and thriving and throwing wild tea parties in their planters.

April 16^th – Hand-writing a letter in a pool of pure golden sunshine on the balcony.

April 17^th – After breathing in clouds of fresh pollen all day long, realizing my eyes don’t itch and my sinuses haven’t closed and I’m not tempted to gouge out my skull with a salad fork; thank you, allergy vaccinations!

April 18^th – Staying after church to eat gnocchi and lemon mousse and catch up with friends we haven’t seen in too long.

April 19^th – Leaving the dishes to their own devices and playing a hilarious game of kickball in the backyard with the girls.

April 20^th – Riding the essay submission high, like pot-laced caffeine with extra sprinkles.

April 21^st – Butchering a favorite children’s song into a potty-time ditty to the girls’ utter amusement (and their father’s utter head-shaking).

April 22^nd – Being treated like the customer of the decade by a sweet saleslady at the ritzy, glitzy profumeria while I rooted through the discount bin for their cheapest lime-grapefruit lotion.

April 23^rd – Resurrecting a childhood favorite and playing Giddyup Little Horsey until the girls collapsed from laughter.

April 24^th – Spending some quality time in the pages of The Princess Bride after far too long apart.

April 25^th – Staying up half an hour too late and being rewarded with a Liberation Day fireworks show.

April 26^th – Cheering on my timid Natalie as she rode her bicycle around and around the balcony, crashing and jumping back up with a grin of accomplishment.

April 27^th – Getting a delightful letter in the mail from an old friend.

April 28^th – Swinging at the otherwise empty playground with Sophie after early-morning errands.

April 29^th – Wishing I had some fresh asparagus to fix with lunch and then being completely surprised by a friend who stopped by mid-morning simply to bring me a beautiful bouquet… of asparagus.

April 30^th – Ending up €1.39 short at the grocery store but having a new friend unexpectedly show up in line behind me and pay before I realized what she was doing; closing out the month remembering to believe in little miracles.

March 1^st – Whiling away the first warm afternoon of the year at the playground, meeting new friends, and sharing a fabulous pinecone stew.

March 2^nd – Catching up on This American Life while concocting a pink pudding birthday cake.

March 3^rd – Introducing my brand new five-year-old to the cherished Ingalls family.

March 4^th – Rocking out to “nerdy music”—They Might Be Giants—at Natalie’s request and catching her singing along to Meet the Elements, “Come on, come on, and meet the elephants!”

March 5^th – Bundling up and baking cupcakes to keep warm as our heater completed union negotiations.

March 6^th – Waking up to both girls in bed with us, discussing loudly and with giggles a-plenty which one of us was a king (Sophie), which one was a princess (Natalie), which one was a queen (Mommy), and which one was a mermaid (Sophie again). (After some debate, it was agreed Daddy could be co-king.)

March 7^th – Sharing the hilariously traumatic family experience of making bracelets with Natalie’s new, über-cheap jewelry wand.

March 8^th – Walking in on Sophie bouncing up and down and singing Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” on the potty.

March 9^th – Submitting my first short story in over a year.

March 10^th – Nibbling fresh strawberries, sipping tea, and giggling as the girls from Bible study launched into an in-depth discussion of boob jobs.

March 11^th –Spotting a bed of exuberant daffodils blooming in a neighbor’s garden.

March 12^th – Catching the look on Dan’s face when he heard me singing TMBG’s “Violin-lin-lin” to the girls.

March 13^th – Sinking into the couch with my husband and the passengers of Oceanic 815 after a long day of cleaning.

March 14^th – Hosting the kind of long, social lunch that I’ve so often enjoyed in Italian homes.

March 15^th – Starting my daily to-do list with “Write HGTV back” and feeling a brief celebrity glow.

March 16^th – Taking a big bite of New Orleans’ style banana pudding and tasting the stars align.

March 17^th – Saluting the Irish American spirit with homemade shamrock shakes.

March 18^th – Filling our day with the fairy-tale scent of baking cookies.

March 19^th – Zipping up the last suitcase with plenty of time left for drinks and an early bedtime—miraculous, this!

March 20^th – Winding through breathtakingly beautiful mountain passes on our way to the ski resort.

March 21^st – Watching the girls’ heads spiral into the stratosphere from the joy of snow (and, one hour later, plunge into the depths of despair over wet socks and imminent naptime).

March 22^nd – Playing Taboo with friends once we were all so tired that cry-laughing hilarity was guaranteed.

March 23^rd – Hearing the girls crack up over old Tom & Jerry cartoons like I did as a child.

March 24^th – Flying down the mountainside on fresh snow glittering in the early morning sunshine.

March 25^th – Braving a foggy mountainside journey on my board for the second time in a week and reveling in the superhero rush when I made it.

March 26^th – Getting several hours of guilt-free reading time out of my otherwise undesirable back seat station during our drive back to Perugia.

March 27^th – Watching a perfect double rainbow arch across the valley below our house.

March 28^th – Fashioning a sweet Mommy-Natalie date out of a routine trip to the grocery store.

March 29^th – Catching the backyard trees in the act of blooming.

March 30^th – Inviting Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles to breakfast. (We should do this every day.)

March 31^st – Glimpsing bedtime stories in the late-evening clouds and their vivid incantations of blue.

February 1^st – Waking up just before dawn to a snow-sprinkled fairyland.

February 2^nd – Watching Sophie’s baby videos with her and adoring her smallness—then and now.

February 3^rd – Taking a five-minute family walk around the neighborhood and being stopped by one, two, three cars of friends saying hi and offering a ride.

February 4^th – Giving up delusions of a productive sick day and snuggling into bed with Sophie to nap the morning away.

February 5^th – Discovering a wonderful e-mail from an old friend hidden away in my Junk folder.

February 6^th – Listening to Natalie spin elaborate stories about the princesses she was coloring all afternoon.

February 7^th – Spotting four perfect new buds on my red daisy plant.

February 8^th – Braving a couple of Old Testament chapters and finding only goodness inside.

February 9^th – Having a lovely, long conversation with a friend who’s taken years to open up.

February 10^th – Reliving the joy of marker on my hands and glitter in my hair as I helped the girls make valentines.

February 11^th – Hearing from two different long-lost friends out of the serendipitous blue.

February 12^th – Tasting snowflakes with the girls and getting caught up in their excitement. (S: “Hooray! Hooray! Sophie excited!” N: ::bubbles over with laughter:: S: “Sophie thinking about Missmas trees!” N: ::jumps up and down for joy::)

February 13^th – Getting treated to a twenty minute concert about tenniiissss, we should play tennniiiissss, but be caarrefuulllll when you play tennniiissss because of the bad bugs who like to plaaaaayyyyyy TEEEENNNNNIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSS!

February 14^th – Playing LIFE as a family to wind up Valentine’s Day and giggling over the girls’ name choices. (Sophie christened her husband, three sons, and four daughters each “Sophie Bassett!”; Natalie chose “Prunes” for her husband and “Creams” for their son.)

February 15^th – Listening to thousands of birds chirp and giggle as they spun in circles outside, punch-drunk on sunshine.

February 16^th – Having a hug for dessert.

February 17^th – Starting the day with a family snuggle in bed.

February 18^th – Being in our ailing car with the girls as it breathed its last… right in front of our house… the same day we were finally able to get a bank account to buy a new car… and realizing God might have had a hand in all the timing.

February 19^th – Despite all our Valentine’s plans being derailed, having one of the best dates ever at the living room bar with Dan.

February 20^th – Enjoying every minute our family car-shopping day. (The girls’ favorite part? Careening around the biggest car lot in a golf cart. The parents’ favorite part? Finding the perfect car for the perfect price.)

February 21^st – Wondering over our future and feeling peace despite the uncertainty.

February 22^nd – Getting in and out of the post office in under a minute – a miracle!

February 23^rd – Beating the winter blahs with a personal concert by Natalie and super-speed Giro Giro Tondo* until we all collapsed laughing on the rug. (* Italy’s “Ring Around the Rosie”)

February 24^th – Grooving to ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” while hanging laundry outside for the first time this year.

February 25^th – Posing the girls on top of our old car for goodbye pictures just as the next-door-neighbor, who already thinks we’re crazy, walked outside.

February 26^th – Trying to teach “Jesus Loves Me” to Sophie, who very sweetly (and wildly out-of-tune) crooned, “Yeeeessss, Jesus loves you! Yeeeessss, Jesus love you!”

February 27^th – Taking our new car for a spin around Lago Trasimeno with the windows down and the stereo thumping.

February 28^th – Giggling our goodnights with two small girls who still love to be tickled.

January 1^st – Just after midnight, giving the girls a glow stick each and watching their faces light up in neon green and pink smiles.

January 2^nd – Grabbing a single pair of jeans off the sale rack and trying them on just as a formality because I already knew they were The Ones.

January 3^rd – Going to see “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” in a nearly empty theater and sharing the magic of 3D glasses as a family. (Natalie: “Mommy, did you see that cat that came too close to me?” Sophie: “Sophie has glasses on! Mommy has glasses on! Daddy has glasses on! Natalie has glasses on! Wow, meatballs!”)

January 4^th – [Censored… ::grin::]

January 5^th – Seeing genuine smiles on the faces of our overworked friends as we played Perudo together into the late hours.

January 6^th – Sinking down into our soft bed after eleven days away from home.

January 7^th – Unpacking my baking supplies with a chatterbox Sophie who frequently stopped talking to give me pretend cupcakes and real kisses.

January 8^th – Doing an obstacle course on Wii Fit with Natalie who mostly ran in circles around me giggling and cheering “You can do it! Go! Go! Oh man, try again!”

January 9^th – Winning the Wii Olympic Winter Games championship with Dan and finding out the agonizing truth that we are great at curling.

January 10^th – Making myself a better-than-Starbucks caramel coffee, lighting a gingerbread candle, and plopping onto a pile of pillows to write.

January 11^th – Sitting down as a family to homemade sundried-tomato risotto and four-way conversation.

January 12^th – Being greeted by all the cashiers as Sophie and I walked into our neighborhood grocery store.

January 13^th – Crowding around the living room window with the girls to watch the sunset glow pink and orange on surrounding hilltops.

January 14^th – Realizing that I haven’t changed a diaper in over a week. (!!!)

January 15^th – Walking home from the bakery in the breezy, blissed-out morning sunshine—more April than January.

January 16^th – Hearing the entire theater cheer around me when beauty and wonder won over evil in “Avatar.”

January 17^th – Triumphing over the gloomy weather with a silly family Lego session involving swimming pants, noseless sharks stealing fried chicken, and the girls’ quirky imaginations at their best.

January 18^th – Flirting with Dan like newlyweds after the small ones went to bed.

January 19^th – Bouncing, sliding, climbing, crawling, diving, tickling, and giggling with my girls for three straight hours at our neighbor’s amazing indoor play place.

January 20^th – Filling the house with the magical scent of baking banana-orange-pecan bread.

January 21^st – Snuggling a sleepy-eyed Sophie in the rocking chair at nap time.

January 22^nd – Ploofing homemade marshmallows into powdered sugar with Natalie and licking our fingers with a delicious, guilty thrill.

January 23^rd – Indulging in an old-fashioned pancake brunch after a hopeful suggestion by Sophie.

January 24^th – Reading Winnie-the-Pooh in a dog pile on our bed with Sophie occasionally dive-bombing everyone and Natalie adding “tiddely pom” to the end of each sentence.

January 25^th – Watching Natalie fall over from laughing so hard when we all died in Super Mario Bros.

January 26^th – Sitting at my desk by 7 a.m. with coffee, candles, and a yummy burst of writing mojo.

January 27^th – Spying on my sexy husband as he rocked an apron and cooked dinner (an expat ode to Taco Bell!) for our in-home date night.

January 28^th – Joking with my ESL students entirely in English and feeling that warm sense of teacherly accomplishment.

January 29^th – Remembering at the end of a long, hard, poo-intensive day that I really do love these daughters of mine with every scrap of my heart.

January 30^th – Catching hail on our balcony for the girls to taste and marveling at the wild beauty of storms.

January 31^st – Closing out January with a family storytime, little fingers wrapped around big ones, big hearts bonding to little ones over Dr. Seuss.