Ok, first let me say that I absolutely agree that parents are head-over-heels in love with their children, no matter how absolutely ridiculous they look. To parents, their children are the best looking tots in the world. So forgive me if I am too biased. Second, children do have that uncanny ability to make heads turn; just watch out the next time you meet someone walking down the street with their children or pushing a stroller. Most likely you’ll ignore the parent; most of the time your eyes will be straying to check out their kids. We all have a tendency to smile and wave at children, or even make faces at them to make them laugh.

Aya and her “takaramono,” Bea the Bear (go figure where she got the name).

Anyway, that’s how it is with Aya. You could not imagine the kind of attention she attracts, even when she was just a baby. For example, when she was about nine months, I took her to Osaka. While we were riding the Hankyu line, a group of junior high school kids were completely smitten by her. Japanese kids usually leave us alone (can you say gaijin, hello?), but with Aya, there was only so much they could do to avoid touching her cheek and blurting out, “Kawaii!” For some reason Japanese love those big eyes – “Ningyou mitai,” which means “like a doll.”

When she was only a year old, we took her with us to Italy. Well, she was this scrawny-looking one year old (she was teething, so she lost some weight then), but still she attracted a lot of attention. At the hotel where we stayed, the guy at the reception desk literally “ran” after us to look at her. He said, “Wait, wait, I want to see.” We were surprised to realize that he just wanted to get one good look at her. He said a lot of things in Italian, and while I could not really understand what he was saying, I did understand one word he said, -“Bella!” You’d think that was the only time he saw an Asian baby. Apart from this, there were also many instances when Italians we met on the street would stop and look at her, and say, “Ciao, Bella!!!” and then touch her chin or ruffle her hair. I had to restrain myself from smacking their intruding hands. Go and find other kids to pet, you! 😛

In Vienna, when Baggy and Aya were out taking a walk, out of the blue somebody asked permission to take a picture of Aya. I wasn’t with them when that happened, so I don’t know the details of that incident. We were kinda worried about a stranger taking her picture, but decided later that it was probably harmless.

In Florence, while we were taking a breather along the steps in front of the facade of the Duomo, a young lady suddenly approached us and shyly asked to take a picture of Aya. Aya does not warm up too easily to strangers, and so she promptly snubbed her. Disappointed, the lady walked back to her group. Not giving up so easily, one of the guys in her group took her camera and tried his luck. I think he took more than a few shots at Aya. He must have caught Aya with the slightest hint of a smile, so he returned quite triumphantly to the young lady with her camera. I wonder now if that picture will surface on the internet somewhere.

In most of the restaurants where we ate, we could not be left in peace by the waiters and waitresses who frequently waved to Aya, called her attention, made faces, and remarked on how “beautiful” our little girl was. At a gelato shop at Ponte Vecchio, the storeperson asked us where we came from. Hearing that we were from the Philippines, he added, “She’s beautiful.” Aya, oblivious of the ruckus, just went right on ahead eating her gelato. We smiled casually and said thanks, but deep inside we were oozing with pride.

Let’s just hope that when she grows up she would really be “bella,” unlike someone I know. Heheh!

Our little girl just turned 4. Parang kailan lang na nag-rush kami sa Shoji for the delivery, now she’s totally different from that red, bawling thing we took back home. 🙂

Our celebration for her 4th birthday is nothing fancy. Just went to a restaurant nearby, her favorite. Then we gave her a birthday cake, courtesy of the local bakery. Just for fun, we picked out an Anpanman character cake. Aya heartily ate Anpanman’s “brains.” Is it no wonder that Anpanman’s brains is nothing but sponge? Hahaha!

Anpanman cake! See that big smile on her face.

Happy birthday to our dearest one, li’l Princess Aya. You make everything worthwhile. Keep your light shining for the rest of the world. We will always be here for you.

Always proud parents,
Nanay and Tatay

Have you ever seen a red juice? Well, sure, as in “red” tomato juice, like the ones from Kagome. But a red-colored orange juice? Well, we sure haven’t seen anything like it, until we visited Italy.

Careful not to spill any on your shirt!!!

We were at this restaurant for lunch, and for Aya we ordered orange juice. When the guy brought it, we were so shocked to find bloody red juice instead of the usual orange color. We thought that the guy made a mistake, so we called him back and asked, “What is this?” The guy probably looked at us in a weird way (my back was turned, so I couldn’t see his face), and said matter-of-factly, “Orange juice!” We couldn’t contain our laughter. Wait, I told Aya, let me taste it first – we were still skeptic. I tasted it, and it did taste like the orange juice I know.

In this picture you can see Aya sipping a large wine glass with the red orange juice. Bottoms up!

I’ve got a nasty ear barotrauma that hasn’t been relieved by 1000 yawns and 1000 gulps. Plus an equally nasty cold. And a bit of a sunburn. Burned by the angry Tuscan sun.

At the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio. This David statue is an exact replica of the original one by Michaelangelo, to be found at the Accademia.

But I swear it’s all worth it, all worth seeing Florence for the first time. I’m still on Florence time, and I could feel the fatigue in every inch of my body. Florence is, simply put, a feast for the eyes. If seeing Botticelli’s La Primavera and Birth of Venus is not enough, then seeing the glorious naked body of David sculpted by Michaelangelo will surely be worth all the earaches in the world. It was a childhood dream fulfilled for me. When I was a child, I saw Daddy’s book containing pictures of paintings and sculptures of the Rennaisance masters, Raphael and Michaelangelo among them. I saw the David statue in that book, and was extremely fascinated by it. When I finally got the chance to see the original statue in the Accademia, I basked in its presence for several minutes, almost unbelieving that it was right before my eyes.

For sure I will be writing more about Florence in future blogs. I had wanted to blog while we were there – but who could possibly find the time? There was simply so much to do in so little time.

I hope to post pictures soon. Antabayanan!