5QF

1. Will you run to the store or to pick up a kid looking a mess?  Honestly, I feel like I usually look like a mess.  I live in exercise pants and t-shirts…  I don’t see the point in dressing up to go to the store.  I try not to look sloppy, but I don’t think I look “good” necessarily either.  I need a new wardrobe.

2. Do you finish a book if it's boring or you don't like it?  I try to.  I have a hard time abandoning a book in the middle.

3. Beach or mountain vacations?  Tough question!!  Considering we live 45 mins from the Mediterranean Sea and less than 45 mins from the Italian Alps, I have a hard time deciding which I like better.  I guess it just depends on my mood and who I’m with.

4. What thing/event says "winter will end and spring is right around the corner" to you?  The flowers all starting to bloom!  Flowers are blooming everywhere here and it’s gorgeous.  I love Italy in the spring!  Although they have VERY mild winters here also.

5. Would you prefer couples or family vacation?  Right now, a vacation with just Mark sounds like heaven (since I have a 2 year old and a 3 month old).  But I am really excited about taking them on vacations when they’re older and will remember them.  The last time we were at Disney (2 years before Abbie arrived), all we could talk about was how fun it would be to take our kids to Disney.  I’m so excited!

Parenting = happiness?

I read this article a week or two ago, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.  Basically it’s all about how society tends to think that having children brings parents happiness and that while your kids are young, you need to enjoy all your time with them because they’re only young once.  But studies show that the hard work of parenting actually decreases a person’s happiness and that parenting is a “chore” for most people at times.

To quote the article:

“One reason for this is that much of the work of a parent is physically tiring, emotionally taxing, banal in its repetition, and unappealing in its content. We wake up in the middle of the night to screaming infants, we endlessly cook, clean, and wash, and we fight through power struggles with teenagers seeking greater freedom. Parents have plenty of reasons to find this labor of love a chore. And research indicates that, on the whole, that's precisely how we see it—at least most of the time. In an oft-cited time-sampling study by Kahnemann, et al., a sample of mums indicated they experienced more positive affect doing just about anything—including housework—when compared to working with the children.”

I have to admit, this article REALLY spoke to me when I read it.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.  But I do find myself daydreaming quite frequently about the days when my kids aren’t quite so dependent on me.  I long for free time to just do whatever I want, whenever I want, without having to fight with my preschooler about pooping on the potty or trying to figure out how the heck to get my baby to sleep.  I feel guilty for not enjoying every single moment of my day with my kids, and in fact, I spend most of my day frustrated by Abbie’s “sassiness” and Ben starting to fuss as soon as I sit down for a second.  I feel like I’m behind in my housework almost all the time and I have a hard time with deciding what to do with my “free” time – play with Abbie or do something constructive with her or work on the hours of housework that is staring me in the face or do something I want to do.  And if I choose doing something I want to do (like blogging), I often feel guilty about it later, thinking I should have been reading to Abbie or doing the dishes or working on laundry or whatever else.  The article also specifically touches on this:

“Children require us to put off our natural self-serving tendencies, to sacrifice ourselves for something greater (them), and to engage with them. Effective parenting requires us to control ourselves for their benefit. In a lot of cases, this means we feel less satisfied with our lives. We experience less positive affect. We experience more negative affect. We see our friends less. We chase our ambition less. And we feel more guilt when we do something for us. The reason most studies show parenting reduces happiness is because most studies measure happiness through subjective wellbeing, or the extent to which our life satisfaction is high and positive affect is high. Making these sacrifices will reduce happiness when that's how we measure it.”

The gist of the article is that if you view parenting as your “calling”, that you’ll find more happiness in raising your kids.  I can think back on numerous occasions when Abbie was younger where I did think that parenting was my calling and she was the reason I was put on this earth.  But I waver between feeling like I was meant to being a parent and really wishing I had much more time to myself.

I know right now I have a lot on my plate.  Having any preschooler can be difficult at times, but I think sometimes Abbie is particularly difficult.  Her babysitter often times tells me that Abbie is very strong-willed.  She is definitely not a push-over by any stretch of the imagination, which is a good thing, but it’s also exhausting.  She is VERY demanding and multiple times a day will demand that I do something for her.  “Get me juice right now.”  “Change me right now.”  etc.  I will tell her to not talk to me like that and I’m not doing anything for her until she can ask me nicely.  But then as soon as I tell her to do something – “Abbie, you need to eat your food.” – she throws back in my face “You don’t talk to me like that!”.  She’s very smart, which again is a blessing, but it also means I answer literally a hundred questions a day.  She requires quite a bit of patience and I’ll admit, sometimes I just run out of it and wish I could just go lay down and take a nap.

And speaking of sleep, that’s another huge factor in life being difficult right now.  Ben doesn’t sleep well at all during the night.  I would say I’m up with him at LEAST 8 times a night on average between giving him a paci and feeding him and changing him.  It seems like as soon as I fall asleep, he’s up fussing.  I’m not sure I ever really fall into a deep sleep because he’s up so much, which doesn’t help my daily functioning or my patience level at all.  I think almost anything becomes a chore when you’re tired.

I know that these days are short-lived.  Ben is fast approaching my favorite age – 4-6 months, and pretty soon he’ll be sleeping through the night.  (As I was working on writing this, he actually slept for 8 hours during the night for the first time!)  Abbie is one of the sweetest kids I know and often comes up to me during the day and gives me a hug and says, “I love you mama.”  I love my kids, and as difficult as they are at times, I couldn’t imagine my life without them.

SO excited!

I think most people are probably pretty unenthusiastic when they find out they have to go to Montgomery, AL for any sort of training.  It’s not exactly a top vacation spot, that’s for sure.  But Mark and I are SOOO excited about going to the States for 2 months TOGETHER!  One of his friends in the squadron just got back from SOS in Montgomery and said that he’d wished he had taken his family with him because they have a lot of free time.  We’re very thankful we decided to spend the money and all go back to the States together.

I’ve been looking at Google maps and it seems as though the apartment we’ll be renting is in a pretty good location.  There’s a big mall 2.5 miles up the road and TONS of restaurants and shopping (Target, Kohl’s, Ann Taylor Loft, etc) all within 6 miles.  PLUS there’s a Hobby Lobby and a Joann’s nearby too.

My parents are coming down to meet Ben in early April and we’re going to take a quick trip down to Mark and my initial stomping grounds – near Destin, FL.  We’re pretty excited to see Abbie by the ocean and to introduce Ben to the beach.  Mark’s parents and grandparents (and possibly other relatives??) are also coming down for a short visit.  And we’re REALLY hoping to see our good friends, Brian and Erika, and their two kids, whom we’ve never met (nor have they met ours).  We haven’t seen them in about 3 years and they were our first military couple friends that we met 6 years ago.  It would be SO great to see them again, and in Florida, no less, (where we met) with our four new additions to our families.  If time allows for it, we might try to head up to Nashville to visit my friend Liz and her family also.

Packing for two months with a 3 month old and an almost 3 year old is no small feat, that’s for sure.  Considering I brought back like 9 bags for just Abbie and I went we moved back to Italy, now we’re adding 2 more people to the mix, but we don’t really get any additional baggage.  Should be interesting…  Luckily a friend that we met while stationed at Vance AFB is sending some baby equipment with her husband, who is going to be at SOS the same time Mark is.  I’m very thankful for that because I was going to have to buy some stuff for him while we were there so this will save us some money.

Since we’ll only be renting one car, I’ll be without a car most of the time since Mark will use it to get to and from work.  So I’m taking the BOB back with us and I plan on putting that thing to GOOD use while we’re there.  I really want to lose quick a few pounds, and I figure walking (maybe running) will be the best way to do that instead of just sitting in the apartment waiting for Mark to get home.  Although we will have HGTV and the Food Network and Bravo and TLC again so then again, maybe I could easily spend all morning in front of the TV.  Man, I’ve really missed the States!

Ben at 3 months old

Just in the past week Ben has started laughing, which is SO much fun.  He’s quite the ticklish little guy apparently.  And even better, Mark was right there the first time he laughed and we got it on video!  He also just rolled over from front to back for the 2nd time.  He did it the first time when he was around a month old, but he was really mad and I think he surprised himself.  This time I watched him work at it and he just gracefully rolled over to his back and started smiling at me. 

Also this week I switched Ben’s wardrobe over to his 3-6 month clothes and I’m packing up all his 0-3 month clothes for storage.  He still fits into the 0-3’s, although the pants any every outfit are more like capris because he’s so long.  Some of them are getting a little tight in the crotch (meaning his torso is getting too long) but he’s definitely not going to outgrow anything width-wise.  Neither of my kids have to worry about that though.  They’re both long and thin.  He’s still in size 1 diapers and I switch between Pampers and Huggies.

Ben basically has 3 states.  He’s either screaming, sleeping or smiling.  He doesn’t sleep very well at night still, but I attribute that to me not doing any sort of sleep training with him yet, and he’s still in our room.  He starts out in his bassinet and then usually wakes up around 1am and I put the paci back in his mouth a few times before I bring him to bed with me around 3-4am.  Sometimes I feed him 4oz’s then, other times I try to get him to hold off until 7-7:30am.  He goes to bed around 10:30pm most nights and is up 3-6 times throughout the night and is usually up for good by 8:30am.  He usually takes a short nap or two in the morning, a big nap in the afternoon from 2-5pm and then another short nap around 7:30pm.  I’m still swaddling him, but I might try to not swaddle him to see if he likes that better.  Sometimes he gets pretty crabby when I swaddle him, but he seems to sleep better/longer when he’s swaddled.

He eats a LOT.  The boy definitely has a good appetite.  He eats at least every 2 hours when he’s awake and he’ll eat between 3.5 – 5oz each time.  I’m trying to pump 3 times a day, but I really just don’t have the time to do it.  Normally while I’m trying to pump I’m also trying to answer Abbie’s billion questions or take care of Ben at the same time, so I can’t relax enough to have a really good letdown and it’s killing my supply.  I get 2 oz out in 20 mins if I’m lucky.  Sometimes in the morning I can get 3.5oz out, but pumping in the morning is a huge hassle and I have to get up 40-50 mins earlier than normal to pump and feed Ben in order to get out the door on time.  And when you’re up 3-6 times in the middle of the night, those 40-50 mins count a lot!  He’s still having the seedy, breastfed poops though, so I know what I am giving him is doing him good, I’m just not sure how long I can keep it up.

My little guy is SUPER smiley.  He’s so cute!  All you have to do is look at him and smile and he gets this huge grin on his face.  He coos a lot and if you talk to him he’ll “talk” back at you, which is fun.  He’s definitely a mama’s boy already.  There are some instances where Mark is doing everything and anything to get Ben to stop crying and nothing is working and as soon as I take Ben from him, he quiets down and goes to sleep.  But he also sleeps in my arms every night so that probably doesn’t help.  We’re trying to get away from swaddling him and we’ve tried it the past few nights because he gets so mad when we put him in the swaddle thing, but if he’s not in it, he wakes up a LOT at night and his little arms are flinging all over the place.

I feel like I finally have a better handle on parenting two kids.  Ben is getting a little bit easier, and I think he’d be a lot easier if it wasn’t for the fact that I have to pump and then feed him bottles.  That’s really time consuming and stressful for me to try to fit in to my day, especially since it usually cuts in to my sleep/nap time.  He’s a fun little guy though, and as far as I can tell right now, he and Abbie are almost exact opposites in many aspects.

5QF

1. Are you looking forward to the time change this weekend?  Since I live in Italy, our time change isn’t this weekend.  In fact, I’ll have to look up to see when it is, but I know it’s not this weekend.  =)

2. Are you getting the new iPad/would you want a iPad?  No, because Mark got me the iPad2 for Christmas, which I love.  MUCH better than dragging a laptop around all over the place.  But I still do my blogging on my laptop.

3. If money was not a problem, what is the one thing you would splurge on?  A vacation home somewhere and a new wardrobe.  I REALLY need to update my wardrobe and get away from the exercise pants and t-shirts.  That’s pretty much what I live in, and what I buy when I shop, so I have VERY few “nice” clothes, and when I want to dress up, I have nothing to wear.  It’s either a cocktail dress or sweats.  I need to get a bunch of the “in-betweens”, especially now that I’m not pregnant or nursing…

4. How did you and the Mr. (or Mrs.) meet?  I have been friends with Dave for many years.  We grew up in the same church/youth group and we’ve been friends for a long time.  Dave and Mark were college roommates for 4 years.  Dave and Mark studied abroad in Germany for a year, and I went over to visit Dave, and that’s where I met Mark (and ironically, his family also, who was visiting him at the same time).  When I decided to go back to get my 2nd bachelors degree, I went to the same school that Dave and Mark were attending, and Mark and I quickly became really good friends.  I called him my pretend boyfriend for like 7 months before we actually started dating.  =)

5. Summer is right around the corner. Bikini or one-piece?  Ha…  My bikini wearing days are LONG over, thanks to the zillions of stretch marks I have on my stomach from both kids…  I see only tankini’s and one-pieces in my future.

 

Happy Friday!!

Exhausted

Last week was quite challenging to say the least.  Parenting two young kids, by yourself, full time is a very thankless job.  Mark was busy with an exercise on base, so his schedule was 5pm-5am and then 3pm – 3am and then 1pm – 1am – in other words, completely opposite of ours.  It’s almost easier to just have him completely gone.  It was really hard when I was downstairs struggling with both kids and he was upstairs sleeping.

Abbie has been SUPER needy lately.  She hasn’t been very good at entertaining herself lately and she asks me to play with her at least 25 times a day, usually when I’m trying to feed Ben, or pump, or fix dinner, or clean up the house.  I feel guilty having to tell her no all the time.  She must ask me 18000 questions a day and after the first 100, my patience with her wears thin, and I feel guilty about that too.  It’s always, “Can I have juice?”, “Can I have a snack?”, “Can I go outside?”, “Can I watch a show?”.  She runs through those questions non-stop and she’ll ask them, without exaggeration, 15 times in a row.  And when I say no, she asks “Why?” another 10 times.  It’s extremely annoying and exhausting.  By the end of the day, I am usually at the end of my rope with her, and I feel bad for not having an endless amount of patience with her because I know she is still little.  But with me still being pretty sleep deprived due to Ben and still trying to figure out how to parent two kids by myself and trying to keep up with Ben’s demands also,  it’s just hard.

I really don’t get a break from the time we get up in the morning (usually around 8am until the time Ben goes to bed at night (between 10:30-11:30pm).  And then I’m also up with him usually from 1am-3am trying to get him to go back to sleep.  And then I feed him a bottle sometime between 3am and 4am, at which point he still won’t go back to sleep unless I bring him to bed with me.  He’s a pretty restless sleeper so he’s constantly kicking his legs and moving around and I can never get comfortable because I have to lay a certain way to keep him protected from Mark and the dogs and from rolling off the edge of the bed.  It’s not exactly a restful sleep, but it’s either that or get up every 10 mins to put his paci back in his mouth or try to get him to quit crying.

I think I’m mostly stressed because I feel like I’m just barely getting by in pretty much every aspect.  My house is a mess, my parenting abilities are lacking, I just feel like I don’t really have time to do anything.  Sitting down to write this blog is the first “break” I’ve had in the past few days and I feel like I should be doing laundry or dishes or making meal plans or lists for everything I have to do before we go back to the States, etc.  It stresses me out because I know I have SO much stuff to do in the next 3 weeks, but I just don’t have the time to do anything.  I have barely taken any photos of Ben since he’s been born, and 90% of what I have taken of him, are with my iPhone, not my dSLR.  He’s never going to be this little again and I feel like I’m missing my opportunity to capture him in this stage.
Anyway, enough of my complaining.  I just wish sometimes that we lived a lot closer to family so we could have the help.  Mark and I are both really looking forward to going back to the States for two months to get away from the pace of things at the base here in Italy.  Less than a month and we’ll be on American soil!!

In the clear

I took Ben in for another weight check today (3/2) and he’s all the way up to 10lb15oz!!  So he’s gained an entire pound and an ounce in one week.  He’s definitely making up for the weight he lost, so apparently just feeding him more fixed the entire problem.  They diagnosed him with silent reflux and he’s on medicine for that now, so that seems to be helping also.

He’s still refusing to nurse though, so I think I’m just destined to pump as much as I can and feed him bottles.  However, I just don’t have the time to devote to pumping enough to exclusively breast milk feed him, so he’s getting about 8-10oz of breast milk a day and then anywhere from 12-20oz of formula.  I’m really not sure how long I’m going to be able to pump for him because it really is hard to find the time and sometimes I barely get an ounce out.  I’m not sure if being confined to a chair for 20 mins is worth 1 ounce of milk.  We’ll see.  I’m going to keep it up as long as I can.

I’m busy making list after list of what I need to pack for the kids for our 2 months back in the States and what I need to get done before we leave.  It’s going to be interesting packing for 2 months with 2 little ones, but it’ll be worth it!  That’s what I keep telling myself!

February 2012 Abbie-isms

**I had read somewhere that sometimes if you tell kids that if they poop in the potty they’re feeding the fish.  And kids want to help feed the fish so this makes them want to poop in the potty.  Abbie is an animal lover, so I figured maybe this tactic would work on her, so I gave it a try.  Went something like this:
Me: So Abbie, you know if you poop in the potty, you feed the fish!  …  Yeah, if you poop in the potty then we flush the toilet and it goes down to the river to feed the fish.  <Abbie is eyeing me suspiciously.>  I’m sure there are lots of fish down there that are hungry so let’s go poop on the potty!
Abbie:  …. Mommy, fish don’t eat poop! <in a completely disgusted tone of voice>
Me:  <thinking, crap, well that just backfired big time>
Abbie:  What do fish eat, mommy?
Me:  Ahh, well they eat grass and stuff and so your poop fertilizes the grass, so your poop does indirectly feed the fish.
Abbie:  Oh, okay.  But I don’t want to poop on the potty.
So she didn’t buy that unfortunately.  And she still hasn’t pooped in the potty.  I need to come up with something else.
**Often when Abbie is misbehaving, we take away her TV watching privileges.   Many times she’ll do what we ask her to do after she’s already been given three chances to mind and her privileges have been taken away and then she’ll ask if she can watch her shows and I’ll tell her no, that’s not how it works.  You have to mind the first time I ask you, not after the third time.  The other day I had told her no TV shows for the rest of the day since she wasn’t behaving.  And picked up all her toys and then asked me, “Mommy, does that work?” (Since I often times tell her, that’s not how it works.)  She catches on pretty quickly to the way I phrase things.

**Abbie was watching a show about a rocket ship that took off and she decided that we were going to make the couch be our rocket ship.  Mark and I were sitting on the couch with her, with our feet up (at her direction) and she was counting backwards 5,4,3,2,1 Blastoff!  She did this a few times and then said, “The couch won’t blast off!!”.

**Abbie has actually peed in the potty a few times.  The first time I told her that I was so proud of her and the second time she told me that SHE was so proud of her.  “I’m so proud of me, mommy.”

**Mark’s been working some crazy hours lately and Abbie is very aware that her daddy isn’t around much right now.  The other night we put her to bed and told her that daddy was leaving so he wouldn’t be there in the morning.  She said okay and seemed fine with it, until about 10 mins later when she was calling for us asking if daddy was gone yet.  =/

**The Taco Bell here gives out these little junky instruments in their kids meals.  Abbie loves the stupid things and she loves the cheese roll-ups from there even more.  Anyway, she got this little guitar from one of those meals and we were sitting in the BX food court and she’s pretending this guitar is a phone.  The people there probably thought she was nuts because she was holding this little guitar up to her ear yelling “Hello?  Hello?!  I can’t hear you!!  What?  I can’t hear you!" at it.  =)
**Abbie has been a TERRIBLE napper lately and she may be somewhat ready to give them up (although that’s debatable), but I’m DEFINITELY not ready for her to give them up.  She’s usually very good at staying in her bed during naptime, even if she wakes up.  She lays in there yelling for me non-stop, which is almost just as bad as her getting up.  The other day, I had already gone in twice to tell her to lay down and go to sleep.  She was downstairs in her room rolling around and jumping on her bed and calling for me on and off and I was upstairs with Ben asleep in the bassinet next to me watching her on the monitor, trying to relax a little.  I must have drifted off to sleep for a few minutes because I woke up and looked at the monitor and couldn’t see her in it.  (Sometimes it’s hard to see her since it’s an infrared monitor.)  I was holding the monitor close to my face trying to see if I could see her in it, when she walked into my room and said “Can I get up now mommy?”.  Needless to say it scared the sh*t out of me because she’d never gotten out of her room before without permission, let alone come upstairs and find me.  Lesson learned on my part…

MFF and 5QF

1. What is your favorite/most unique anniversary/birthday gift from your spouse? suggested by Bel atBeing a Better Me  Hm…  I guess my favorite is the iPad he got me, but it was a Christmas gift, so I’m not sure that counts.  He got me really pretty tanzanite earrings for our anniversary and I love those too.
2. What’s your first thought when you see it’s snowing (or what would you say if you don’t live somewhere with snow? suggested by Poekitten from Many Waters  YAY!!  I love snow and I miss it!
3. What’s one thing in the past month you would have changed? suggested by Erika from Chambanachik  Somehow keeping Ben nursing more.  I’m not sure what I could have done to help him continue nursing since he needed to be supplemented a LOT with formula to get him back on track, but I feel really guilty that he’s not breastfeeding.
4.What was your favorite thing that happened in February?  Finding out that there was nothing wrong with Ben, that he just needed to be supplemented with formula, and my MIL visiting.  It was great to see her.
5. What are you looking forward to in March?  Heading back to the States for two months WITH my husband!  So excited!!  And him not having the crazy schedule he has here in Italy.  It’ll be a nice break for all of us.


1. Where is your favorite vacation spot and why?  We don’t have a vacation spot that we repeatedly go to, so I wouldn’t say we have a favorite vacation “spot”.  Some of my favorite vacations I’ve been on include going to a dude ranch for a week in Wyoming, visiting Colorado, Prague, London, Amsterdam and Venice.  We like to get out and explore new places!
2. What is your biggest guilty pleasure?  Eating popcorn and chocolate chips almost every night before bed.  Especially if Mark isn’t home or is busy (which is almost always now).  I get Abbie to bed and then come upstairs with Ben and feed him while I watch my shows and eat popcorn and chocolate chips, which is one of my favorite combinations ever!
3. What is your favorite fashion trend right now? Or, in the past?  I love the skinny jeans, boots and tunic look.  I wish I looked good in those, but I need to lose a bunch of weight before I’ll look good in that again.
4. What are your spring break plans?  To head back to the States.  It’s not really a spring break, per se, but it’s a break from the craziness of Italy and hopefully we’ll get in some good quality family time.
5. What baby names do you hate?  Hmm…  I don’t really hate any baby names.  I obviously have favorites and I name my kids those, but I don’t really care what other people name their kids.

Carnevale in Venice

Mark took the day off of work today, since his mom is here.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, in the 50’s, so we decided to head down to Venice for the last day of Carnevale.  I had really wanted to check out Carnevale, but not on a weekend because of the crazy crowds.  I didn’t want to take our two little ones down there and fight crowds all day, so I didn’t think it was going to work out this year.  But at the last minute it did, and I’m glad we went.

Luckily both of our kids are still wearable.  I strap Ben on in the mei tai my friend Emily made for me and Mark wears Abbie in the Ergo when she doesn’t want to walk.  It works out well, especially in Venice since Venice isn’t exactly a stroller friendly city, especially when it’s crowded.  Both kids did really well, except for Ben not wanting to nurse, but more on that in a different post.

Walking around Venice never gets old.  It’s a beautiful city.  Too bad our kids probably won’t remember any of it.  Today we bought Ben a little jacket to commemorate his first time in Venice.  I think it’ll fit him when he’s about 2.

Abbie got her face painted also.  Lots of people had really pretty face paintings so I thought it would be fun to get her one.  We paid 5E for a painting on her face that I probably could have done better even with my left hand…  Grrr.  Oh well.  Luckily she’s cute enough that it doesn’t matter how terrible the face painting is.

Carnevale (equivalent to “carnival” in English) starts 58 days before Easter and ends on Fat Tuesday (today).  Hundreds of people walk around Venice in elaborate costumes.  Surprisingly, it’s usually older people (50+) that have these super fancy costumes.  They normally walk around in pairs and stop when you want to take their picture or take pictures with them.  Young kids are dressed up in Halloween costumes and everyone in between is dressed up in crazy costumes.  The teen and 20’s age group seem to get into it quite a bit.

People even dress up their animals for the festivities!

From what I understand, people started using the masks during Carnevale to hide the difference between the social classes and put everyone on more even ground.  If you’ve ever been to Venice, you know these masks are sold EVERYWHERE and you can see many shops that make the masks as you walk through the streets.

We got some gelato and Abbie was sitting in this step eating hers and this lady in costume came up behind her and posed.  Abbie was much more interested in her gelato most of the time and maybe people took pictures of her and the lady.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get tired of Venice.  It’s a beautiful city and a photographers heaven!