Barbara Walters said, “Parents of young children should realize that few people, and maybe no one, will find their children as enchanting as they do.”

But with all due respect, Barbara Walters hasn’t met Sonya.

Our daughter is one year old now.

It seems impossible and baffling that so many months have passed— but they have been full months, fat with joys and accomplishments.

We had a simple celebration in the park to honor Sonya. Auntie Melissa and Uncle Justin came! The weather was beautiful— gently sunny and breezy after a string of unbearably hot and stagnant days.

Auntie Melissa hung pink balloons from the tree outside our house, like so many festive pendants above the picnic table. For our brunch, we had quiche and pancakes, cantaloupe and honeydew melons, with orange juice and mimosas.

Instead of a birthday cake, Auntie Melissa and I made carrot-pineapple cupcakes with pink cream cheese frosting using this adorable Princess Cupcake Decorating Kit from Williams-Sonoma.

When Drex brought out the tree of princess cupcakes…

Sonya’s face lit up with delight!  We sang Happy Birthday! in English and French. Then Sonya and her buddy Ariane put on their bathing suits and went to the wading pool across the park.

All in all, a perfect morning.

We’re in Rome, staying at Hotel Giardino, which was recommended by our friends Ron and Chantal. Not only is it well-situated in the city, but it’s air-conditioned!

After breakfast each day, we head out on our adventures, directed by our Lonely Planet guide, to make the most of the relatively cooler morning hours.

We seek the sanctuary of our hotel room after lunch. Naps curtail crankiness provoked by the miserable heat. And I’m talking as much about myself as Baby Sonya.

We spent a few hours at the Capitoline Museum, which is located on Campidoglio, one of the seven hills on which Rome was founded.

This is Sonya with the famous bronze sculpture of a she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of the city of Rome.

Here we’re all in the courtyard with the mammoth hand of Constantine, originally part of an enormous statue in the Roman Forum.

Principessa Sonya continues to charm those around her, especially us. Here she is, conducting a stroller-check at the museum. She looks so beautiful and small in her lovely flowery cotton dress from Dida and Lily Auntie.

Although we definitely have to travel more slowly, only visiting two or three sites a day, taking frequent breaks to eat & drink and stretch & rest, we’re enjoying Rome because Sonya forces us to take our time in each place, and really admire and enjoy what we’re experiencing.

Sonya insists on walking around, taking in the little details, the things we might have ordinarily missed, ignored, or rushed by. And while we’re holding her hand, ambling slowly beside her, we’re compelled to see the little details, too.

In the evenings, we’ve walked around Ancient Rome many times, seeing the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Forum, and the Colosseum (behind us in the picture above). We’ve gotten to know the sites and the routes between them very well. And luckily, we’ve now had a chance to see each of these during the day, too!

We spent one really hot day at the Vatican. Good thing our hotel staff helped us buy online tickets so we could skip the long lines. We herded through the galleries, my favorite being the Map Gallery, to the magnificent Sistine Chapel.

Sonya charmed one of the guards, who opened up a section cordoned off next to the altar so that we could sit (briefly) and admire Michaelangelo’s ceiling. Of course, Sonya wanted to walk around, so we got to see what many people who visit the Vatican overlook: the Sistine Chapel floor.

We took the road less traveled to Riva del Garda.

Leaving the autostrada somewhere outside Verona, we wound our way around the Apennine mountains. The spectacular views were worth the corkscrew detour to the town of Rovereto.

Drex has become an expert in packing our Fiat.  The folded stroller, lying on its side, comfortably occupies the entire trunk-space, one large back tire almost crowding out my backseat headrest.  One small suitcase goes sideways in front of Sonya’s carseat, since she doesn’t need any legroom. Then the large red duffel bag gets buckled into the front passenger seat and the medium-sized black canvas suitcase gets stuffed in front of it, because the red duffel bag doesn’t need any legroom either.

We stopped for lunch at McDonald’s.  Sonya got a Chicken McNugget Happy Meal. As you can see from the expression on her face, it didn’t taste as delicious as the gourmet restaurant food we’d been enjoying the past few days, but overall, Sonya enjoyed her fast food experience.  Especially since she got a toy and a flag to wave.

This is the town of Riva del Garda, where Drex attended his conference on social networks. We stayed at the Hotel Portici near the clocktower at the bottom of the photo.

We moved into a comfortable apartment for the week.  It had a little well-stocked kitchen and a view of the piazza. Sonya and I mostly hung around here in the afternoons during the hottest hours.  The room wasn’t air-conditioned, but it was shady and cool. And it served as a reliable meeting spot for the Little Family to convene before dinner and evening activities.

The day after Drex gave his talk at the conference, we went for a hike up to a 16th century castle (known simply as Il Bastione)…

… and then continued along the path to a small shrine to Santa Barbara.  Do you see it below?  (Hint: if you divide the photo into thirds, it’s where the leftmost vertical and lowermost horizontal lines would intersect).

The hike turned out to be more rugged than expected, especially for Drex, who literally carried Sonya most of the 4 steep kilometers there.

Luckily, we got to share the experience with other researchers at the conference, and it was satisfying when all of us made it to the shrine and saw Riva del Garda and the lake below us.

The wooden doors behind me lead to our hotel room.  We were in the heart of the city, and as you can see, we felt very safe.  Wish we could have spent more than one night here!

We tried to make the most of our afternoon— A Great Walking Tour from cathedral to cathedral and one end of the city to the other. Unfortunately, most of the sites were either closing, so we just got a glimpse of the splendor inside, or they were already closed. At least we know where to go when we come back someday!

Sonya charmed a number of locals. Ciao piccolina! Ciao bella! Ciao principessa! the Italian women said.

On our Great Walking Tour, we came across a number of curiosities.  Drex liked this sundial outside the Museo Galileo, which has a glass polyhedron on top of a bronze gnomon (which is a word we have in the English language specifically for a pillar that tells time by the shadow it casts).

Then we noticed this curious sign— a baby getting held up by a Transformer and his sidekick sheep.  The L&S Group appears to be general contractors.  Not quite sure how this advertisement relates to their business, except that it intrigued me enough to visit their website.

And here we are in front of the Ponte Vecchio, or Old Bridge, across the Arno River. It has shop buildings jutting on either side of it.

Of course, no day in Italy would be complete without gelato. Even Sonya is addicted.  ”Um-mum-mum-mum-mum!” she says and points.  She opens her mouth and sticks her whole face in the cone and sucks in the soft cold goodness. Gelato nose. Gelato mouth. Sticky everywhere.

I’m fairly sure that this is just the sort of thing we learned not to feed babies in my child nutrition class back in med school. But when in Rome… or more broadly, when in Italy… Um-mum-mum-mum-mum!

After a leisurely morning, we arrived in Firenze around 2 p.m. only to discover that the reception desk of the Hotel San Giovanni didn’t open for another two hours! Luckily, we had a stroller luggage caddy.

And while Sonya had remained pleasant in her car seat, which had been the whole two-hour journey from Orvieto, we had kept the Good Humor Wagon rolling, which meant we hadn’t stopped for lunch and we were hungry!

We stopped to eat at a restaurant overlooking the Cathedrale Di Santa Maria Del Fiore (seen in the photo above).

While Sonya is becoming a more refined eater, we brought along the well-designed bib our friend Néha gave us! Sonya enjoyed the fresh Italian pizza…

… and a refreshing glass of frothy milk.

Then we were finally ready to check into our hotel and set off to explore the city… To be continued, because of limited internet access!

We have begun our adventure in Italy!  We arrived in Rome on Monday, picked up our rental car, and started our road trip toward Trento.

First stop: the town of Orvieto, an ancient Etruscan city built on top of a pinkish wedding cake of volcanic stone called tufa.  A road spirals to the top, through stone walls over 2000 years old, giving a breathtaking view of Umbria: a patchwork of vineyards, cypress trees, and red-shingled rooftops.

Orvieto has a lot of charm.  We stayed at Hotel Corso and basically explored the entire town in a day, though we could have used more time to see all of the sites, since many of them were closed by late afternoon.

We managed to catch the day’s last guided tour of the underground city, a labyrinth of caves and tunnels carved into the soft tufa by the Etruscans.

And here we are with the unique Duomo of Orvieto.  As you can see, it has stripes! The dark ones are made of basalt and the light ones of a local rock called travertine. I’ve never seen another striped cathedral!

Meanwhile, Sonya’s been taking advantage of all the little things that can provide pleasure, like a blade of dried grass recovered from a crack in a low wall. Here is one of many simple moments, where I imagine Sonya saying:

“Look! Isn’t this amazing? Look at it! Look at it closely! I found this! I’m reaching out my hand to show you. I don’t have a word for it, but it makes me so happy that I found it! You can hold it, too, if you want to! Here! Here, look what I found!”

She’s getting ready to walk unassisted.  Any day now, she’s going to let go of our hands and strike out on her own!  Who knows? Maybe her first steps will be in Italy!