Immigration and Zuppa

After spending the entire afternoon in the Immigration office watching a video about living in Rome (1-4pm) we were all exhausted and ready to go home. I was actually interested in what some of the video had to say but unfortunately the volume was just a little too low. I could hear questions about medical care, schooling, and visas, and blah blah blah, but the answer came from a person with a low drone voice that blended into the background of chatting people. The kids did amazingly well. We brought a blanket to spread out on the nasty tile floor and threw out dry erase markers, dolls, and books. After a while, Emma went and sat with one of the Dominican sisters' lap and tied her forever long rosary into tiny knots. That's an integral part of their relationship, I think. After an hour Stella took her nap, putting herself to sleep in the stroller. Meanwhile, Leon and I are trying to stay awake in a baking hot, sweat-smelling room. It was really quite lovely.

Then we got home pretty smoothly, me with a headache, probably from lack of food and boredom. Emma was without a nap and just as exhausted as us and so nearing nuclear melt down. I tried the nap, but since my patience was just about as long as a broken toothpick I had to give up the effort and save face. Instead, I decided on an early dinner and bedtime for everyone.

But this was my biggest joy of the evening: A new recipe pulled off with almost all the right ingredients and it was delicious for everyone. And it was picture perfect. So I took a picture :)

A successful dinner!

Isn't that pretty? Its a red lentil soup with chickpeas, with a cumin and tomato base and finished with fresh cilantro. It really is amazing that I had all the ingredients for a randomly chosen red lentil recipe. And that it tasted good! Who'dathunk? Emma ate it up until her arm was so tired she couldn't feed herself anymore and she fell off her chair fast asleep. At least that's how I hoped it would go. We actually did reach nuclear meltdown point. But we won't talk about that. We'll just remember the soup. Mmmmm, soup. How pleasant.