Fa freddo!

I am starting to discover just how obsessed the Italian nation is with being cold, or should I say, not being cold. They are so obsessed with temperature regulation that they even wear additional layers of clothing for indoor sports.

Allow me to elaborate. Every Wednesday afternoon, the Bambina takes ballet lessons. Not real ballet lessons but what Maestra Simona calls giocho-danza or "play dance". The Bambina loves it. All the little girls, aged three and four, get dressed up in their matching leotards and wear their hair in a bun if it is long enough. Then the maestra comes into the changeroom, taps each little girl with her magic wand to transform her into a ballerina and the girls go running out on tip-toe into the dance studio. They have great fun.

There is just one thing that I don't understand: why, oh why, do the parents, grandparents and nannies of these little girls insist on leaving their child's undershirt on, underneath the leotard. For one, it ruins the whole dance outfit and the effect of uniformity. But secondly, I cannot believe that the children are actually cold when they are play-dancing. But the nonna (grandmother) of Juliette's friend Barbara doesn't agree. "The girls might get cold in just the bodysuit," she insists.

Maestra Simona concurs with my view. She explained to me that the undershirt is something molto italiano and that leaving it on is, in fact, counter-productive, as when the girls dance and run around, wearing an undershirt under the leotard will make them sweat more, which will make them cooler than they otherwise would be without the undershirt. But try telling Barbara's nonna that.

And so the Bambina is usually the only girl in her dance class who wears just the leotard, without the undershirt underneath. She looks sooooo cute in it, I have to say. And as Maestra Simona insisted that the leotard be made to measure, it fits perfectly. She sure is fussy about a leotard that most kids end up wearing over an undershirt anyway but she explained to me, "Le Bambine devono imparare che la danza è un' arte è una discipline." or something like that, meaning "The children must learn that dance is an art and a discipline." But she doesn't have the courage to insist on the girls going undershirt-free.