Dr. C, Medicine Woman

It's a complete Murphy's law here. When the children were home from school on Christmas break for two weeks and my mom and dad were here to help us take care of them--no major illness. Now that my parents have gone back to the States and we are both back at work, well, guess whose sick? After four days of fever, coughing, and two visits to the pediatrician Giulio gave in to an ear infection and has been put on antibiotics. Livia, who seems to be on her way to matching her brother's previously unbeaten record of an ear infection each month until having his adenoids out at age 3, has a terrible cough, runny nose, fever and we are on stand-by for the latest development with her ears. At this point we practically have cold medicine running down the walls. Sit down to have dinner and you have to move six bottles, a nasal spray, and five packs of tissues before you can reach your plate. Pick up your daughter to give her a kiss before running off to work and you have matching silver snot marks decorating your shoulders all day--what all the best dressed mommies are wearing. All this illness means that I haven't been sleeping much. My evenings and small hours of the morning have been spent shuffling Giulio around from his bed to the couch and back again, doing the nebulizer (the medicine of choice here in Italy), administrating doses of Ibuprofen, and refilling the humidifier. And now Livia has suddenly found her voice, standing up in her crib at 20 minute intervals and yelling "Mamma!" Mamma!" until I go in and pick her up. And every night I tell myself that tomorrow we will wake up and this 24 hour, no 48 hour, no 72 hour, no 97 hour bug will have passed like a dream in the night. Except it hasn't. And while I know it's not the kids' fault, things have been made more complicated by the fact that I have changed jobs and now work a full-time day, instead of hours sprinkled throughout the day as I did before. Child care has become a challenge, Terry is reluctant to take the kids because, rightly enough, she doesn't want her little boy to get sick too. And honestly, if I find being alone with my sick children all day, how in the world can I hope to find someone who isn't a blood relative willing to do it? In the end Lorenzo, who spent his birthday arresting and processing the paperwork of some man who thought it would be funny to hold up three women and take their money and their phones using a fake gun before one of them realized it was fake and karate chopped him, has reluctantly offered to take time off and stay home with the kids. He finds my annoyance that there are so many things that still have to be done after I get home baffling. "I'm taking care of the kids!" he exclaims when I sigh audibly over the phone after being asked to "swing by" the supermarket on my way home and pick up 20 items, after having worked a 9 hour day. Or being told that we are almost out of Giulio's fever medicine so could I get more AFTER I have come home and changed my clothes. In his defense, he does other things like laundry, removes the mold off the ceiling (thank you humidifier!), and buys a new cartridge for the printer.
Of course life isn't all snotty noses and being up all night--even though right now it FEELS like it is. (As I type this Livia is yelling out for me from her crib). In the far distant past of only four days ago I went with my friend Theresa to a bachelorette party, for a woman I had met once when we all went out for drinks. When Theresa said the words "bachelorette party" the images of male strippers dressed as firemen, women wearing veils drunkenly weaving around the dance floor, and penis shaped lollypops as party favors came to mind. Then I remembered I live in Italy where when we "girls" meet up for a drink everyone but me orders a Coke and I feel like a huge lush cause I ask to see the mixed drink list. I was positive this would be a tame night. And it was. Other than the bride to be trying on her gift of matching bra and thong on over her clothes right there at the table, it was a quiet night, though a fun one. The dinner was held at this restaurant that specialized in Argentinian meat, I know, the Italians have the Bistecca Fiorentina and yet they are obsessed with the Argentinians and their meat. The restaurant had this enormous fake ship mast and deck in one corner, which looked like the owner had gotten at half price when they had struck the set for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, while the rest of the place has this soft, white design, like being in the courtyard of some 19th century building with fake windows and everything and with IKEA themed tables and chairs. I found the whole thing rather unsettling, as though the decorator had been unable to make up his mind. "What is the theme here?" I kept asking Theresa, who I don't think really knew what I meant.
All the women who came to the dinner were lovely. All wonderfully dressed and made up, with jewelry and gorgeous hair and some of them had obviously been given the dress code before they came out which turned out to be cute little jackets and blouses with jeans tucked into boots, like elegant tall jockeys. And some were married, and some weren't, and some had kids, and some didn't, and I remember thinking that I am so glad that I am married, because let me tell you, the competition here is fierce--i.e. Italian women are and always will be so pretty with a sense of style built into their DNA that I will never have. And I noticed a change, at least among the younger women, (when I say younger, I say the under 38 crowd.) Instead of the house salads and water that I was expecting women to order,(no one can deny themselves fantastic food better than Italian women can) we got starters, and steaks and potatoes, and dessert, and best of all wine, lots of red Argentine wine, and it wasn't even me to suggest ordering it. I remember when Lorenzo and I first moved up North we would have dinner at someone's house and I would be the only woman having wine, while the hostess would make some comment about how I liked my wine, didn't I, and me feeling offended because in the US or England saying someone likes their wine means that it's time they sign up for AA instead of just having a glass or two over a four course meal. It's like Italians and running (which we are still doing-at Christmas I ran a 15k, though Eugenio missed that one,) just seven years ago no one was doing it, now, at least at a bachelorette party an Italian woman can have some wine and no one bats an eye.