General Hospital

We are sitting here, watching Prodi's Center-Left government come up for the final vote to decide if the government will fall or not. If it falls, it means new elections. Anyway, the news feed goes back to the Senate, to the President of the Senate, Marini who has been handed the paper with the outcome of the final vote. "The "SI"s 156, the "No" 161, so the government has fallen. As Marini is reading out the final vote he stops for a moment to ring the bell to get order. "No, no, no. Senator Ramazzi, no. Put that bottle away! It's not like we're at a restaurant!" It seems that Senator Ramazzi in his glee cannot restrain himself from busting out with a bottle of Spumante to celebrate, right there on the Senate floor. And so Prodi has fallen, not that it changes much. You learn living in Italy that the people who are disgraced on the front page of the politics page today will be government ministers of tomorrow.
On to something that has a much more immediate influence on my life: we are still in one of the inner rings from Dante's inferno: the ring of children with colds and viruses. Two weeks ago Lorenzo stayed home most of the week with either Giulio or Livia or both, as they seemed to be taking turns. Friday morning both kids seemed well, well enough at least to go to school, then Livia decided to one-up Giulio and got bronchitis and a trip to the ER on a Friday afternoon where the Doctor reamed us out because I had thought she was better and sent her to the nido that day. I felt like the worst mom in the world. And of course there was nothing I could say because she was right, Livia shouldn't have gone to the nido that day, it was my optimism triumphing over my common sense. (I should add that an ER visit doesn't mean what it would mean in the US, that she was gravely ill. It means that her pediatrician wasn't around on a Friday afternoon so we took her to the hospital where a ped. would take a look at her.) With the help of cortisone, Livia was a new baby by Saturday, but we had learned our lesson and Lorenzo stayed home with her on Monday, along with Giulio for a good measure, just to make sure she was really OK. Then Monday afternoon I got a call at work. "Are you ready to laugh or to cry?" I heard my husband ask. "Giulio has a fever." A low fever, 98.7, really the temperature you might get running around the room. And in fact, upon being checked out by the pediatrician, who at this point has seen the children more than most of my relatives and close friends, gave both of them a clean bill of health.
With the antibiotics warding off attacks we coasted along until Friday. Friday night I got into bed when suddenly I was summoned to the kids room by the loud command "Mamma! Mamma!" It was Livia, standing up in bed, holding her arms out. Assuming she simply wanted water I grabbed the bottle off the shelf and in the semi-darkness turned to give it to her. Strange, I thought, there appeared to be a large dark stain down the front of her pajamas. Then I realized that it was a stain, actually, it was in fact vomit. And not just on her pajamas, but also on the sheet and comforter cover, but not, thankfully and miraculously on her stuffed animals. By now I'm a pro at containing bodily fluids. I got Livia out of bed, stripped her off, stripped the sheets and the mattress pad (but not the mattress!) and somehow got the baby changed, and washer loaded and running, and Livia back into bed in like 10 minutes. Ok, I thought, maybe she had something that hadn't agreed with her at dinner. I seemed to have rinsed most of dinner of her Pjs and sheets. But the next morning she threw up two more times and went on to have a day and a half of diarrhea, and wanting just to sit on my lap with her head against my chest which, if you are the parent of a toddler, you know that this is one of the scariest things of all. Lorenzo came home from work on Sunday, took one look at her and announced he would stay home with her tomorrow. This morning she was doing pretty well, eating her breakfast, running around, smiling. And so I took Giulio to school, and I went to work, thinking that at last we had managed to break the cycle. Then today at lunch Giulio's school called me. He has a fever and wouldn't eat lunch and was crying. I called Lorenzo. "Are you ready to laugh or to cry?"
And so now I sit here waiting. It's not looking good. The fever went up in the evening, and while a tiny part of me wants to hope against hope that he will come bounding out of bed tomorrow, it's not looking promising. It all wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I have a new job, and the first two months are a trial period, so I don't get the full benefits of the other employees, meaning, mostly I don't get paid to take time off to stay home with Giulio, and seeing as I am still in a trial phase, I don't want to do anything that would encourage my boss to think that maybe they don't need me after all. What's worse is that I don't know how long he could be sick for, and I know we have to find someone, some fairy godmother who can come and be with the kids on the those days when they are sick and we can't miss work. For tomorrow Sig.ra Pala has come to the rescue, she can come at 10 and stay until Lorenzo comes home, so I will go to work late. But what if this goes on for days? And if Livia gets sick again? And in the long term, what are we going to do, because they will get sick again. It seems that in Italy if you really want to succeed in business you need to need to have your now retired parents, active but living close to your home, ready to sweep in and stay with the kids when you need it. Part of me also feels that feeling of desperation I felt when the ER doctor let me have it last week at the hospital. What I wanted to tell her is that we are doing the best we can. That we should be forgiven for making a poor judgement call when we have only ourselves to rely on. It's becoming more and more clear why so many Italians stay close to home, because in the end, your family is all you've got. And it's only January. Keep your fingers crossed for me, would you?