The Power Mommy

I had to go to England this week for a business trip. OK, fine, I'm going to drop the cool and hopelessly blase' tone and say--Finally! I'm 29 years old and this is the first time I've ever been able to say the words "business trip" in a sentence pertaining to me and my work! It also makes my job seem very time consuming and important, which it really isn't. Well, it does take up a lot of my time as all jobs do, but it has its highs and lows. I mean it's like one minute they need me to be the company representative talking to the head of a huge international corporation about some very tricky problem, and then we finish on the conference call, I wipe the sweat from my brow and go back downstairs to where I answer the phone and do various mundane office tasks. It sounds like I hate my job, which I don't. I find it for the most part interesting, there is a ton to learn, much of which would prove useful if I ever decide to go work somewhere else. And I like my colleagues, who are a good looking, very Italian bunch, most of the women hopelessly skinny and sexily dressed, but who do wear jeans everyday, yet another bonus to working here.

What I wasn't expecting on Tuesday afternoon though was to be asked if I could be able to go to England the next morning because we had a problem and they needed us to go to the client in person to express our extreme availability and willingness to resolve the problem. They needed me to go to make sure that we were very clear about what was going on, and that our company and my colleague understood everything they were saying to us. So I'm not a translator exactly because my colleague does speak English, but a translator who is also apparently closely following and deeply involved in the project. Which I kind of am, at least when it comes to dealing with this client, just don't tell them that I also answer the phone. You can imagine Lorenzo's reaction when I called him. In the past seven years I have done little more than ask him if he could pick Giulio up from school, and now I was asking if he would be OK on his own for at least 36 hours with the kids. He initially panicked, but when I pointed out that he would be at work on Wednesday, Livia at school and Giulio at Giusys (with another fever!!) and by Thursday I would be home he relented. "Sure, go. Make sure they pay you a ton extra!"
So Wednesday morning found me traveling to the north of England with another colleague, luckily one who I work with a lot so there was no awkwardness and wondering what to say. Our trip was uneventful, and yet for me really strange. I could not remember the last time I had flown alone, well, actually, I can, it was when I flew to the US the summer I was pregnant with Giulio. It was so strange not to be sherpa-ed out with a bag, a diaper bag, three winter coats, a stroller and Giulio's backpack. I went to the bathroom on my own. There was no wiggling child on my lap who I had to keep amused while we sat on the runway, or frequently fed from beaten up cracker packs from my bag. When we boarded the first plane and they immediately announced that we would be waiting 40 minutes to take off my first thought was that we would miss our connecting flight and NOT how to keep my children from getting us thrown off the plane while we waited. I just sat and read my book. There were no awkward diaper changes in the confines of the airplane bathroom, no trying to eat from a try and not letting a baby spill my water, and no pained looks from my fellow passengers when I sat down next to them, in fact no one even knew that I had children. It was all so wonderful and yet I was missing my kids like crazy. In the airport cafe before our flight I saw a family with two small children the same age as mine, the eldest boy even had a hair cut like Giulio's and had the charming habit of exhaling "aahhhh" when he finished drinking a glass of water like they do on soft drink commercials to show that major thirst has been quenched, and which Giulio and Livia do as well. My heart flipped watching him and I had to bite my lip to keep from crying. Yes, I had been away from my children for under three hours and I already missed them.

Our trip was long and rather stressful, as I think most trips involving connecting flights are. The fear of the unknown delay keeps you stressed out and on your toes. Plus the sprint for your connecting flight, sweating under your wool coat and avoiding tripping fellow travelers with your suitcase confirms my belief that you should be in good shape to fly. The worst part was that after almost nine hours of being on the move when we finally arrived in Northern England all I wanted to do was put my feet up and have a stiff drink and instead I had to pull it together and concentrate more than I had all day, cause we left the airport and went directly to our client's offices. I felt like I was moving underwater. I hadn't been too out of it however to notice the new slogan for Northern England that met us as we came down the gate: Passionate People, Passionate Places. My colleague gave me an alarmed look as I let out a snort of laughter. My grandparents were from Northern England, my grandfather was a Yorkshireman through and through and while there are many lovely adjectives I could use to describe him and the people from the village where my mother grew up, passionate is not one of them. Kind with a dry sense of humor, yes. Passionate, no. It would be like getting off the plane in Italy and finding our new motto was Serene People, Serene Places.

We got a taxi and headed off for our meeting, and it was there that I realized why my company had asked me to go to. For one thing, due being rather tired himself, my colleague Enzo's english became extraordinarily contorted, so that I was translating in my head from Italian into English to understand what he was saying. And I noticed that 9 times out of 10 when anyone from the English company said anything they directed it at me. After three grueling hours though, we were done. We staggered out of there, got a cab and headed to the hotel where I found myself for the very first time in my life in a hotel room entirely for me. I felt like I should call someone and mark the grandness of the occasion but I decided I couldn't afford it and instead went to take a shower. The room was, if nothing else, delightfully warm, and I reveled in the carpeted floor, though in showing what an Italian I have become I wouldn't walk around on it barefooted and instead kept my slippers on the whole time.

Finding a place to eat proved challenging. Italians are the worst people in the world to go abroad with because the quality of the food always disappoints and disgusts them. On the flight earlier we had been given sandwiches which included mustard on one and mayo on the other and my colleague kept making faces like someone had thrown up on his shoes, and when I scarfed them down, commented on how all these foods with "sauces" weren't good for you. Yes, I agreed, eating mayo at every meal would cause long-term damage, but I didn't think one sandwich was going to do much harm. Plus this was coming from a man who insisted on smoking a cigarette before we could get into a taxi or go to a restaurant. When I suggested Indian for dinner I got the same vomit-on-shoes-look as before, but in the end we agreed on a Japanese restaurant that had been recommended to us. There Enzo was in for another shock. As we sat chowing down on our California rolls and bad white wine a group of about 20 young women, none older than 21, came in for a group meal. They were all in various stages of undress wearing shorts, halter tops, mini dresses, bare legs and stiletto sandals, apparently they would be hitting the clubs after eating. Enzo couldn't stop looking at them. Not because they were beautiful or sexy, but because he couldn't understand how they could walk around in February so scantily dressed and not get ill. Italian women dressed for a night out in winter will always be wearing tights and often a wool undershirt to protect themselves from the cold, it's a almost like a sign of character and good moral upbringing. I still remember how I got chastised when Giulio was a baby for letting him run around without an undershirt tucked in under his clothes in early September. What do these women wear when it gets hot? Enzo wondered. It didn't seem worth it to point out that there was little variation in the weather from summer to winter, if one waited in Northern England for the right weather to bust out with your mini-sundress, well, it almost wouldn't justify the price you paid when you bought it. As we walked back to the hotel after dinner we passed a woman in a t-shirt walking down the street. As Enzo started gaping yet again I couldn't help but add "Now you understand how England conquered half the world and built its Empire."

Back in the hotel, it was still strange to be alone, though it was an alone-ness that I relished for about 30 seconds before passing out into a sleep induced coma, not stirring until almost 9 hours later, the most I had slept in over week. I rolled over, opened my eyes, and thought, "Today I will see my kids again." The thought alone made me leap out of bed and start packing my meager suitcase. I said a brief prayer for decent connecting flight times, on-time departures, no fog in London or Milan, and a lack of traffic going to or from the various airports. I was woman on a mission: a mommy coming home to her babies. Move the heck out of my way.

Superman meets Power Ranger Filippo

The kids are doing better. Giulio, after five days of fever, vomiting, and painful canker sores in his mouth, got up and started teasing his sister. He then proceeded to ignore me when I told him to stop so I knew right then that he was feeling better. Unfortunately, though he is better, schools are closed Monday and Tuesday for the Carnevale holiday, so Lorenzo has taken some vacation time to stay home with him, vacation time he had asked for weeks in advanced as soon as I saw them on the academic calender. It's this last minute, the night-before stuff that is killing us. Tuesday evening we stood there in the kitchen as Lorenzo tensely sliced yellow pepper and Giulio lay forlornly on the sofa. WHAT were we going to do? That morning I had gone to work late, Sig.ra Pala had come upstairs like the angel she is and stayed with Giulio until Lorenzo came home at 1. She also mended Lorenzo's uniform pants while she was there, but Sig.ra Pala is a busy woman, she certainly couldn't stay with Giulio for two days in a row. Lorenzo had already taken 3 days off the week before and once this week and while there is no risk of him being fired (he has the equivalent of tenure) his boss hadn't been happy that he had needed to stay home with his kids those days. It seems that caring for your sick children shouldn't really be the parents' responsibility, it's our responsibility as parents to find someone else to care for them. And apparently Lorenzo and I had let the side down because there we were at 7 pm on a Tuesday, the next work day less than 14 hours away and we had no one to stay with Giulio. Lorenzo called his colleague whose mother-in-law babysits children during the day and apparently, normally she would be happy to watch Giulio but unfortunately she had the flu. Join the club.
I ran through a mental list of people I know and then started running through the actual list of people I know on my cell phone. My female friends all work, the one I did try and call wasn't home, Terry downstairs was home because she has hurt her knee and is on sick leave, but she wasn't going to want Alessandro exposed to Giulio. And then it came to me, Giusy. Some of you may remember Giusy as the woman I flagged down from kitchen window to come upstairs and be with the kids for 10 minutes until Lorenzo came home because I HAD to leave for work. Giusy has been taking care of Alessandro in the mornings while Terry works, but as I mentioned, Terry isn't going to work right now. And Giusy had told me that if I ever needed anything all I had to do was ask. People offer things like that all the time, most of the time you know that if you did call them ready to cash in on that favor they would be seriously put out. I decided to think that Giusy had been sincere and meant it when she offered to help so I went downstairs to Terry's to get the number. Thankfully Giulio was, in Giusy's words, welcome to come and she hoped he would stay for lunch too, and Giulio, in spite of his illness, was quite pleased to be going to her house. And so we lived to fight another day, and the day after that when Giulio went back again, still ill but loving Giusy's house with its two firetrucks to play with, (Giusy's husband Angelo is a retired fireman.) I still felt awful leaving him with other people, he was sick and I couldn't (well, I probably could, but right now it is all about giving a good impression at work) be with him. On Friday Lorenzo was on for the night shift and so was able to be with Giulio during the day. Giulio spent the day with me on Saturday and I was so happy to be able to spend the whole day with my kids, enjoying them and cuddling with them and playing with them, but my son wasn't feeling the love, he spent much of the day asking if he could go to Giusy's.
In any case, Giulio recovered just in time because Saturday there was the Carnevale party at the church down the street, the same party we went to last year. Giulio has been asking for weeks to "go" to carnevale. Here's a typical exchange:
"Mommy, I want to go to Carnevale."
"Not yet Giulio, Carnevale hasn't happened yet."
"Please Mommy. I really want to go."
"Giulio, it hasn't happened yet. We have to wait for it, like your birthday or Christmas." He pauses for a second, thinking this over.
"Mommy? Can we go in one minute?'
Seeing that he was much better I used the party as a way to get him to eat all his dinner, though he still has these painful canker sores which make eating really hard. His costume this year was Superman, a kind of homemade concoction using blue long-johns, red rain boots, a pair of old red shorts and a cape that was handmade by my mom's best friend and given last year as a Christmas present, because all little children need capes, don't they? What made the costume so great was the Superman "S" which Lorenzo had handpainted on the front of the shirt. He found the logo on the computer and doing the kind of mathematical equation that one finds on Algebra tests but rarely in real life, adapted the size of the logo to fit on the shirt where he traced the outlines and painted them in. It was a true labour of love.
Livia was a ladybug, which for some reason has been deemed an appropriate costume for girls before moving into the princess costumes. She'll be a ladybug next year too, different costume, but same thing. My mom finds them and gets them on sale for us after Halloween, which is the best time to buy a costumes, though we weren't lucky this past year with Giulio, which is how the whole Superman thing came together. Livia wasn't thrilled with the costume, she cried and kept trying to pull it off without success, before resigning herself to the inevitable. The little headband with the antennae was a no-go however.
We walked to the party. Inside we found about fifty kids running around hurling confetti at each other, scooping it off the floor while parents sat on chairs along the walls and watched. There was a table loaded with food at one end and this year they hired a band for the event: three middle aged men with keyboards who seemed to have been hired to keep the over 50 group happy. We sat down next to Filippo's parents, comparing our health bulletins of the last few weeks. Filippo had scarlet fever, but only missed two days of school thanks to antibiotics, while another woman had two kids with re-occurring bronchitis, and a bout of scarlet fever thrown in for fun. As both these woman have many family members around to help, they couldn't truly feel my pain. Giulio began the party kneeling on the floor scooping up confetti and ignoring the children who kept asking him to play, including one darling little girl from his class dressed as a princess in a yellow dress who brushed dust off of Giulio's blue long johns and who Giulio barely even acknowledged. He finally got into the swing of things when Filippo, who was a sword carrying Power Ranger, presented Giulio with his own plastic pitchfork type thing to run around with, truly the finishing touch for the Superman costume. We stayed later than we planned, so glad to see Giulio running around acting like himself that it was after 11 when we left with the party in full swing, so today the kids are healthy but cranky. At least they can still go to school when they are cranky.