As Long as He Needs Me

Today was the first day back at work after the three day weekend. The kids are still home. Last Monday I was taking a shower when it dawned on me that spring break was almost upon us and that I still hadn’t organized childcare. Lorenzo seemed stunned that the schools would be closed for five days around Easter, and kept demanding to know why, why would they be closed for almost a week? Didn’t he have spring break when he was a kid I wondered, but I had to admit it seemed like a lot of time to fill. Before, with my old job we followed the school calendar and so when the schools were closed, we were closed (but not paid either) and there was no concern over who would be with the kids. Now I’m finding these long breaks the bane of my existence. It means telling Lorenzo to have his day off on Tuesday so he can babysit, and begging my neighbours to fill in for the other days, which is how we solved it this time, the kids went to Terry on Thurday, were home with Lorenzo Friday, everyone was home Monday, and today Lorenzo is home with them, he did work Easter though. Tomorrow he’s working in the afternoon and at any rate Livia will be back in daycare, which just leaves Giulio to spend the afternoon at Giusy’s tomorrow, which he couldn’t be happier about.
Getting out the door this morning proved just as stressful as always, even though I was the only one who had to be somewhere on time. Breakfast was hard going, one child demanding what the other child was eating, or demanding what I was eating, which meant I never managed to take one bite of cereal before I was out of my seat again to get another breakfast roll for Livia who then proceeded to leave most of it on her try and then scream like a banshee when Giulio tried to eat it. Yes, Livia is talking now, she can scream at full volume, “E’ mia! E’ mia!” (It’s mine, it’s mine!) which I should take as a small comfort that she is on track developmentally. Then Giulio wanted a banana, but not the banana that I had given half of to Livia. A whole banana, an “upright” banana with the peel still on. God, how he takes after me when I was a kid. And yet this complete understanding of where this mentality was coming from did nothing to increase my patience or understanding and I proceeded to have a pointless argument with him trying to convince him that half a banana still in the peel was just as good as a whole one. No such luck. He gets a new banana, unpeels it, takes one bite and then leaves it on his plate, causing another lecture from me. He goes to his room in floods and I grimly eat the greatly discussed piece of fruit. Livia wants to eat standing on the floor in the kitchen, instead of in her high chair where I want her. I put her in the high care where she stands up and refuses to eat, so I let her get down, where she gestures wildly to the pieces of roll on her tray. Back up again, no hunger unless feet are touching the floor. We compromise. She kneels in Giulio’s abandoned chair and finishes her breakfast.
After brushing teeth and washing faces the kids mill around the door waiting for me and Lorenzo to catch up as we throw dishes into the sink and pick up stray socks that have wound up on the living room floor. You know the old saying how you should always change your underwear in case you are run over that day? I always feel that way about my house. I want some semblance of order before I leave in case I get run over so the news reporters coming to interview my bereft husband won’t find the morning’s bowl of Cheerio’s still on the table, or a pair of pyjamas lying on the floor by the couch. Strange I know. Perhaps Italy is really starting to get to me. Anyway, the kids are by the door and Livia has some toy in her hand and Giulio announces he wants a toy too, specifically the plastic whale he got with his chocolate Easter egg, which I go and grab off the changing table in the kids’ room. In Italy they don’t have Easter baskets. They have these large hollow chocolate eggs which are placed in the center of a large piece of shiny cellophane wrap, and then the wrap is pulled up over the egg and gathered up at the top with all the excess wrap sticking straight up and tied with a piece of gold string. They are all different kinds of eggs, sizes, and price ranges because inside the egg is a little toy which is usually worth about 50 cents, the eggs themselves sell for about 4 or 5 euros depending on who made them and what the toy is.
They have girl eggs and boy eggs, so Giulio had received a little plastic blue whale, which doubled as a water gun, Livia a little pink stuffed pig, and then I got from the egg that I had won running a 15K the week before a small clear plastic tambourine. I had been really reluctant to open and eat my egg, as Eugenio said, it hadn’t cost very much but it had taken a lot of effort to get! In short, the toys are crap and yet the kids did nothing this weekend but argue over them, the whole è mio, è mia, though Livia in these cases was the more guilty party. My kids interest in toys is relative to how much the other one wants it. Livia had been playing with the plastic tambourine, (I saw Giulio with the pig yesterday) but as soon as she spotted the whale she wanted that too and when I opened the door she follows Giulio into the hallway in hot pursuit of the whale. When I get outside the door Giulio is sitting forlornly on the step while Livia stands in front of my neighbor’s door grinning and clutching both toys in her hand. Chaos ensues. I take the whale from Livia who starts wailing, and hand it to Giulio, and I pick her bereft form up and try to get her attention with the plastic tambourine. I get it into her hand and she looks at it limply for a moment before letting it drop to the floor where it promptly breaks apart scattering plastic disks all over the stairs. I put Livia down and rush around, trying to pick up as many pieces as possible, shoving them into my coat pocket and swearing under my breath. God knows what the neighbours think we are up to first thing in the morning, what with yells, tears, and things smashing on the steps. And then Lorenzo appears behind me, not knowing anything of the charged 60 seconds we just had. “What’s that?” he asks about a stray disk that we find at the bottom of the stairs by the main entrance. “That? Oh, nothing.”
In the car I feel tired, really tired, as though the straining and warring of the morning has taken its toll. That and that the fact that I got up at 5:30 to go running. I ran a 12k race yesterday and today felt like I was running uphill the entire time. Giulio tells Lorenzo that they will have to buy another toy for Livia today because hers broke. “No,” I say weakly from the front seat. “No more toys.”
“Are you going to work Mommy?” Giulio asks.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go to work?”
And get away from a day of battles over toys, breakfast cereals, and chocolate eggs? After this morning? God yes. But no I can’t say that, and honestly, it’s not even 100% true. More like 75%.
“No, Giulio, I don’t, I would rather stay with you.”
“Why do you have to go to work?”
“To make money to feed you, and pay for clothes and toys. You know how sometimes you don’t want to go to school?”
“Yes, sometimes I cry because I don’t want to go to school.”
“Yes, well, once you get there and then you start playing with Andrea, and Filippo, and Simone, and Massimo, and Antonietta, and Angelica then you start to feel better.”
“I don’t like Angelica.”
“Yeah, but you like Antò, right?”
“Yes.” He’s quiet for a moment.
“Will you remind Daddy to come back and get me today?” I ask.
“Yes, I’ll say, Daddy we have to go get Mommy.”
“Yeah, don’t let him leave me at work.”
“Sometimes Mommy when you are at work I miss you and I cry.”
Oh God, I felt like crying right then too. And I felt terrible about every thinking that I couldn’t wait to get to work, I felt terrible about going to Germany last week overnight for work, and enjoying the silence of my hotel room and getting dressed without having to simultaneously dress and feed two small children. I’m totally verklempt as Linda Richman would say, but it wouldn’t be cool to start the day out with rivers of mascara running down my face so I blink back tears.
“Yes, but Giulio I always come back to you, you know that right?”
“Yes, Mommy.” He brightens. “Ok, see you tomorrow!”
“Not tomorrow Giulio—tonight! You better come back at 5:30 and get me!”
I feel good, very good as I head into work to start the day, in the end I guess it was a good morning after all.