He's my Donkey

I went to the doctor this morning after being sick all weekend. I should have gone on Friday afternoon, but I had things to do and I remember thinking-ah, how sick could I be? My children may get sick, my husband may get sick, but Mommy, no Mommy doesn't get sick. She can't. I then spent all weekend thinking that my head was going to explode and wincing every time I swallowed, and then after a phone call with my mother, felt sure that I was succumbing to a terrible staph infection. It is also a little difficult in our house to "take it easy". Livia has started crawling and Lorenzo had to work both Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Enough said. What I really wanted was my mother to come in and sweep the children off for about 12 hours so I could stay in bed and sip orange juice, but there is no point on dwelling on that when my mother is on another continent, and several time zones away. Pumped up with ibuprophen I managed to go out and buy a birthday present, take the kids out for pizza Saturday night, and attend two birthday parties on Sunday, all the while trying not to swallow too often. Perhaps it wasn't just being sick that made me feel so wiped out, but also Giulio's end of school party that was held on Friday afternoon.
While Giulio's school doesn't officially close until the end of June, on the basis that some kids will be gone for vacation or whatever, they hold the party at the end of May, at a large outdoor pavillion on the edge of town. The kickoff was at 12, when the kids would be having their picnic lunch (no pasta!) of sandwhiches and fruit. I arrived at 12:30 with Livia, Lorenzo arrived around 1:15. The heat was intense, made worse by the fact that it had rained a little that morning, making everything excessively muddy and humid, in the end the most comfortable place to be was in the shade of the pavillion, but the teachers would have none of it. They had organized an action packed afternoon of performances by the children, along with games involving the parents, a treasure hunt and graduation ceremony. At 1:30 things got started off by the children dancing and singing along with a tape recording of "Old MacDonald", doing a carefully choreographed number. With my camera fixed on Giulio, I watched as he stood there, smiling shyly, watching his classmates sing and dance around him. It dawned on me that I would never be able to say, "Giulio always loved performing, ever since he was little!" to some journalist as I am being interviewed about my son's great Oscar win. Clearly he didn't love it, could barely tolerate standing there next to them as they e-i-e-i-o-ed around him. Then they all sat down as the 4 year olds launched into their individual number, some other song involving animals, the children serious and stern as they performed. Is there anything cuter than small children focused on a task? It is moments like that that make you glad to have children, glad to sit in 90 degree heat video tape them, glad to attend an end of the year picnic. And Giulio was going to have no part in it. I would just have to be glad to watch someone else's child shimmy around the circle. And then Giulio's group got up, and led by two five year olds went into their dance, or at least wiggled their hips around, immitating sheep and frogs and cats, in time to the song booming out of the CD player. And Giulio was right there, wiggling along with them, apparently having a great time. My Oscar fantasy, like Marcel Proust's memories, came flooding back.
After that there were games, endless games, all involving running and carrying children under the hot sun. The children all donned donkey ears, carefully made by the teachers for the games portion. Yes, it was pretty much the cutest thing I had ever seen though I am still confused about what it had to do with racing while carrying Giulio on my shoulders. Or running across the grass to some far corner, blindfolded in some gauzy material that did not block my vision but did make my face sweat, to scoop Giulio up and run back across the lawn with him. There was also a potato sack race, with garbage bags instead of sacks which resisted two hops before your legs went through the bottom. I pretended to be preoccupied with Livia and sat that one out.
Then there was the treasure hunt which ended disastrously because Giulio's prize, a small plastic gun that blew bubbles didn't work, which caused him to have a meltdown, which caused him to almost miss the "graduation ceremony" when each child was called one by one to received a medal, a class photo, and a diploma rolled up and tied with a piece of ribbon. I went up on Giulio's behalf to receive his diploma, with Giulio hanging on my leg and shrieking as I walked towards the teacher. Which ended with me telling Giulio that if this was how he was going to behave we would leave now, and me avoiding eye contact with any other parent. Everyone else's child was seated correctly, mine was a wailing mess of tears and hiccups. In the end, it was his teacher who intervened, telling us we couldn't leave now, we were about to have a special snack--bread and Nutella! It may sound ridiculously simple, but there are few things better than bread and Nutella, and nothing better for calming down a three year old. Giulio ate his snack and then we fled the hot picnic grounds for our car's air conditioning.
On Sunday was had to attend two birthday parties, one was a joint party for Alessandro and Vanda, my neighbor's children, and the other was for the daugher of Lorenzo's good friend and colleague Massimo. Italian birthday parties haven't reached the level of hype that we have in the United States. One of my favorite baby websites had a thread about planning our babies' first birthday party, six months before they were to turn one. There are women for whom it is very important that 1 year old Kaitlyn has the right hat to wear to go with her Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday cake, which she would then be allowed to smash her little fist into. Apparently no birthday party is now complete with out a smashcake for little Landon to destroy. There was no theme for Alessandro's party, Terry had not been out hunting all corners of Nothern Italy for the table cloth that would really fit a Harley Davidson themed party, nor was she using a glue gun moments before the party began to make sure that rubber ducks would stay upright and afloat in a wadding pool. No, there was none of that. Instead the party resembled more what birthday parties were like 15 years ago in the States. Terry had 3 of her sisters come with their husbands and children, she invited me and one other non-family member, plus her husband Eugenio's family, and Vanda invited 3 friends of her own. She rented the room that the local church rents out for birthday parties, mainly because our living rooms don't hold more than eight people very well, let alone children running in and out. In total there was maybe 20 people, including children. They set up a large table and covered it with pizza, chips, sandwiches, candy, three birthday cakes (but no smashcake), spumante and coke. They sang Happy Birthday, they opened presents and then the children were free to run about, occasionally splashing each other with the small fountain that sits outside the parish office. The adults ate and talked and played with the babies. There were no organized games, though apparently you can hire a teenage girl specifically for the purpose of organizing the children for games if you want, and though simple it fulfilled the purpose of what you want at a party; a time to be together with the people you like and enjoying good food in the bargain. The one fly in the ointment were the cakes. They were delicious, and had cost 190 euros all together, far more than Terry had anticipated paying. Apparently Eugenio had picked them up and paid for them, no questions asked, and Terry planned to go the bakery tomorrow and have it out with them. It seemed the baker had said she would make three 15 person cakes for the event, and instead had made what appeared to be three 30-person sized cakes and more than doubled the cost.
Our visit to the second party revealed more of the same thing, lots of food, people sitting around, and no theme, no organized games, and no one seemed to know or mind what was missing. I sometimes wonder who switched the rules on us, who upped the ante in the US. Who decided that such a simple idea like a child's birthday party was no longer valid and instead one needed themes, reception halls, smashcakes and the like. I'm sure these parties are fun too, but all the same, if you asked Giulio what he liked the most about the party he would tell you it was putting his hands in the fountain and getting his t-shirt soaked.

Festa della Polizia di Stato

Today was Festa della Polizia, at least in our house anyway. Like most organizations in Italy, the police get their day once a year. Though officially celebrated last week in Rome with the President of Italy and various ministers present, it was done here today on a smaller scale with everyone heading to Bergamo for the ceremony and reception afterwards. It was not my first Festa. The first one I went to was five years ago, when I didn't have kids and was not yet married. I went and stood in the rain to watch Lorenzo and a row of other police officers decked out in full uniform stand and salute at various intervals during the ceremony. I always get a kick out of seeing Lorenzo in uniform, as he usually works wearing his regular clothes, so I didn't mind too much standing in the rain to see him. I did mind that I was in jeans and a Northface raincoat and all the other women were much more elegantly dressed, despite the weather. The ceremony was held in the front yard of some enormous villa, its' owners long gone, now used for weddings and formal events like this. Afterwards we all trooped inside for refreshments; wine, risotto, cheeses, meat, cake, fruit, champagne, all consumed while standing up. As I lolled against the wall, sipping my champaigne and gazing up at the ceiling frescoes, I decided that living in Italy and dating a police officer had its advantages. I, who come from a town where if you don't have baked beans and potato salad at the wedding reception you cannot consider yourself legally married, was sold. I decided I would never miss a Festa if I could help it. Three years ago Lorenzo was set to receive an award so I went, properly dressed this time, with Giulio then a wriggling seven month old on my lap. That Festa always stays with me because the Chief of Police at that time gave a speech where at the end he thanked the families of all the officers, recognizing that we also make sacrifices and thanking us for our support. That year though the Festa was held in a theater so while the food was good, it lacked the ambience of the 18th century villa, even if there was more elbow room. Then I sat it out for a few years. Last year we went because my parents were here and wanted to see the whole shabang (and eat the food!) They were not dissapointed. The Festa was held at the Catholic seminary named for John the 23rd (who was born not far from there) which is in Citta Alta (the high city) of Bergamo, so we had a spectacular view of the city below during the garden reception. "This is incredible!" my father exclaimed, shoveling in his second helping of mushroom risotto in truffle oil, indicating towards the view. The only fly in the ointment on that day was that Giulio was four days into being potty trained and proceeded to wet himself three times in about 45 minutes, usually only moments after I had asked him if he needed to go and him adamantly denying that he did. In the photos he is wearing a different pair of pants in each photo, the last pair being this ancient pair of sweatpants that lived in the diaper bag for unexected bathroom emergencies. I can't say that they really went with the freshly ironed polo shirt that he was wearing.
This year we have potty training firmly under our belt, but this year we have Livia, who is battling some virus that causes high fever and never ending grumpiness. I feel a bit like the woman in the fairytale where evil gnomes come in the night and take away my happy, smiling baby and leaving me with her fussy, unhappy twin. Where was my Livia? I didn't know this grumpy baby at all. I might have forgone the nice reception and stayed at home; honestly, sitting through a half hour ceremony with a sick baby and a energetic three year old all for a free plate of pasta seemed a bit much. But this year Lorenzo was getting another award for capturing and arresting some mob guy and I wanted to be there. The Festa is the one day out of the whole year where all those long hours and lost Sundays when Lorenzo's at work seem worth it and I didn't feel like missing it. I had initially asked Vanda to come with me give me a hand with Giulio, but she couldn't come at the last minute, so I followed two women Lorenzo knows from his union on the drive up because they had offered to give me a hand with the kids.
I was glad that I had a made an effort to look nice, because the two women, Gianna and Monica, were dressed to the nines when they pulled. Head to toe elegant black clothes, manicured nails, and long dramatic earrings, I didn't think they would take to kindly to having Livia leave snot on the shoulders of their jackets.
After parking we walk up the hill to the seminary where Lorenzo meets us at the gate, all decked out in his uniform. We let Giulio check out the bomb-sniffing dog and then go into the auditorium to stake out a place on the end of an aisle where I could keep the stroller next to us. The ceremony wasn't set to start for an hour and there was lots of room. No sooner had we sat down than Giulio begins demanding food, though this time I had come prepared with drinkable yoghurts and crackers, and then he starts demanding to go to the bathroom. I give a whiny Livia over to Lorenzo (let's hope she doesn't get snot on his shoulder, won't go with the uniform) and take Giulio to the scene of so many of last year's potty mishaps. We come back and Lorenzo hands me a wailing Livia and the video camera. "Ok, so it's really important you get the moment when I get the award, and maybe also a bit of the National Anthemn, and oh!" he says, putting the photo camera in the stroller, "Don't forget to take photos!" Geez, maybe I could take a ten page introspective photo shoot on the whole event and send it to Vanity Fair while I'm at it? I'd like to see Mario Testino use a video camera with one hand and bounce a grumpy baby with the other. Monica offers to hold Livia so I can film, but Livia will have no one of it. She keeps arching her back and wailing, clearly only Mommy will do today. In the end I hold her on my left hip, while with my right hand I operate the video camera as they kick things off with the National Anthemn. The camera shakes like an elderly Katherine Hepburn is holding it. I roam over the crowd, taking in the choir singing onstage; a mix of young children wearing matching t-shirts and baseball hats and an elderly group with all the men wearing tuxedos. The combination of the two sounds is intense, part bleating, part vibrating. They sing the first verse of the anthemn, against a taped orchestral accompionment, of which most people know the words, and then they launch into the second verse of which no one knows the words. The audience promptly drops out, though all the police who rose at the first chord to salute must remain standing, though fortunately after two verses the choir has had enough and we all sit down, except for me, while the Chief of Police comes up to speak. I turn the camera off and put Livia in her stroller and try to slowly rock her to sleep, listening to the Chief go through his laundry list of numbers and statistcs for the last year. You can be sure that there will be no thanking the families of the officers today. Livia has just dropped off and I am about to sit down when the man's speech ends and suddenly there is a thunder of applause. Livia wakes with a start and immediately starts wailing. They then move into the awards, which in some way is worse, because they are now applauding every two minutes or so. I resign myself to standing for the rest of the ceremony, easing the stroller back and forth.
I look across the packed auditorium to where Lorenzo and the other officers who are getting awards today are seated together, I assume that the ones who are standing are next to be called so I think I have a few minutes before I have to do any more filming. Suddenly Lorenzo stands up, shit, shit, shit they are about to call him! I fumble with the camera waiting for it to click and whirl into life, and then it comes on and not a moment too soon cause now they are reading out Lorenzo's name and he and his superior are marching on stage and saluting, and the officials are giving him his award and the audience is clapping, and I would clap to except that I am still holding the camera one handed, while rocking the stroller with the other. I film until he comes off the stage and then I turn the thing off and throw it into the diaper bag, and just as well, cause someone had thought it would be a good idea to end the ceremony with the choir singing the gospel standard "Oh Happy Day", not exactly the sentiment I would use to describe the police. Ask Lorenzo when he comes staggering in at 2 am after working 12 hours if it's a happy day that he works for the police. And is there a choir any less suited to sing this number than the group we have before us? Italians for some reason love Gospel music, it offers something that is foreign and that they themselves are unable to produce, and yes, Gospel music can be wonderful, when sung by the righ choir with the right spirit. These octongenarians and their 10 year old counterparts are not what the composer had in mind when he wrote the piece, this all white group of non-english speaking Italians who are not used to clapping together or improvising high notes, as the skinny soloist is now attempting to do. The spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak. The song doesn't sound exhaulted, but only tired, sung by people ready to go and eat lunch. The crowd doesn't seem to mind though, they join in clapping including Monica and Gianna, but their flesh is weak too and after a few bars they lose the beat and have to drop out. I bite my lip and look down at a sleepy Livia and try not to laugh out loud. Lorenzo told me later that he had to struggle not to laugh as well.
I realize as the choir winds down that in a matter of moments everyone is going to make a run to the door and to the buffett lunch outside and that I will have to battle the crowds while steering a heavy stroller and holding onto Giulio. I make the decision to get out early, Monica rises to the occasion and offers to bring Giulio out with her, leaving me to navigate the stairs on each side of the auditorium and then enourmous flight which leads to the outside. Luckily there are some firemen present, perhaps for eventual crowd control (things getting heated in the buffet line?) and two of them take the stroller and, like the Pope sitting in his chair, lower Livia down the stairs. She and I wait outside in the blinding sunshine as people stream out the enormous door and head towards the long tables loaded with food and wine glasses. The staff seems to be mostly teenagers, no doubt brought in from one of the technical high schools which teaches, along with hotel management, catering skills. It says a lot for my self-control that I do not make a beeline for the tables but wait until Giulio arrives with Monica, followed by Lorenzo who wants to know if his hat was on straight when he went up to get his award. He has obviously never held a baby and used a video camera at the same time or he would know that such attention to detail was beyond me at that time. We take a few family photos and then head towards the now long line to get something to eat.
All I can say is that I must be becoming a little Italian because even though the printed menu lists no less than 15 different dishes, the food just wasn't as good as last year. There was no pasta dish or risotto, though there were three different cold meat dishes, including roast beef with rocket and grana. But Lorenzo agreed, this year it just wasn't as good. Last year there had been two sets of tables as well, one inside and one outside, this year there was just the one set outside meaning there was more jostling and less elbow room. And I had Livia in her stroller to wheel around, trying not to nip the well-heeled ankles of the ladies and gentleman around me. So I have come to the conclusion that unless Lorenzo gets any more awards in the meantime, I'm not going back until Livia can walk distances without a stroller.
As a post script, I am writing this now on Sunday, the good gnomes gave me Livia back and she is here smiling and crawling and being generally good humored. Instead it seems Giulio is now ill, with a fever and a new developement: throwing up. I have a feeling it is going to be a long night........

It Happened One Night

We had a broken night here on Friday. Giulio had been trying for two days with lots of tears and little success to move his bowels and by Friday night I knew it wasn't going to be good. He passed out on our friend's couch around 11 o'clock, after an evening of false alarms, running to the bathroom and the changing his mind once he got there saying, "I just fine!" My friend Theresa offered me a suppository, or what we call around my house Up the Butt, and it was very tempting to go ahead and use it. However, when we use the UTB it results in tears and screaming from Giulio before there is any action. I didn't think Theresa really wanted a 3 year old hopping and crying around her dining room in pain while the rest of us ate dessert so I decided to hold off until we got home. Once at home though Giulio was sleeping so well that I didn't feel like waking home, decided he could try again tomorrow to go, and so, exhausted we all went to sleep around 12:30.
At 2:30 I am woken by the sounds of crying. I lie there for a second deciphering which child it is. It takes a moment to realize that it is Giulio, and no sooner have I thrown back the covers and my feet have touched the floor that I hear Livia joining in. This isn't that confused-where-am-I-bad-dream crying. This is open mouthed-full throat yelling from both of them. Did I mention that it is 2:30, oh, and did I mention that we are sleeping with the windows open? Fair enough you say, but I really don't want to wake the neighbors, who are undoubtably sleeping with their windows open too. Not my neighbors below me, we're cool, I mean the neighbors in the building next to ours. Once, about a nine months after we had lived here, towards the end of August a tenant in the building next door asked me if Giulio suffered from stomach problems, as they had often heard him crying during the night. What they were hearing were not stomach problems but a jet lagged toddler still on American time, outraged that his mother had left him in his crib to cry it out, rather than letting him get up at 3 am. While I smiled and assured the neighbor that no, Giulio had no stomach problems, I got the hint. From then on, all crying jags that occur late at night in the summer months involve immediate damage control i.e. shut bedroom windows so the neighbors won't hear. Last summer I got off easy, Giulio when he would wake up would simply go and get into bed with my parents who were here last summer for four months to give me a hand before the second baby showed up. Now it's back to all hands on deck i.e. my hands on deck. My husband, Sleeping Beauty's younger brother, rarely wakes for these late night damage control sessions.
He did wake for this one, with both kids screaming to wake the dead. I went into immediate action, shutting the bedroom windows, giving Livia some water to drink and then leaving her to cry while I carried a wailing Giulio into the bathroom, closing the bedroom door behind me. She would have to wait. Giulio tried for the upteenth time to go, screaming and hopping up and down in pain, tears running down his face. "Sshhhh Giulio!" I said, closing the bathroom window. Lorenzo and I held a quick conference to Up the Butt or not Up the Butt. Lorenzo was all for waiting. I, who had no interest in passing the rest of the night getting out of bed every hour or so while Giulio tried in vain to go, quickly dismissed that suggestion. We needed to do it, and we needed to do it now. We carried a still crying Giulio to the living room, while in the bedroom Livia was still wailing away. Lorenzo got the UTB, a plastic collapsible vial with a narrow straw at one end, while I got Giulio on the couch. Upon seeing the vial Giulio started yelling even louder, "nononononono!" Like two coyboys wrestling a wild calf to the ground so they can brand it with the hot iron, Lorenzo and I pinned Giulio down to the couch, me holding his flailing body into place, while Lorenzo inserted the UTB. Giulio's yells turn to screams. Shit, we are sitting under an open window, who knows what the neighbors are thinking now? It sounds like we are either a) branding Giulio with a hot iron or b) trying to kill him. I put my hand over his mouth to muffle him, and in a moment it's over. Screams return to regular crying, and once I get his diaper back on him, Giulio ceases to cry, other than the occasional shuttering hick-up. In the kid's room there is silence; Livia has fallen back asleep. I carry Giulio back to his room and get him settled back into bed, and then I join an already sleeping Lorenzo. I am asleep before my head hits the pillow.
3:30 Crying sounds coming from the kids room again but before I can open my eyes I hear the patter of little feet running down the hallway to the bathroom and the sounds of a diaper being ripped off and then discarded. I join Giulio where he is sitting on the potty, crying. "Oh sweetie, it hurts, doesn't it?" He nods, I sit down opposite him on the rim of the tub, and he leans over and puts his head in my lap. I make some soothing noises and rub his head, he sighs and relaxes a bit. And then lo and behold! He goes! I get him cleaned up, new diaper, and then back to bed. I re-open the kid's bedroom windows, as well as the one in the bathroom, damage control no longer an issue. Both kids are now asleep, Lorenzo (who couldn't be woken for this round) is asleep too. I am sure that now Giulio will sleep late this morning...............
7:30. A small voice in my ear whispers: "Mommy, I hungry." And he was, of course, in the worst mood all day Saturday!
Today is Mother's Day, my present: Lunch out with the family somewhere in the mountains. Except that any day trip of ours is kind of like preparing for a mini trip to Rome. We have to dress the kids, pack backpacks with jackets, sweatshirts, change of clothing, diapers, and sunscreen. Lorenzo insists on making sandwiches, and I have to organize Livia's food, all while watching the clock and yelling at each other repeatedly, "We need to go! Do you know what time it will be by the time we get there....!" And then there is of course the journey; me trying to read a map and give Lorenzo directions, while Giulio demands water and breadsticks from the backseat. And once I have dug out the water bottle and filled up the cup (yes, I know a Good Mother would have a spill-proof bottle all ready for him to drink from especially for the journey) and handed it back to him, he then takes one small sip and tries to give it back to me, announcing "I fine!"
I ran into a friend of my on Friday afternoon and wished her a Happy Mother's Day, she is the mother of three boys. She grabbed my arm and looked me in the eye."Do you know what I would like to do for Mother's Day? I want to be on the top of a mountain. All by myself. Alone. I know you know what I am talking about." I did. I do. Sitting in the front seat trying not to be carsick as I look for some town on the map while Lorenzo swings the car around a hairpin turn while Giulio demands water from the backseat, I can't help but think how nice it would be to be alone today. As long of course that I knew that the kids would be home that evening. We end the day by going to a church with Romanesque frescos. It's down a lane, with high stone walls on each side and a cherry tree bearing fruit out front. Next to the church is a small cemetary which is obviously full, no one has been buried there since the 1970s, other than the row of nuns down at one end. A large number of the tombs are of the wordy, Victorian variety, something I have never seen with Italian tombs. "Most loving mother and devoted wife, goodness personified" and "Devoted to his widowed mother he was taken too soon from this life at 16 years of age." And of course, many old people. I am walking hand and hand with Giulio reading some of the gravestones when a woman comes in. She looks at me a minute with Giulio and then comes over. "These women were mothers too," she says. "Life is like a wheel, it just keeps turning." Then she smiles and wishes me a good day before going over to visit a particular grave. I smile too and squeeze Giulio's hand, happy to be a mother, with my young child together on Mother's Day.

Crystal Ball

The heat is coming back. We had a much needed week of rain, though not enough to deal with the drought that has been going on here since the winter. And I am still Giulio's donkey! Nice to know, something to cling to when he is 15 and no longer speaking to me in public. I had one of those days when I felt like I had a crystal ball that can see into the future for when Giulio is older. I taught fourth graders today, including the class at the school across the street from me. I like teaching there because I see the children and I wonder, what will Giulio be like? Will he be the kid with papers exploding from all corners of his desk, or will he be the one who sits quietly and gets his homework done on time? Will he be well-behaved or will he be the one that all the teachers tell each to "keep on eye on."? And most of all what kind of mother will I be? Along with the Mine Will Be Different sentiment that you had before you had kids, you also certainly had that I Will Be Different feeling about being a mother. Screaming at your kid because he got Nutella on the couch? Not you. Furious that he has now woken you four times in one night and will not go back to his own bed without a fight, are you kidding? Willing to take your child's side over the teachers? Never. I always swore that I would try and see things the teacher's way if it ever came time to having a parent-teacher conference, seeing as I teach children, I know that behind every Mother's Blue Eyed Innocent lurks the Wild Child beneath, the side that all mothers know exists but like to fool themselves into thinking that your child would have the decency to keep hidden when outside the house. It turns out that I Wasn't Different. I have yelled at Giulio, I have lost my temper in the small hours of the morning, and when Giulio's teacher told me that he was pushing kids at school I wanted to say "It's because you don't understand him!" I know the score though, I know Giulio is no picnic, though as I said before, I like to think that he saves his difficult side only for me. I am now 2 for 3, as in I take to heart what two of his teachers have to say about his behavior (which is improving) and ignore the third one as she is old and cranky and needs to retire. And how awful can any boy who tells his mother that she is his donkey be? ( you see? What did I tell you! I am as bad as them!)
But back to my fourth graders. On Sunday most of them are doing their First Holy Communion, so I was asking them what they had planned after the Mass. Part of this is for my own private research into how things are done here in Italy, so that when my children reach that age I know what to expect. Like how some women go to weddings to get ideas for their own, I pick small children's brains about the Italian Child Experience so I am ready and prepared for when the time comes. I have baptisms down pat, and as it turned out, it didn't take that much imagination to figure out what goes into the average child's First Holy Communion. They get new clothes to wear to the service, the girls go the hairdresser they day before to have their hair done in curls or blown out straight and to have it worked into complicated hairstyles. I am already worrying if I will be able to revive Livia's upsweep after she has slept on it a night when the time comes. And then after the Mass they all go to a restaurant for a large meal with friends and family and there are party favours to give out. Ok, fine, basically like a baptism except the guest of honor can now walk, talk, and feed himself. The thing that suprised me were the gifts. When I asked the children what they were getting as presents I expected standard answers, a watch maybe or a bracelet. A new track suit or maybe some CDs. Instead the children named portable video games, a motorized scooter, computers, MP3 players, new furniture for their bedrooms, and several at the end of these long lists also said money ranging from 800-1000 euros. Wait, what? When my kids were baptized we got some picture frames, some clothes, and a necklace. Either we are hanging out with the wrong people or things really get hyped up for the F.H.C. Though, if you are getting gifts like that now when you are 9 what are you gonna do when you get married? Anything less than a quarter of a million in cash will seem like people were being cheap. Who are these parents who a)have all this money to blow and b) don't see anything wrong with spending thousands of euros on gifts because you child has finally confessed to a priest and can take communion? So I want to say it right now, I Will Be Different! I will not be the mother buying Giulio a computer, and mini-motorcycle, and a cell phone just because it's the thing to do. I will not give out 81 (yes some kid said 81) party favours to all and sundry simply because my child is having the FHC.
I was still mulling over these Daddy Warbucks style communions when I went to get Giulio from school. A large sign hanging on the bulletin board notified all parents that due to a strike on Friday among the food service company that prepares and serves all school lunches, they would be unable to guarantee a hot lunch. Lunch would instead be of the brown bag variety. I have been hearing about this strike in all the schools where I work, the children were sent home days ago with a notice for their parents so they could plan ahead. All nursery school kids eat at school, but in the elementary school a lot of children go home for the lunch hour and come back at the end of recess. Their mothers meet them at the school door, whisk them home and bring them back within the hour well fortified. Vanda downstairs comes home for lunch whenever her mother is home to cook, though she had told me that the food at school is good. No one brings lunch from home, I don't know if it is forbidden or if the idea of eating a sandwich when there is pasta available is so preposterous to the Italian family that it is not even worth considering. I remember in high school when they would read out the school menu, sloppy joe on bun, tator tots, green beans, jello, and milk. I shudder to think. I always brought my lunch, even calling my dad to bring it if I had forgotten it, rather than face those sloppy joes. This is not a predicament that any Italian child is called upon to face. When I asked some of my students if they liked the food in the cafeteria one small boy told me, "It's so-so. There is something not quite right about the tomato sauce." Ah, if only it was a question of the tomato sauce in the average American cafeteria. It was with this in mind that I asked the school caretaker if I should send Giulio with a packed lunch from home, or would he get one there. "Don't worry," Pina, the caretaker told me."They get a brown bag lunch. Unfortunately it means they don't get a hot lunch." "Honestly," I said without a hint of irony. "I'm an American and things like that just don't bother me." Perhaps she thought I was kidding because she laughed. I imagine that even the Italian bag lunch wil be 100 times better than tator tots, green beans, and sloppy joes, even if it does not constitute a hot lunch.

Home Sweet Home Part 2

Today we were all home, Giulio's school is still closed as is mine, they won't open until Wednesday here in Italy. We kept Livia home too since we planned to go and see the horse show going on in the center of town but an unexpected thunder storm kept us inside. With the darkening clouds, Lorenzo's mood darkened too. He has to do patrol tonight, from 7pm to 1 am, a part of the job that he really hates. He doesn't do patrol everyday, but once a week he usually gets assigned to it, and worse yet, he got assigned to the evening shift which means beligerent drunk people and fisticuffs. Although in Italy the police always patrol with two officers in the car, Lorenzo hates it, especially because in a small town like ours backup could be kilometers away. And if they end bringing someone in, it's worse for him because he ends being stuck with all the paperwork and arranging the arrest. I alway send him off with a prayer that all will go well at that by 1:30 he will be at home and in bed. I started getting dinner ready early, around 5:30, while he started getting ready for work. At 5:55 I had three things going on the stove, Giulio was in the bathroom trying to go poop and Lorenzo had finished shaving and was about to get into the shower. Livia was sitting in her high chair watching me rush around, waiting for her own dinner to finish cooking. Suddenly the doorbell rang. I went to get it, thinking it was probably Vanda asking to borrow an egg or requesting to have their DVD of "Cars" back. I peered through the peep-hole and saw Signora Pala, the sweet elderly lady who lives below me standing outside the door. Sig.ra Pala is decidedly low-maintanence and I wondered what she could possibly want, in two and half years here she has never asked so much for a glass of water. I didn't think anything of the old t-shirt and baby food stained shorts I was wearing but quickly unlocked the door and opened it to find not only Sig.ra Pala but also Don Vincenzo complete with surplice and cassock and carrying a black bag with what looked like a jar of Holy water. "Hello!" called Don Vincenzo, "We've come to bless the house!" "Oh," I said, slapping a big smile on my face, "Come in, please, come in." All the while I'm thinking, 'Bless the house? I never ordered any house blessing. And man, does this guy know how to time it!"
"Excuse me just a moment, " I say, big smile still in place. I whip round and closing the door that seperates the living room and the hallway behind me, I knock on the bathroom door and say cheerily, "Lorenzo, Don Vincenzo and Sig.ra Pala are here!" Meaning: watch what you say, you grump. "Oh," he says. There's a pause. "Just a minute." I go to the bedroom and close the wardrobe doors which were wide open as I had been in the middle of hanging up drycleaning when the door bell had rung. House blessing? Did this mean the priest was going to go from room to room, blessing as he went? I hoped not, slamming shut the wardrobe doors but leaving the clothes on the bed. I go back into the living room where our guests have just discovered Livia, who has remained quietly in her high chair, Sig.ra Pala cooes over her. "How beautiful! What a beautiful baby!" I squeeze past Sig.ra Pala and turn off the three stove top burners so we are no longer being assaulted by the smell of veal with mushrooms, and take Livia from her chair and bring her out into the living room where Don Vincenzo gets in on the act and starts cooing too. I tell him that Livia's baptism had gone really well, that we really liked Don Giovanni (yes, that's his name) who performed the service. I also tell him about a baptism we went to in Rome where the priest banished all the crying babies to the sacristy so he could give his sermon undisturbed, and told the rest of the congregation to "Be quiet." As I talk I keep glancing desperately towards the bathroom waiting for Lorenzo to appear, I can't hold them off forever. Finally he comes out, nicely dressed in a polo shirt and khakis, making me look even more slovenly than ever, and Giulio gives up trying to poop and comes out too.
After a few moments of small talk, mostly asking Giulio if he is nice to his sister and Giulio holding forth on the fact that is was raining, we get down to business. We are both given prayer cards with the blessing rites on one side and a prayer from Saint Ambrogio on the other. With Sig. Pala taking the lead, we respond to the priest's prayer as indicated on the card. I'm following along when suddenly drops of water hit my arm. Good Lord the man is waving holy water around the house, liberally at that. "It's raining again!" Giulio calls, touching his head where some of drops had fallen. I shoot him the hairy eyeball, but luckily we were at the end of the prayers by then, and it seemed that blessing the living room was enough to consider the house sufficiently blessed. The dry cleaning was safe. We chatted a few more minutes, mostly about The State of the World Today, and then with many hearty farewells they were on their way, on to bless the next house. Gosh, my (extremely devout Catholic) grandmother would have been so proud! I was suprisingly happy about having our house blessed, though completely blindsided. While it was not something I would have sought out myself, it was a nice thing to do, and hey we can use all the help we can get, be it divine or otherwise. It's just the kind of thing that Sig.ra Pala would be involved in, and her bringing the priest to our house after he had blessed her home and before they went on to bless many others was her way of doing something nice for us. A house blessing is just the kind of thing that she likes and therefore kindly assumed it was just the thing we would want for our home.
Signora Pala, like Terry and Eugenio, is one of life's good people. She brings me candles that have been blessed in church by the priest to hold against the children's throats to protect them from sore throats, church bulletins, and olive branches from Palm Sunday. The fact that I have yet to go to Mass here is no problem. She understands that for obvious reasons I can't take my children yet, assuming that my lack of involvement is simply a question of having other time commitments. While she asks nothing of me, I often go downstairs to her, to have her patch Giuio's jeans, or iron Livia's christening gown. Twice I have gone begging to see if she can sit with the kids for 10 minutes until Lorenzo gets home. She is always smiling, rushing off on her blue bicycle to help with the Mass or administer communion to some invalid. Every morning she rides into the center of town to put flowers on her husband's grave, and while she hates cooking, will happily sew anything that needs sewing. During many of Giulio's early morning meltdowns on the stairs she will come out and hold him while I go and get the car out of the garage, and he will be smiling, the whole crisis forgotten by the time she brings him out to the car. She also never complains about the noise going on directly over her head, be it Giulio running back and forth or Livia crying in the dead of night. Whenever I apologize for some late night goings on she always laughs and tells me she is just sorry that she can't come up and take care of the baby and let me and Lorenzo sleep. Believe me, it took all my restraint not to hand her my keys and with a hearty slap on the back say, "Come whenever you want, don't feel you have to knock first!" She suffers from insomnia and likes to hear us overhead so she doesn't feel so alone, her two sons are married and moved out years ago.
Sig.ra Pala has lived in this building since it was built, she moved here as a newly-wed, after living with her mother in the apartment building next to our. Apparently it was another priest who convinced her to buy her apartment on the west side of the building, instead of the one on the east side. "I wanted the other one, because the bedrooms get direct sun in the morning, while ours get the afternoon sun, so I thought they would be cooler. And also that way I could see my mother's apartment from my window. But he told me that by afternoon all apartments are hot anyway, at least on the west side they would be cool in the morning. And having an apartment farther from my mother's meant I could argue with my husband in peace!" Downstairs in her little plot of land, she has put down flat stones in lieu of a vegetable garden and a statue of the Virgin Mary that has a little light on top that she turns on every night.
And then there's Piero, but I will get to him next time.
As a sort of p.s. that has nothing to do with anything, Giulio when he comes and gives me a big hug and kisses now says "You're my donkey." It's his new way of expressing affection. I have no idea where it comes from.

Home Sweet Home Part 1

Today, April 25, is a holiday here, it's to celebrate the liberation of Italy after WWII. Usually there are veterans parades and some towns roll out old American army tanks and jeeps for people to admire. The mayor usually gives a speech. Most people use this day to do what is called here a bridge, using the holiday and all the days between it and the nearest weekend to do a kind of five or six day vacation. Imagine if Martin Luther King Day was not observed on the Monday but on whatever day it happened to fall, like a Wednesday. Then you would have the holiday off, and then take off the Thursday and Friday and then head straight into the weekend for a nice 5 day break. It varies from year to year, some years if the holiday happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday there is nothing you can do about it, but some years, like this year, we hit the jackpot. Today, Wednesday is a holiay, but then, so is next Tuesday, May 1st, as it is Labour Day. Therefore some schools are closed from today until next Wednesday, and a lot of people are taking advantage of that and going away to the beach for a pre-summer getaway. Since it is already hot it's not a bad idea.
Lorenzo worked. Police don't get holidays, and seeing that tomorrow I do have to work, (before getting Monday and Tuesday off) I asked him to work today so that tomorrow he could be home with Giulio who is for the above mentioned reasons off from school. No beach getaway for us. We instead went to my friend Theresa's parents' house for a cookout, though it was not your typical American cookout. We ate ribs and bread with truffle oil on top, tomatoes with basil, and red and yellow peppers. Due to the large amounts of meat we gave the pasta course a miss, though we did eat a lot of bread. Our contribution was fresh canoli, that Sicilian pastry filled with ricotta cream that I drove 10 kilometers to get from the real Sicilian pastry shop. The guy filled the shells right in front of me, so I knew they hadn't been sitting in the case all morning. All of this food was washed down with copious amounts of wine and water. I mentioned that it was an Italian bbq, but there is no reason why it couldn't have been an American one. Theresa, though Italian and with Italian parents, was born and lived the first 15 years of her life in Pittburgh and has the accent to prove it. She also has two boys, Christian five and Luca almost three years old who get along like a house on fire with Giulio. Giulio never hesitates for a second when I say we are going to see Christian and Luca. He puts his shoes on and heads for the door. To see the three of them play together makes me realize why I don't want three children, least of all three boys. I don't think my house could survive the damage. How poor Livia is going to fit into their play when she is older I don't know. Theresa at times doesn't seem to know either, she finds her two children as tiring as I find mine. What I like about Theresa is that she gets it, she gets both cultures and I don't have to explain to her about what it's like in America versus Italy because she knows. She isn't shocked that Giulio drinks cold milk throughout the day. She gets why I miss Oreo cookies and Target stores. She knows the difference between American birthday cake and Italian birthday cake. She realizes back copies of People Magazine are worth their weight in gold. I also like her parents because they remind me of my old next door neighboors, kind, welcoming, good with kids. Lorenzo likes them because they came from Southern Italy and remind him, in a good way, of his family; good food, large servings, insistence on seconds. After lunch we went back with Theresa and her husband Ermano to their house so the boys could play in their yard and we could hang out some more. Theresa and Ermano have a very nice house, it's big, four floors, with a large grassy yard on three sides because it's the last one on the end of a row of attached houses. It's much bigger than the average Italian home.
When we came back Lorenzo was saying how nice it would be to have a house like that, big, with a yard, and a home that was actually a house and not an apartment like where we live. While it is true that I would love a bigger space I have to say that I am very happy where we live. Our building, or condominio as they say in Italian, was built in 1962, so no, it is not some gracious palazzo with wooden shutters and large elaborate oak doors leading into a quaint courtyard. I have lived in several buildings like that and they are nice, however none were for sale at a price or a size that we wanted when we were looking. I was suprised that I liked this apartment so much the first time I saw it, because it wasn't how I imagined my house would look like. As I said, it is not new, and new is very "in" now. The hallway needs a facelift and the facade could use some work too, but I fell in love with large sunny rooms, the parquet floors, as well as beautiful oak doors, door frames and windows. I was pregnant at the time with Giulio and what I loved the most was the yard, a huge yard for everyone, and where everyone also has their own small patch of land to have a vegetable garden. Ours has beautiful rose bushes, thanks to the gardening skill of the previous owner, and in the summer we grow vegetables and I am also trying to grow four lavender plants. Best of all, the yard is enclosed by a fence on all sides so Giulio can play soccer, ride his bike, dig, run around whatever, without me having to worry about cars though it is also nice that the building is on a dead end street. It was one of the first apartment buildings built in this part of town, though now it has become extrememly popular and there are buildings going up all over, though not next to us, as all the plots around us have been built on and we are nicely spaced. Nowadays they would put three buildings on the space they left for our one, so in some ways old is not bad. We saw it the first time, and then I went to America, and then after a week there I called Lorenzo and told him that I couldn't stop thinking about the apartment, he said he couldn't either and that was it. It's a two bedroom, one bathroom, with a living room, kitchen, a balcony that has been enclosed so we use it like a study, and an open balcony off the master bedroom. There is also a basement storage area and a garage. That's it, nothing special, sort of the typical Italian sized apartment, here two bedrooms are the norm.
Three of the original owners still live here, another original owner rents his out, and another is rented as well, though the owner stays in close contact with the rest of us. We are the newcomers, buying from an elderly widower named Signore Agosti who had come to live here with his family in the early eighties, and was now going to live with his daughter and her family in a villa they were building. Seeing as we are a bit new to the neighborhood not everyone around here knows us but when I start to talking to any elderly neighbors all I have to say is that "we live in the Agosti's apartment" and they immediately understand who we are and where we live. The best thing about my building though are my neighbors. I won't go into the people who rent, cause they are nice but it's not quite the same with them, they aren't tied up with this place the way we are. On the ground floor is Terry and Eugenio and their three children Stefano, Vanda, and Alessandro. Eugenio was born here and has lived in that apartment all his life. His father, in what would turn out to be one of the greatest real estates moves of the 20th century, bought the land next to this building and built himself a villa to live out his old age, where he lives with his unmarried daughter, Eugenio's sister Candida. The house and the land must be worth about 4 times what he paid for it over 20 years ago, though it is a bit strange how Eugenio's dad is living in this large house with only his daughter and Eugenio and his family are crammed into the apartment next door, but I don't want to ask about it. I get the impression it has something to with Eugenio's wife, Terry and how she never got along with Candida. Terry came to live here when she got married to Eugenio, she grew up in Milan and is the oldest of 6 children. She is tall and large, not your typical size zero Italian, and she has a heart of gold.
Terry is our patron saint, the woman who has saved us so many times when Lorenzo has to work or I have to work and he hasn't come home yet. She willingly takes the children, cuddles them, feeds them, talks to them, reprimands them, and treats them like her own. Giulio loves being at their house, the cookies are kept on the bottom shelf where he can get them, and cartoons are on the TV, and there is Vanda to play with. Vanda (spelled Wanda, but pronounced Vanda) is almost 11 and is patient and sweet with Giulio. She will play with him, read books outloud to him, do puzzles, play hide-and-seek, and tell him stories. Up until fairly recently she used to come up here and play with Giulio without being asked to and he loved that. She is growing up a bit now and has friends and dance and school, so she is busy, but if Giulio is at her house she keeps him close by. Stefano is their son, he is 14 and in his first year of high school. He used to come up here too and play with Giulio but now he is "big" he rides his bike around the neighborhood or plays on the computer. I buy him jeans when I go back to the States as they have the fit that he likes. I used to sometimes envy Terry on Sunday mornings when it was clear that it was after 10 and they were still all asleep, though as she had her children young like I did, I consoled myself thinking that my day of sleeping in again would one day return. But then about two summers ago Terry started saying that she wanted to have another baby, something I couldn't understand. Why have a baby when you already have two children who can feed themselves and put themselves to bed and can be counted on to stay there all night? It seems that that didn't matter to Terry and now they have Alessandro who was born May 30, just about two months before Livia was born. At the time I thought, selfishly, I will admit, that this was the end of ever being able to ask Terry to watch my children, one toddler was one thing, one toddler plus two small babies plus two adolescents was something else. But in the end, perhaps because she is the eldest of 6, having 3 more children around didn't seem any harder for her than having one. She also has Vanda to help her. Poor Vanda, she has gone from being the baby of the family to being mother's helper, something I know she didn't sign up for. Stefano also finds himself babysitting more than he had planned, but then Eugenio also helps, at least with the children. Eugenio is great, nice, funny, and helpful, the kind of guy you ask to help carry your new couch up the stairs, or pick you up late at night from the airport and he will. He loves to grab Giulio and throw him in the air and make him laugh and Giulio for some reason calls him Jack. In the two and a half years we have been here our two families have become friends, we might have pizza together, or Lorenzo and Eugenio will watch the pay-per-view soccer game together. I stop in and say hello to Terry whenever I have a few minutes just to say hi and have a coffee. I know if I need an egg I can ask them for one, just like they know if they need olive oil it's not problem to come and ask me. I gave Terry all of Giulio's hand-me-downs for Alessandro, she will take Livia for an hour while I am trying to clean the house. Once when Lorenzo and I came back from Milan after registering Livia's birth at the American consulate we walked in and found she had a made pasta with ragu for us to take upstairs and eat, instead of me having to rush around, starving, trying to throw together lunch. Lorenzo is non-negotiable about having pasta for lunch. It is a must. Lorenzo was able to sort out a problem they had in getting a passport for Vanda in time for her to go away on a cruise with her grandparents. I don't know if we would neccesarily be friends if we met through other circumstances, it is the fact that we live in the same building that we have had time to build up this friendship, and we are able to sustain it with one of us stopping by to ask about painting the gate and staying for an hour chatting. Terry and I don't actually have that much in common as far as interests and background, but I enjoy seeing her and Eugenio and I enjoy their company. It also makes me happy to see how much Giulio loves them, and they are always present at birthday parties and christenings. They are good people and we are lucky to have found them.
Now about the other neighbors.............I will have to get to them next time.

Under the Tuscan Smog

We left for Rome at dawn. Actually no we didn't we left more around noon, due to Giulio having an appointment with the ear doctor. We got up early, loaded the car, shut up the house and drove to the appointment with the car all set for the trip, but due to a back up on the highway we decided after Giulio's appointment to drive back down and get on the interstate further along. In the end we practically drove by our front door to get to the highway, and added another hour and a half to our journey. It was hot, well, very warm at any rate, and rather alarming considering that we are only in the first half of April and one already has to worry about the heat. Within minutes of getting on the highway we opt to turn the air conditioner on and roll the windows up. I turn it on, cupping my hand over the vent, waiting for the warm air to turn cool. Nothing happens. I turn the air on and off and then back on again. Nothing, we will have to make the trip with the windows down. Which you really can't do on the highway with cars zooming past at eighty miles an hour, so in the end we leave the windows closed but crank up the fans, letting hot air blow through the car. I can't take my eyes off the thermostat that we have inside the car, it gauges the temperature inside and outside. Apparently outside it is a pleasant 72, inside it's an uncomfortable 82. I keep staring at the rising numbers, as the temperature slowly goes up, and then, like in one of those prison movies where the guy decides to make a break for it and runs to the fence, even though he knows he's a goner even before he touches the wall, I turn to Lorenzo. "I'm sorry, I can't take it any more!" and roll down my window, letting the wind come roaring into the car. We drive the whole way to Rome with the front two windows rolled down about four inches, the only part of us feeling better are our hands when we stick them outside.
The first part of the trip is uneventful. The DVD player is a huge success, Giulio is glued to "Babe" and then later on"The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." I don't make any suggestions that he do anything but watch movies. He is quiet and occupied. Livia sleeps. I do my usual flight attendent bit of serving drinks and sandwiches around the cabin, then settle back to watch the ride. The roar from the windows makes any conversations seem like we are two eighty year olds who have left our hearing aides at home, lots of huh? and whats?? Lorenzo is also prone to want to concentrate on the road when he drives rather than gossip and rip large chunks out of the people we know, making me wish at times that during our road trips he would get more in touch with his femine side, the side that makes him want to discuss how much weight our friend has gained since she had her last baby. Perhaps driving on the Italian autostrada, playing leapfrog with the trucks and moving in and out of the passing lane leaves little room for anything but the most brutal testosterone.
For me the trip is always divided into three stages, from Milan to Bologna which is flat, open highway, Bologna to Florence, which is nail biting twisting highway that goes through the mountains, and then from Florence to Rome, when the drivers become more agressive and risk taking.
For many Florence is the art capital of the world, the cherry atop their long awaited trip to Italy. For me it is the halfway mark between my home and Rome, a place where I can really figure out how long it is actually going to take us to get to my in-laws. The trip is supposed to take 6 hours from start to finish, if there is no traffic and we have no children it can be done in under 6, however all we need is two trucks to have a fender bender somewhere south of Bologna and we are looking at eight hours. Throw in Giulio being car sick and throwing up, or a wailing baby for unidentified reasons and then you could be looking at 10 hours. My mother did the trip with us once. "God," she said, as the Tuscon countryside whipped past our windows, "This trip takes FOREVER." We make it to Florence in the usual three hours and find the usual backed up traffic. Florence sits in a kind of basin, someone told me that they have their own micro-climate. When it's cold in Italy, it's freezing in Florence, and when it's hot everywhere else, it's boiling there. We come flying down the hill and into the long lines of backed up traffic, the outside temperature shooting up from a pleasant 68 while in the mountains to 82 the moment we are in the vicinity of the city. If I lean all the way over to the left I can just make out the dome on top of the Duomo. We lower the windows all the way down and creep along. Once when Giulio was really small we found ourselves completely stopped there for a good half hour there on the highway so in the end I decided to nurse him. I wasn't the pro I am now about nursing in public so I snuck a look around to make sure that no one was watching, but seeing that there was only an empty tour bus on my right, I had him latch on. It was only later that I realized that the bus was not only full, but that I had accidentally flashed the whole left side of it.
We finally push through Florence but it is here on the other side the Livia starts to lose it. She wails, her head soaked with sweat, the bottle of water I manage to get into her mouth doing no good. It is times like these I wish I had a Mr. Gumpy type breast that I could just stretch around to the back seat so she could nurse without us stopping the car. In the end we get off at the nearest rest stop and I go around and free her from her carseat. The minute she is out of the car she is cooing and smiling again as if nothing had happened, she was just sick of sitting in the car seat, that's all.
One advantage to Italy are the rest stops called Autogrill. Here you find cafes loaded with fantastic sandwiches, snacks, ice cream, coffee, cappucinos, water and soda. In addition to these well stocked bars there is always a store which sells all kinds of salami, cheese, mortadella, crackers, cookies, candy, magazines, CDs, t-shirts, and cigarettes. There is also an enormous gas station and of course, bathrooms. It takes the word "rest stop" to a whole new level, a far cry from the American version with a bathroom, a pop machine, and map of the interstate pinned up on the wall.
We get ice cream and Livia gets a jar of meat. We also try and convince Giulio that he really does need to go to the bathroom. He insists "I just fine!", and while it is really tempting to say that if he announces in 10 minutes time when we are back on the road that he needs to go it will be his problem. Except that it won't be just his problem, but ours as well. And it will be completely and truly our problem to clean up the pee aftewards and try and remove the smell of urine from the car. So we keep trying. Giulio keeps saying no, finally when Lorenzo goes into the bathroom alone Giulio waits just long enough for Lorenzo to be possibly out of sight to go tearing in after him. I start to follow, Livia in my arms, but some strange looks from the men coming out of the bathroom stop me. Lorenzo and Giulio are back in a moment, Giulio beaming. He has gone pee. The next battle is to get him to wash his hands, which we make him do by force, and then the hand dryer which he finds fascinating and stands below it, extending both arms up into the air stream, his eyes closed. We have to eventually tear him away from that and head back out to the car. I try and nurse Livia who doesn't seem all that interested and after a few minutes I stop and announce that we can go. It is pointless to tell Livia that is she doesn't nurse now it will be her problem once we are back on the road. I start "Babe" up again on the DVD player and the next 45 minutes are quiet as Giulio watches his movie and Livia dozes. However about two hours north of Rome, and Christ is it really 6 o'clock?!! Livia starts wailing, an ear piercing-we're-not-gonna-take-it-anymore kind of cry, which from the my place in the front seat, I can do little about. The sun has shifted, so at least the car is not as hot, Lorenzo has that concentrated look as he expertly passes a truck loaded with cows and is barely able to give more than one word answers to any questions I ask. Livia keeps wailing, Giulio remains oblivious, fascinated by the world of pig sheep dog trials. I eye the back seat, seeing how little room there is between the two car seats, then start to clear out a little space for more possible leg room. Lorenzo has the car in the slow lane again, his eyes are glued to the road. "I'm going over." I say, now in a cold-war era movie about the Berlin wall. I take a deep breath, unfasten my seatbelt and vault over into the back seat, squeezing in between the two carseats. The middle seat belt is suprisingly easy to find and fasten and in a moment I am in place. I have done it! Livia is so suprised to see me back there next to her that she stops crying for a moment. I rummage around and dig out from under my leg a baby yoghurt. Upon seeing the yoghut Giulio announces that he wants a baby yoghurt too. I deny his request, as I only have a limited number of these babies, and ignore his whining as I start spooning up the yoghurt with a slightly sticky spoon I found in the bag along with the baby food. After awhile I find myself drawn to Giulio's movie, wow, this DVD is a good idea, I can't look away from a movie I must have already seen 50 times over. With Livia chewing on my left hand and Giulio clutching my right, Lorenzo still mono-syllbic in the front seat, we complete our driving to Rome in the dusk. "God," I thought as we got off the exit for Roma Nord, "This trip takes @#@! forever!"