Utter craziness here this morning. Lorenzo mentioned last night before going to bed that he had to be at work by seven, which meant that it was going to be up to me to get both kids ready and take them to school/daycare, instead of sharing the job like we usually do. It is maybe the time to explain that my husband is a policeman for the Polizia di Stato, here in Italy. His job is demanding and exhausting and has odd hours. Sometimes I think that if someone was ever to turn our lives into a play, some kind of post modern director would have Lorenzo's job represented by an actor dressed in a policeman's uniform on stage with us. Maybe seated on the couch, reading the paper, as Lorenzo dozes in front of the TV after working a 10 hour day, or maybe in bed with us, still in uniform, still reading the paper as Lorenzo passes out within moments of getting into bed. Or maybe just me alone with the guy in uniform, representing all the nights he's out following some drug dealer and therefore not at home asleep. His job is always with us. I have gotten used to going to friends' houses where we have been invited for dinner with just the kids and the excuse that Lorenzo, even though he went to work 12 hours earlier, has not come home yet but will be here as soon as he possibly can. Our town is small, there are only so many officers, so if something happens, an arrest, a drug bust, illegal immigrants, usually my husband is involved, and that includes doing all the paperwork afterwards. That's what irritates him the most about cop shows on TV, American or Italian, it never shows them doing all the paperwork that would be involved if an officer had actually fired his gun or God help them, hurt someone. I have gotten used to it, these strange hours, the plans falling through. It remains to be seen how Giulio and Livia, as they grow older, handle plans changing at the last minute, disappointment of not doing something with their dad that they had been promised earlier. We'll see.
Anyway, this morning he was out the door before seven, but we were both up by 6:30 because as anyone knows, getting two small children ready and out of the house involves more planning and tactics than a large scale military invention. Giulio was like a tiger with a toothache this morning. He slept horribly last night, waking four times between 8 and midnight. He would wake up and cry for 10 minutes, unable to explain what was wrong or what he wanted, though finally the fourth time he said it was because his ear hurt. Oh crap. Giulio has had as many earaches as George Clooney has had girlfriends, it's impossible to keep track of the exact number. He has no fever, and while it's tempting to claim that he is faking, his worst ear infection ever came without any fever at all, and next thing I knew he was in the hospital for four days being treated for possible mastoiditis. So I can't shrug this one off. I give him ibuprophen and tell Lorenzo he will have to call the pediatrician tomorrow morning for an appointment, and seeing that her office hours are tomorrow afternoon when I have to work, I tell Lorenzo that he will have to take Giulio as well. I also think Giulio is constipated, again. I jinxed it when I wrote here that he was finally regular, and now its two days that he says he has to go without any action, yet another factor contributing to his discomfort. We finally convinced Giulio to go to sleep on the couch (for some reason I am ok with that, it's in bed with us that I don't want. see previous post for reasons why.) In the meantime Livia has her upteenth runny nose and also pink eye to add to the mix, so she wakes frequently as well, though is always smiling within moments of being picked up despite the stuffy nose and red eye. Finally around 12.30 we are all asleep, Livia waking at 5 for an early breakfast. At 6:30 I am hustling to get Livia changed, dressed, and with Lorenzo's help, get that antibiotic cream in her eye, when I hear a mixture between a wail and a groan from the couch. Our Lord and Master has woken. Lorenzo coaxes him to the table for breakfast while I hurry and pick out his clothes and then take Livia into the kitchen with me. I am still in my pjs, have to do my face and everything and eat, as well as dress Giulio, feed Livia and rush out the door and I have only 40 minutes. Lorenzo leaves for work. I put Livia in her highchair with a bottle of water while I tackle getting Giulio dressed. He is not happy about getting dressed, and instead runs into his room and throws himself on his bed saying, "Mommy, I want to sleep!" I feel terrible, he is obviously tired, his ear hurts, but as he has no fever, and as I have no babysitter to call at 7 in the morning, I have no choice but to send him to school, doped up again with ibuprophen. He won't be able to see the doctor until the afternoon anyway, and I can't call in sick to work. There is a fifth grade class in a town 20 kilometers from here expecting a mother tongue English teacher this morning at 8:30. I just have to make it till tomorrow, I tell myself. Tomorrow my parents are coming for 16 days so if Giulio doesn't feel well while they are here he can stay with them. Ditto for Livia, who as of today is allowed back at day care despite the pink eye, since 48 hours have passed since it started. Is there a time limit in America? I can't remember and at this point am just grateful to have someone watch her, so I really don't care.
Giulio, once completely dressed including shoes, goes and flops on the couch, complaining that he needs to poop, but refusing all suggestions that he might go and sit on the potty and try. Livia bangs on her high chair tray, so I feed her some baby yoghurt standing up as I make coffee, pour juice and eat a piece of bread with Nutella, all with careful attention to the clock. I feed Livia a few spoonfuls and then take a break and feed myself. This coming and going keeps her on her toes, so she rapidly eats the bites I offer without hesitating. I do get dressed, though I don't remember exactly how or when, and in the bathroom I forgo contacts for glasses as it saves time and my eyes just feel too tired this morning for contacts.
"Ok," I cry, rushing back into the living room after brushing my teeth. "Coats!" I grab coats off their hooks and take them to the couch, where Giulio is still there, though now he is better. Five minutes ago he came smiling into the kitchen like a different person to announce that he wanted to take his ambulance to school. The coat suggestion is met with resistance. Yesterday our neighbor and patron saint and saviour Terry (more on her later) gave Giulio a multi-colored Mickey Mouse poncho, the kind of thing you would wear in a spring downpour. He was so pleased with it, and she carefully explained that this was for when it rains. "Yes," he had said, nodding seriously, "when it rains."
"Mommy, want to wear Mickey Mouse."
"Giulio, remember what Terry said, that coat is for when it rains. Is it raining today?"
Giulio looks at the sun pouring in through the windows. "Yes." he says.
Normally I would just say yes and let him wear it, but while it is sunny it is cold this morning and a thin plastic coat isn't going to do it.
"Giuge, it's cold out, you need your coat and a hat."
He thinks for a minute and then says he wants to wear his Bob the Builder jacket. My mother bought this jacket at Value City two years ago because it came with a pair of snowpants that were worn the two times it has snowed here in Giulio's lifetime. The five dollar-made in China-bright red and blue jacket stayed in my closet until last fall when I brought it out in a moment of weakness to get him to wear a jacket. It is now his favourite item of clothing. Pair it with his Bob the Builder baseball cap and you have one happy kid. But today is not Bob the Builder weather. He needs his down coat and fleece hat, both of which are put on with a struggle. Livia cooes and bounces in her red snowsuit and Giulio roars nexts to her. At least she is still too little to resist what she wears. I force a crying Giulio out the door, lock it and start down the stairs. Giulio initially refuses to move, and I fix him with the hairy eyeball before heading down the stairs. Great, now I will have to load everything into the car and then come back and get him. I start to go down the stairs when behind me I hear, "Mommy, hug!" I should mention I am carrying two bags, Giulio's backpack, a 7 month old baby, house keys, and a fleece hat. I have no arms left for a hug.
"In a moment, Giulio." Shit is it really 7:40? I need to have both kids in their respective schools/daycare and be on the road by 8. I keep moving down the stairs and out to the car as behind me Giulio sobs. I have just snapped Livia into her car seat when he comes out the door and towards the car, still crying. I get him into his car seat and by the time we are out of the driveway he has stopped. He is quiet as I take Livia into daycare, still a little teary when he drops his ambulance on the floor, but smiling by the time I park in front of his school and let him out of the backseat. 'What are all those kids doing?" he asks, pointing to the clumps of middle school students who attend the school directly behind his. I kneel down and give him a big hug. "You are know you are my favorite boy in the whole world, don't you Giulio?" As an answer he puckers his lips out for a kiss. I kiss him, then stand up, taking him by the hand. It's 7:50, I've got time, it's gonna be ok. "Come on," I said "let's go see the kids."
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
p.s. A ray of hope
As a p.s. for my last post in the end I managed to get us downstairs and outside. Giulio got his tricycle and Livia went in her stroller and we walked over to the park. There we ran into a little boy who goes to school with Giulio, named Carlo, and his mother Lorena. Lorena and I started talking, comparing notes as it were on our two boys.
"Carlo won't eat," she told me as we watched our kids playing in the gravel underneath the big kid climber.
"Oh," I said with a laugh, "Giulio won't eat either, there are days I think he gets by on air."
"Carlo won't eat anything," she said. "Only roasted potatoes, a little fruit, and milk. Only the milk he won't drink from a cup, so I have to feed it to him with a spoon."
"Really? A spoon, huh? And at school?"
"Nothing," she said with a sigh. "He won't eat anything. I have to come get him at 1 o'clock and take him home and try and feed him there. Now we are trying twice a week to leave him until four to see if he will eat there, but so far nothing."
"Not even pasta?" Pasta was such a staple of the Italian diet, it could be prepared in so many different ways and rarely contained anything a small child would refuse.
"Not even pasta. He was sick once after eating a plate of pasta and now he won't eat it." I didn't bother asking what kind of pasta he had refused, if it was with tomato sauce or ragu', or if it was pasta done in a white sauce, or pasta with beans or some kind of vegetable or shrimp, or spaghettia carbonara. The list was endless, and did she really mean to say that he wouldn't eat any of it?
Carlo was impressive. While it was normal for Giulio to refuse to eat anything resembling a meal when at home with me, he once went a whole week where he only ate cheese and cookies, he always ate at school, frequently having seconds on the pasta. At school there is a chart with each child's name on it and a box for pasta, for meat, and for fruit. These boxes are checked off by the teacher during lunch time, and if a child has seconds the words "bis" are written in the box. This list is carefully checked by each parent at the end of each day.
Eating is such an important part of Italian life that any kid who really wants to drive his mother around the bend knows that all he has to do is refuse to eat dinner and suddenly he is surrounded by parents imploring, begging him or her to eat. Giulio once spent four days in the hospital due to an allergic reaction from medication. He shared the room with another little boy named Marco and every meal time was the same:
"Come on, honey, you've got to eat. Please, Marco, just a little. Come on Marco, you see how well that other little boy is eating? You need to eat or you won't get better and then we won't be able to leave the hospital. Please Marco! Just today that doctor told me that if you don't eat you can't go home. You want to go home, don't you? Please Marco, please eat, just try the pasta...no? The meat, you like meat...no, well, have some fruit, ok, well, some bread. Please Marco!" And so on. At every meal. After four days of this it took all my effort not yell, "If he didn't have you begging him all the time to eat, he might actually go ahead and do it!" Apparently Marco's mother didn't know the aforementioned law of children, the more you want them to do something the less likely they are to do it.
I for the most part try and stay away from this game, and try also to keep my husband's concern about Giulio and eating to a minimum. Mostly I leave it to his caregivers to provide him with one carefully made 3 course meal. Giuio learned at daycare before he could walk that all meals consist of a first course of pasta or rice, a second course of meat and vegetables, and a third course of fruit. The food is always very tasty, though sometimes the mothers complain about the quality. I had a friend send her child to a different school because she wasn't pleased with the quality of the pesto sauce they used. No such problems for Giulio. He eats everything at school, and then comes home and refuses to eat much of anything from me, though I can usually get him to eat pasta at lunchtime on Saturdays.
I refused and still refuse to make a big deal out of eating, cause what am I going to do, you can't make a child chew and swallow against his will, though I tend to go back and forth on my thinking as far as cooking for him. Sometimes I think, well, he won't eat much, so I won't make much of an effort, and offer things like grilled cheese, eggs, french toast, and turkey dogs for dinner. Then other times, usually after spending time with some Italian female friend and seeing what culinary masterpieces she makes for her children, I feel guilty about Giulio and his turkey dogs so I go to the butcher's and ask for extra tender steak for a small child. And the butcher knows exactly what I am talking about and gives me the most tender cut he has because mothers all the time are asking him for steak for a small child. Or I make pasta with homemade broth, or rack my brains thinking of something nutricious yet healthy to feed him for dinner. But after a few times of watching Giulio take one bite of the 8 euro steak carefully procured just for him and having him announce, "Mommy don't like this. Gulio non vuole." (translation Giulio he doesn't want this) I give up and go back to making grilled cheese for dinner. And comfort myself thinking, well, I know he is getting enough to eat at school. And I'm an American. We don't go in for three course meals at preschool.
"Carlo won't eat," she told me as we watched our kids playing in the gravel underneath the big kid climber.
"Oh," I said with a laugh, "Giulio won't eat either, there are days I think he gets by on air."
"Carlo won't eat anything," she said. "Only roasted potatoes, a little fruit, and milk. Only the milk he won't drink from a cup, so I have to feed it to him with a spoon."
"Really? A spoon, huh? And at school?"
"Nothing," she said with a sigh. "He won't eat anything. I have to come get him at 1 o'clock and take him home and try and feed him there. Now we are trying twice a week to leave him until four to see if he will eat there, but so far nothing."
"Not even pasta?" Pasta was such a staple of the Italian diet, it could be prepared in so many different ways and rarely contained anything a small child would refuse.
"Not even pasta. He was sick once after eating a plate of pasta and now he won't eat it." I didn't bother asking what kind of pasta he had refused, if it was with tomato sauce or ragu', or if it was pasta done in a white sauce, or pasta with beans or some kind of vegetable or shrimp, or spaghettia carbonara. The list was endless, and did she really mean to say that he wouldn't eat any of it?
Carlo was impressive. While it was normal for Giulio to refuse to eat anything resembling a meal when at home with me, he once went a whole week where he only ate cheese and cookies, he always ate at school, frequently having seconds on the pasta. At school there is a chart with each child's name on it and a box for pasta, for meat, and for fruit. These boxes are checked off by the teacher during lunch time, and if a child has seconds the words "bis" are written in the box. This list is carefully checked by each parent at the end of each day.
Eating is such an important part of Italian life that any kid who really wants to drive his mother around the bend knows that all he has to do is refuse to eat dinner and suddenly he is surrounded by parents imploring, begging him or her to eat. Giulio once spent four days in the hospital due to an allergic reaction from medication. He shared the room with another little boy named Marco and every meal time was the same:
"Come on, honey, you've got to eat. Please, Marco, just a little. Come on Marco, you see how well that other little boy is eating? You need to eat or you won't get better and then we won't be able to leave the hospital. Please Marco! Just today that doctor told me that if you don't eat you can't go home. You want to go home, don't you? Please Marco, please eat, just try the pasta...no? The meat, you like meat...no, well, have some fruit, ok, well, some bread. Please Marco!" And so on. At every meal. After four days of this it took all my effort not yell, "If he didn't have you begging him all the time to eat, he might actually go ahead and do it!" Apparently Marco's mother didn't know the aforementioned law of children, the more you want them to do something the less likely they are to do it.
I for the most part try and stay away from this game, and try also to keep my husband's concern about Giulio and eating to a minimum. Mostly I leave it to his caregivers to provide him with one carefully made 3 course meal. Giuio learned at daycare before he could walk that all meals consist of a first course of pasta or rice, a second course of meat and vegetables, and a third course of fruit. The food is always very tasty, though sometimes the mothers complain about the quality. I had a friend send her child to a different school because she wasn't pleased with the quality of the pesto sauce they used. No such problems for Giulio. He eats everything at school, and then comes home and refuses to eat much of anything from me, though I can usually get him to eat pasta at lunchtime on Saturdays.
I refused and still refuse to make a big deal out of eating, cause what am I going to do, you can't make a child chew and swallow against his will, though I tend to go back and forth on my thinking as far as cooking for him. Sometimes I think, well, he won't eat much, so I won't make much of an effort, and offer things like grilled cheese, eggs, french toast, and turkey dogs for dinner. Then other times, usually after spending time with some Italian female friend and seeing what culinary masterpieces she makes for her children, I feel guilty about Giulio and his turkey dogs so I go to the butcher's and ask for extra tender steak for a small child. And the butcher knows exactly what I am talking about and gives me the most tender cut he has because mothers all the time are asking him for steak for a small child. Or I make pasta with homemade broth, or rack my brains thinking of something nutricious yet healthy to feed him for dinner. But after a few times of watching Giulio take one bite of the 8 euro steak carefully procured just for him and having him announce, "Mommy don't like this. Gulio non vuole." (translation Giulio he doesn't want this) I give up and go back to making grilled cheese for dinner. And comfort myself thinking, well, I know he is getting enough to eat at school. And I'm an American. We don't go in for three course meals at preschool.
Cat Fight
I'm the eldest in my family, so I don't know what it is like to have an older brother or sister. When I was younger I couldn't understand why my parents wanted to take our beautiful family unit of me and them and ruin it by adding my brother. They already had me, I was fun and cute, why bother? We lived side by side for 14 years, me barely tolerating him, and sometimes not tolerating him at all, and then one day, when I was home on break after my first year of college I realized that he wasn't so bad. Quite funny actually. Now my brother is one of my favorite people in the world, and one of the best at making me laugh. Yes, but I'm 28, so I am asking myself, am I going to have to put up with another 20 some years of me telling Giulio, "You have to be nice to your sister!!!"? I try and remind myself how I felt when my brother came along when I was four, but honestly, I liked him in the begining, it was later that I felt my parents had made a terrible mistake. I know we are in early days here, Livia isn't old enough to retaliate or to intentionally tease Giulio, but some days he sure makes it his mission to bother her, i.e. bother me.
It's Saturday. Lorenzo is at work, like most Saturday mornings, but he should be back by two. Saturdays in Italy are in many ways like weekdays, a lot of kids have school, and many people work Saturday morning. Yesterday I made a special effort to get many things done, the shopping, the cleaning, etc so as to be as free as possible for the kids. We start out OK. When I ask Giulio why he is walking around without his pyjama bottoms on he tells me in English that it's because they smell like cheese. He picks them up off the floor and holds them out to me. "Smell them, Mommy." I demure, but looking at his white pj's I realized that it might be a good time to do a load of whites. I'm sorry, but you let it go a few days and suddenly you find yourself to doing three loads in one day because no one has any more clean socks.
All goes well until I have Livia on our bed and Giulio comes in from playing with his trains and gives Livia a "friendly" bop on her head. I hear myself speak to him and suddenly realize that I have become my mother. "You don't have to like her but you may not hurt her!" I say as I kneel down and hold Giulio by the shoulders and look at him. Where have I heard this line before? Oh, wait when I was about 8 sitting in the back seat of the car en route on our summer vacation. Behind me on the bed Livia wails due to the fact that Giulio's bop has knocked her from sitting up to lying down on her tummy, and I haven't yet propped her back up. Giulio looks back at me and giggles in this high pitched way that drives me nuts. "Just walk away," I tell myself, thinking of my mom's advice. "Don't draw attention to his negative behavior." Which is easier said than done when his negative behavior is all over our bed where I am trying to fold laundry. The neatly folded stacks of onesies crumble and fall as Giulio romps around Livia on the bed, like a dog on all fours. Livia picks up a onsies and tries to stuff it into her mouth. "Giulio, you have to get down. I need to fold the laundry." More giggles. "Wanna help Mommy ?" Giulio ignores me and tries to climb back up on the bed, Livia beams at his antics, flaps her arms and call "ehhhhh!" "Giulio, you can't be on the bed right now. Go play with your trains." Another devious laugh, and then a small car flies through the air, not close enough to hurt Livia, but close enough in her general direction to leave not doubt about the intended target. I pull my trump card and stalk into the living room and start throwing the pieces of track and the metal trains into the blue plastic box. "Mommy NO!" Giulio falls to his knees screaming, then collapses on his stomach, lying prone on the floor. He's crying, Livia due to the fact that her favorite person, Giulio, has left the room, starts crying too. The Dixie Chicks, playing at high volume on the stereo manage to drown out some of the noise, so at least the neighbors won't be too alarmed. I drag Giulio to him room and put him on his bed. He immediately leaps up and follows me screaming and crying. "Get back on your bed!' He drops to his knees again, still crying. And I was so close to doing it right this morning. I was going to be that organized super mom that I dream about and have all three of us outside on our way to the park by 9:30 this morning. I had both kids dressed by eight, breakfast cleaned up and laundry going in the washer by 8:30, and yet somehow I wasn't fast enough. All it took was a few minutes and one household chore too many for the whole thing to collapse just like that stack of onesies.
I take immediate action. Livia, I decide, needs a nap. Giulio's trains can go into time out. I pick up the baby and carry her to her room as Giulio follows me while walking on his knees like a religious pilgrim in front of a holy shrine, screaming "Mommy, hug! Mommy hug!" as I move from room to room. My immediate desire is not to hug him but to smack him, so I keep moving. I finally sit on my bed where he throws his head and arms in my lap, a guilty man pleading for forgiveness. Livia, now outraged at being put to bed, is still yelling from the other room. There is unfolded laundry on the bed, I am still in my pyjamas, the jeans that I had been about to put on about an hour ago are stilll on the chair, and both children are inconsolable. Help. I take Giulio, still shuddering with sobs and hold him on my lap. The Dixie Chicks sing on in the next room about how they could have made it easier on themselves, and while I know they are not talking about dealing with preschoolers I feel at that moment that they are singing to me.
It's Saturday. Lorenzo is at work, like most Saturday mornings, but he should be back by two. Saturdays in Italy are in many ways like weekdays, a lot of kids have school, and many people work Saturday morning. Yesterday I made a special effort to get many things done, the shopping, the cleaning, etc so as to be as free as possible for the kids. We start out OK. When I ask Giulio why he is walking around without his pyjama bottoms on he tells me in English that it's because they smell like cheese. He picks them up off the floor and holds them out to me. "Smell them, Mommy." I demure, but looking at his white pj's I realized that it might be a good time to do a load of whites. I'm sorry, but you let it go a few days and suddenly you find yourself to doing three loads in one day because no one has any more clean socks.
All goes well until I have Livia on our bed and Giulio comes in from playing with his trains and gives Livia a "friendly" bop on her head. I hear myself speak to him and suddenly realize that I have become my mother. "You don't have to like her but you may not hurt her!" I say as I kneel down and hold Giulio by the shoulders and look at him. Where have I heard this line before? Oh, wait when I was about 8 sitting in the back seat of the car en route on our summer vacation. Behind me on the bed Livia wails due to the fact that Giulio's bop has knocked her from sitting up to lying down on her tummy, and I haven't yet propped her back up. Giulio looks back at me and giggles in this high pitched way that drives me nuts. "Just walk away," I tell myself, thinking of my mom's advice. "Don't draw attention to his negative behavior." Which is easier said than done when his negative behavior is all over our bed where I am trying to fold laundry. The neatly folded stacks of onesies crumble and fall as Giulio romps around Livia on the bed, like a dog on all fours. Livia picks up a onsies and tries to stuff it into her mouth. "Giulio, you have to get down. I need to fold the laundry." More giggles. "Wanna help Mommy ?" Giulio ignores me and tries to climb back up on the bed, Livia beams at his antics, flaps her arms and call "ehhhhh!" "Giulio, you can't be on the bed right now. Go play with your trains." Another devious laugh, and then a small car flies through the air, not close enough to hurt Livia, but close enough in her general direction to leave not doubt about the intended target. I pull my trump card and stalk into the living room and start throwing the pieces of track and the metal trains into the blue plastic box. "Mommy NO!" Giulio falls to his knees screaming, then collapses on his stomach, lying prone on the floor. He's crying, Livia due to the fact that her favorite person, Giulio, has left the room, starts crying too. The Dixie Chicks, playing at high volume on the stereo manage to drown out some of the noise, so at least the neighbors won't be too alarmed. I drag Giulio to him room and put him on his bed. He immediately leaps up and follows me screaming and crying. "Get back on your bed!' He drops to his knees again, still crying. And I was so close to doing it right this morning. I was going to be that organized super mom that I dream about and have all three of us outside on our way to the park by 9:30 this morning. I had both kids dressed by eight, breakfast cleaned up and laundry going in the washer by 8:30, and yet somehow I wasn't fast enough. All it took was a few minutes and one household chore too many for the whole thing to collapse just like that stack of onesies.
I take immediate action. Livia, I decide, needs a nap. Giulio's trains can go into time out. I pick up the baby and carry her to her room as Giulio follows me while walking on his knees like a religious pilgrim in front of a holy shrine, screaming "Mommy, hug! Mommy hug!" as I move from room to room. My immediate desire is not to hug him but to smack him, so I keep moving. I finally sit on my bed where he throws his head and arms in my lap, a guilty man pleading for forgiveness. Livia, now outraged at being put to bed, is still yelling from the other room. There is unfolded laundry on the bed, I am still in my pyjamas, the jeans that I had been about to put on about an hour ago are stilll on the chair, and both children are inconsolable. Help. I take Giulio, still shuddering with sobs and hold him on my lap. The Dixie Chicks sing on in the next room about how they could have made it easier on themselves, and while I know they are not talking about dealing with preschoolers I feel at that moment that they are singing to me.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
In the wee small hours of the morning
I read in the New York Times a few weeks ago that sleep has become the new sex. To paraphrase Alison Pearson, I used to dream of going to bed with other people, now I dream of going to bed alone and sleeping for 12 uninterrupted hours. I have very talented children. They always know exactly when Mommy has just collapsed into a exhausted sleep and choose that moment to be hungry, thirsty, have a nightmare, or just suddenly find their cover is no longer to their liking. My one rule is not let Giulio get into the habit of sleeping with us during the night. This has nothing to do with being for or against the family bed, but when Giulio sleeps with us Lorenzo and I end up hanging on with a death grip to each side of the matress while Giulio sprawls confortably between us. Or he gets in with us and then strokes our eyebrows (yes, and I don't know why he likes eyebrows) until he falls asleep. Ever try to sleep while a three year old grips your forehead? I can't say I recommend it. Some nights the kids are very good, they go to sleep when I put them to sleep and then they stay asleep until morning. But those nights are few a far between. More likely my evenings go something like this:
10:30--Giulio appears at the door of the living room. "Need to go pee" he informs us before ripping off his diaper, throwing it on the floor and running into the bathroom. Giulio is potty trained. Night after night he goes to sleep with a diaper on, wakes up with it still dry. We go on like this, with him complaining about having to wear the diaper until I decide that he doesn't need it anymore and let him sleep in his underwear, and then that's the night he wets the bed. As I have decided that I am too tired at 3 am to be ripping sheets off beds and digging around in a dark bedroom to find clean ones while my husband sleeps the sleep of the dead in the next room, Giulio will just have to put up with the diaper at night for a while longer.
He finishes in the bathroom, and comes back to the living room, looking all cute and adorable as he rubs his eyes. "Want to sit on the couch, Mommy." And I let him. He's wonderful right now, quiet and calm, happy to sit and be cuddled in my lap, and yes, I do feel guilty about all the times during the day I yell, tell him no, lose my patience with him, so I let him stay there, occasionally giving him a kiss on the head or cheek. And that's fine until I realize that it's getting on for after 11 and we have to be thinking about going to bed ourselves soon, and that I want Giulio back in his own bed before I get into mine. Only now Giulio has no intention of going sweetly back to bed. "Mommy, don't wanna go to bed, wanna sleep with mommy and daddy." I carry him back to his room, his protests growing louder until they are full fledged sobs as I put him on his bed. "Sshh!" I hiss. "You'll wake Livia!" I start to leave the room, trying to ignore him when he yells "kiss!" Mommy, kiss!" I go back, the kiss works, he agrees to lie down and close his eyes. I give him a kiss and I am heading for the door when I hear Livia whimper and roll over. I freeze. She sighs, and then it's quiet again. I remain frozen for a moment and the creep slowly back into the hallway. Time for bed. Now.
12:15--I get into bed, where Lorenzo is already asleep, though he was awake and talking to me two minutes ago, and turn off the light. The sheets are just getting nice and warm when I hear it. A sort of whine/cry from the next room. Livia. I wait, trying to use the power of positive thinking. Pleasepleaseplease go back to sleep. Silence. Maybe I heard wrong. No, there it is again. She's awake, and not happy about it either. I go back into their bedroom, the one advantage to living in a small apartment is that their bedroom is the room next door, and take her out of the crib. Giulio is sleeping like the scene from 20 minutes ago never happened. I take Livia back to our room and get back into bed, letting her nurse once I am comfortably on my side. She's hungry poor dear, dinner was a long time ago so I will let her nurse for like 20 minutes, and then I am taking her back to her bed. Yes, that's that plan, that's what I'll do....she'll just be a few minutes...........
1:50--I wake wake to find that arm of my pyjamas soaked with sweat where Livia is sleeping in the crook of my arm. God, what time is it? I couldn't tell you what day it was right now if you asked me. I pull Livia onto my chest, roll onto my other side and get up, and take her back to her bed. I have just put her in the crib and covered her when "Mommy? Want water." A good mother would have water in spill proof cup by the bed ready for emergencies like this, but all we have is an empty plastic cup rolling on the floor from when Giulio had a drink of water two nights ago. I go to the kitchen, fill up the cup, and take it back. He downs it like a college student pounding a beer and immediately sticks that cup back out at me. "More." I go back to the kitchen.
3:30--Another yell from the bedroom. Livia again? Geez, she must be growing or teething or hungry or whatever it is that makes babies wake up in the night. Some old tip from a mommy-baby website comes to mind. Give the baby water and she will lose the habit of waking and asking to nurse. I go to the kitchen to get a baby bottle, except I can't find one. I look in the drying rack above the sink where it should be, only it's not there. Livia's cries grow louder. Where is the damn bottle, the last thing I want is Giulio to wake up again. I finally find the bottle in the half empty dishwasher which contains only dirty dishes. I quickly wash it out, fill it with water, screw the cap back on, and take it to Livia. In the dark it's a bit difficult to see exactly so I just poke around with the bottle until it finds Livia's mouth. Jesus, she was thirsty, listen to her suck it down. She lets go for a moment and I hold the bottle up to the nightlight to see how much she drank. The bottle is empty. That's impossible, there is no way she drank 5 ounces of water is 30 seconds. I suddenly feel a drop of water on my foot, then another one, then a stream. I look at the bottle again and realize the top is on crooked. No, please no. I put my hand on the crib matress and feel it. It's soaked. I have just poured 5 ounces of water all over my daughter and her bed. Livia cooes as I pick her up and take her over to the changing table to remove her wet onesie and baby-gro, hey might as well changer her diaper while I'm at it. When I am finished I take her into our room and leave her with a still sleeping Lorenzo. I go back to the room and take the sheets off the bed, mop the water from the floor, flip the matress and put clean sheets on it. I go back to our room, Livia is lying there cooing, wide awake and waving her arms around. I guess I will just nurse her, that is what started all this. It's 4:10. I lying there dozing, as Livia nurses and finally lies back, content and full, and then I carry her back for the 100th time to her now dry bed. She sleeps. Giulio sleeps. It is now 5:00. I stumble back to our room and get into bed. Lorenzo sighs in his sleep and rolls over.
6:30--" Mommy?" A voice in my ear, a hand on my eyebrow. "Mommy, I'm hungry. Wanna watch Thomas the Tank Engine." I kick Lorenzo under the covers."Giulio's hungry." I mumble. He can handle this one.
10:30--Giulio appears at the door of the living room. "Need to go pee" he informs us before ripping off his diaper, throwing it on the floor and running into the bathroom. Giulio is potty trained. Night after night he goes to sleep with a diaper on, wakes up with it still dry. We go on like this, with him complaining about having to wear the diaper until I decide that he doesn't need it anymore and let him sleep in his underwear, and then that's the night he wets the bed. As I have decided that I am too tired at 3 am to be ripping sheets off beds and digging around in a dark bedroom to find clean ones while my husband sleeps the sleep of the dead in the next room, Giulio will just have to put up with the diaper at night for a while longer.
He finishes in the bathroom, and comes back to the living room, looking all cute and adorable as he rubs his eyes. "Want to sit on the couch, Mommy." And I let him. He's wonderful right now, quiet and calm, happy to sit and be cuddled in my lap, and yes, I do feel guilty about all the times during the day I yell, tell him no, lose my patience with him, so I let him stay there, occasionally giving him a kiss on the head or cheek. And that's fine until I realize that it's getting on for after 11 and we have to be thinking about going to bed ourselves soon, and that I want Giulio back in his own bed before I get into mine. Only now Giulio has no intention of going sweetly back to bed. "Mommy, don't wanna go to bed, wanna sleep with mommy and daddy." I carry him back to his room, his protests growing louder until they are full fledged sobs as I put him on his bed. "Sshh!" I hiss. "You'll wake Livia!" I start to leave the room, trying to ignore him when he yells "kiss!" Mommy, kiss!" I go back, the kiss works, he agrees to lie down and close his eyes. I give him a kiss and I am heading for the door when I hear Livia whimper and roll over. I freeze. She sighs, and then it's quiet again. I remain frozen for a moment and the creep slowly back into the hallway. Time for bed. Now.
12:15--I get into bed, where Lorenzo is already asleep, though he was awake and talking to me two minutes ago, and turn off the light. The sheets are just getting nice and warm when I hear it. A sort of whine/cry from the next room. Livia. I wait, trying to use the power of positive thinking. Pleasepleaseplease go back to sleep. Silence. Maybe I heard wrong. No, there it is again. She's awake, and not happy about it either. I go back into their bedroom, the one advantage to living in a small apartment is that their bedroom is the room next door, and take her out of the crib. Giulio is sleeping like the scene from 20 minutes ago never happened. I take Livia back to our room and get back into bed, letting her nurse once I am comfortably on my side. She's hungry poor dear, dinner was a long time ago so I will let her nurse for like 20 minutes, and then I am taking her back to her bed. Yes, that's that plan, that's what I'll do....she'll just be a few minutes...........
1:50--I wake wake to find that arm of my pyjamas soaked with sweat where Livia is sleeping in the crook of my arm. God, what time is it? I couldn't tell you what day it was right now if you asked me. I pull Livia onto my chest, roll onto my other side and get up, and take her back to her bed. I have just put her in the crib and covered her when "Mommy? Want water." A good mother would have water in spill proof cup by the bed ready for emergencies like this, but all we have is an empty plastic cup rolling on the floor from when Giulio had a drink of water two nights ago. I go to the kitchen, fill up the cup, and take it back. He downs it like a college student pounding a beer and immediately sticks that cup back out at me. "More." I go back to the kitchen.
3:30--Another yell from the bedroom. Livia again? Geez, she must be growing or teething or hungry or whatever it is that makes babies wake up in the night. Some old tip from a mommy-baby website comes to mind. Give the baby water and she will lose the habit of waking and asking to nurse. I go to the kitchen to get a baby bottle, except I can't find one. I look in the drying rack above the sink where it should be, only it's not there. Livia's cries grow louder. Where is the damn bottle, the last thing I want is Giulio to wake up again. I finally find the bottle in the half empty dishwasher which contains only dirty dishes. I quickly wash it out, fill it with water, screw the cap back on, and take it to Livia. In the dark it's a bit difficult to see exactly so I just poke around with the bottle until it finds Livia's mouth. Jesus, she was thirsty, listen to her suck it down. She lets go for a moment and I hold the bottle up to the nightlight to see how much she drank. The bottle is empty. That's impossible, there is no way she drank 5 ounces of water is 30 seconds. I suddenly feel a drop of water on my foot, then another one, then a stream. I look at the bottle again and realize the top is on crooked. No, please no. I put my hand on the crib matress and feel it. It's soaked. I have just poured 5 ounces of water all over my daughter and her bed. Livia cooes as I pick her up and take her over to the changing table to remove her wet onesie and baby-gro, hey might as well changer her diaper while I'm at it. When I am finished I take her into our room and leave her with a still sleeping Lorenzo. I go back to the room and take the sheets off the bed, mop the water from the floor, flip the matress and put clean sheets on it. I go back to our room, Livia is lying there cooing, wide awake and waving her arms around. I guess I will just nurse her, that is what started all this. It's 4:10. I lying there dozing, as Livia nurses and finally lies back, content and full, and then I carry her back for the 100th time to her now dry bed. She sleeps. Giulio sleeps. It is now 5:00. I stumble back to our room and get into bed. Lorenzo sighs in his sleep and rolls over.
6:30--" Mommy?" A voice in my ear, a hand on my eyebrow. "Mommy, I'm hungry. Wanna watch Thomas the Tank Engine." I kick Lorenzo under the covers."Giulio's hungry." I mumble. He can handle this one.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
A hour in the life of me
Evenings for most people is a time to unwind, to let go of the day and to knock back a cool alcoholic beverage. For me, evenings are the chaotic peak of my day, a time when I become the multi-tasking wizard of universe. I work evenings, usually just for an hour and half, but the preparation that goes into those two hours when I will be absent from the house would make anyone take to doing shots of vodka after 5 pm. I go to work right around the time my husband is coming home from work, sometime I barely have time to yell bye before throwing a baby in his arms and fleeing shouting instructions as I run downstairs. Other times, when he is late I meet him at the driveway so I don't have to wait for him to climb the two flights up to our apartment. Yesterday was a fine example. I get Giulio from school around 4, and unfortunately, due to the fact that most stores are closed in the hours that I am free, from 12.30-3, I am usually unable to fit in a run to the store before getting Giulio. I had Livia with me as well, which complicated things even further because in addition to the "lively" pre-schooler and the bag of groceries, I had a baby in the stroller. Giulio is always a bit wacky right after school and if I was a better mother I would have know better to try and attempt a trip to the store, what with two kids and the fact that I needed to be a work at 6. Unfortunately I needed groceries more. I flew through the store, throwing things into the giant blue IKEA bag slung over my shoulder, and heavier items under Livia's stroller. Why not use a cart and put the baby in the carrier? Because some weird form of logic on my part that said that it would take too much time to strap the baby to my chest and to use the cart to carry Giulio and groceries. Therefore I pushed the stroller with one hand, held Giulio with the other, while I was practically bent double under the weight of the bag. I had forgotten that we needed milk, juice, and wine. Back in the car, the clock read 4.30. Ok, I thought, got a little more than an hour to feed Livia (i.e. nurse her and feed her baby food), get dinner ready for Lorenzo and me, and get myself out the door. I had hoped to see our little blue FIAT parked in front of our building when we got home, a sign that Lorenzo was there, but no such luck. My 70 year old neighbor, Sig.ra Pala met me at the entrance to our yard and insisted on carrying my heavy groceries up the 3 flights of steps, leaving me only the baby to carry. As well as Giulio to coax up the the stairs. He was in dog mode again, knowing that there was no way I could carry him as well as Livia up, and so decided to do a little Edith Piaf fainting number by lying on the landing and refusing to move.
Once we all got inside, things moved into high gear. I nursed Livia, got Giulio settled with his cars, and then starting cooking Livia's baby vegetables and chopping up veggies for the "adults" dinner. Giulio won't eat anything that comes out of the ground, except maybe potatoes, and only if they are in an altered, fried form. I take a deep breath and start of feel a bit nervous, it is now 5.15. I'm chopping away like a mad woman, throwing vegetables into the sizzling pan and clamping the lid on over it while Livia starts to voclly demand her dinner. I have finally sat down and started to spoon feed the meat-veg puree into her mouth when I hear Giulio call from the bathroom. Oh no. Please don't tell me he chose this moment to go to the bathroom. Giulio has gone from being a constipated toddler to a regular preschooler, but this can lead to moments where the bathroom doesn't seem like was used by a small child going to the bathroom but has instead been visited by monkeys who enjoy finger painting. I walk in, so far so good, everything seems clean, and Giulio is just asking to be wiped. OK. It's when I have almost finished wiping him that I see that somehow a large piece of poop has fallen on the floor, onto the rug, and Giulio managed to stand on it. With both feet. There is poop all over the white bathmat, on the floor, and on his white socks. I start yelling, like Giulio is strapped with explosives that might go off at any moment. "Don't move! Don't move! Stay there!" I scream, yanking his socks off and throwing them into the washer. Livia wails away in the next room. "I'm coming!" I call, throwing the white poopey bathmats into the washer, dumping some detergent on top and cranking the water temperature up. I wash my hands and the return to the scene in the kitchen, the frying pan sizzling away, Livia sobbing in her high chair, her dinner now a cold congealed lump in the bowl. "Sorry, sorry baby." I say sitting down again to feed her. Shit, does the clock really say 5:35? Where is Lorenzo? Stupid question, it means he's coming, just not yet. I walk to the window to see if I see his car, maybe about to turn into our street. No sign of the car, but I do see a woman I know who lives across the street from me pedal past on her bicycle. I open the window. "Giusy!" I call, "Dimmi cara." Tell me she calls back. "can you come up here for a minute and just sit with the kids for 10 minutes until Lorenzo gets home?" This seems so absurd, yelling out to someone passing by my building to come and babysit, but I am desperate. I have to leave in like 2 minutes, and I know Giusy pretty well. She's never been to my house before, but hey, no time like the present. Three minutes later she is sitting in the arm chair holding Livia while Giulio plays in (clean) underwear at her feet with his cars, I'm grabbing my bag and shouting directions as I run downstairs. "Justsitrighttherelorenzowillbehomeinfiveminutes.byegiulio!" Lorenzo calls me when I am in the car to tell me that he is almost home. Well, better late than never.
Later at school where I teach english, one of my students comments that my photocopies (done at 5:59, one minute before the class starts) are crooked. I fix him a steely gaze. "Listen, you have no idea......"
Once we all got inside, things moved into high gear. I nursed Livia, got Giulio settled with his cars, and then starting cooking Livia's baby vegetables and chopping up veggies for the "adults" dinner. Giulio won't eat anything that comes out of the ground, except maybe potatoes, and only if they are in an altered, fried form. I take a deep breath and start of feel a bit nervous, it is now 5.15. I'm chopping away like a mad woman, throwing vegetables into the sizzling pan and clamping the lid on over it while Livia starts to voclly demand her dinner. I have finally sat down and started to spoon feed the meat-veg puree into her mouth when I hear Giulio call from the bathroom. Oh no. Please don't tell me he chose this moment to go to the bathroom. Giulio has gone from being a constipated toddler to a regular preschooler, but this can lead to moments where the bathroom doesn't seem like was used by a small child going to the bathroom but has instead been visited by monkeys who enjoy finger painting. I walk in, so far so good, everything seems clean, and Giulio is just asking to be wiped. OK. It's when I have almost finished wiping him that I see that somehow a large piece of poop has fallen on the floor, onto the rug, and Giulio managed to stand on it. With both feet. There is poop all over the white bathmat, on the floor, and on his white socks. I start yelling, like Giulio is strapped with explosives that might go off at any moment. "Don't move! Don't move! Stay there!" I scream, yanking his socks off and throwing them into the washer. Livia wails away in the next room. "I'm coming!" I call, throwing the white poopey bathmats into the washer, dumping some detergent on top and cranking the water temperature up. I wash my hands and the return to the scene in the kitchen, the frying pan sizzling away, Livia sobbing in her high chair, her dinner now a cold congealed lump in the bowl. "Sorry, sorry baby." I say sitting down again to feed her. Shit, does the clock really say 5:35? Where is Lorenzo? Stupid question, it means he's coming, just not yet. I walk to the window to see if I see his car, maybe about to turn into our street. No sign of the car, but I do see a woman I know who lives across the street from me pedal past on her bicycle. I open the window. "Giusy!" I call, "Dimmi cara." Tell me she calls back. "can you come up here for a minute and just sit with the kids for 10 minutes until Lorenzo gets home?" This seems so absurd, yelling out to someone passing by my building to come and babysit, but I am desperate. I have to leave in like 2 minutes, and I know Giusy pretty well. She's never been to my house before, but hey, no time like the present. Three minutes later she is sitting in the arm chair holding Livia while Giulio plays in (clean) underwear at her feet with his cars, I'm grabbing my bag and shouting directions as I run downstairs. "Justsitrighttherelorenzowillbehomeinfiveminutes.byegiulio!" Lorenzo calls me when I am in the car to tell me that he is almost home. Well, better late than never.
Later at school where I teach english, one of my students comments that my photocopies (done at 5:59, one minute before the class starts) are crooked. I fix him a steely gaze. "Listen, you have no idea......"
Sunday, March 11, 2007
and on the seventh day we rested
So in the end we went to Genoa. I was all for bagging the trip. Sometime around 3 am when I stumbled out of bed to get a wailing Livia I was about to tell Lorenzo that the whole thing was off, but I seem to have fallen back asleep before I got the words out. And then at 6:45 Giulio was up and in our bed, and then Livia started wailing from the next room (I had escorted her back around 5am) and then Lorenzo and Giulio started wrestling and giggling, which always drives me up the wall, especially first thing in the morning and suddenly a long sleep-in no longer seemed possible. So we were out the door by 8:30 (practically a record, we couldn't have been this fast if we had actually had a set time to meet someone,) and we were in Genoa a little after 11. It was a lovely day. Sunny and the wind that had been bearing down on the highway eased up once we got into the city. Genova is a long, narrow city that hugs the coastline, with tiny, pebbly beaches peeking out between the rocky coast, lapped by clear, blue-green water. There is also a long, paved walkway that goes along the coast, what Italians call a Lungomare and it was walking along there that we found a restaurant that had windows that looked out over the sea and it was here that we had lunch. Not that we were without annoyances. Giulio had refused breakast after dragging his dad out of bed this morning saying he was hungry. We had been on the road all of 15 minutes and there he was telling me he was hungry. "Now" I said to Lorenzo, "He will eat his cookies then demand juice which he will then manage to spill all over himself." Sure enough. "Mommy, I want juice." My job on car rides is to act as flight attendant, making sure that all people on board are watered and fed with a minimum ammount of disturbance to the pilot. It's a job that at times I think involves more effort than driving the whole distance myself; twisting my arm behind my head I pass snacks, juice boxes, precarious cups of water, wipes, and tissues to the back seat, as well as keep them on offer for the pilot. I mean Lorenzo. At any rate it shows how well I know my son, or at least how well I know three year olds, because a minute later I hear a wail of displeasure from Giulio, "Mommy, wet!" and there is pear juice down the front of his (thankfully) brown sweatshirt. Once we get to Genoa Lorenzo, against my wishes, offers Giulio the second stroller and suddenly the energetic little boy who could barely sit in his seat a moment before is suddenly unable to walk. I push him in his stroller, feeling like a bishop pushing a Borghese Pope up over curbs and down hills. In the stroller Giulio is completely calm and still, his regal gaze taking in the blue sea on our left. Finally my annoyance at pushing him along (he has been walking long distances without a stroller for months now, and believe me he needs to burn off some energy before we sit down to lunch,) gets the better of me and I ask Lorenzo to take over, preferring to push the one member of our family who is still too little to walk.
We get seated at the restaurant, that luckily is almost empty and then encounter a new crisis. We are in a restaurant whose speciality is fish, pasta, and pizza. Guess who only wants meat? The waiter stands patiently by the table as we try to trick Giulio into thinking that he really does want pasta but to no avail. "I want chicca," he says, using the dialect word for meat that he learned at school. There are moments when you get a glimpse of yourself, from before you had children, watching someone else's child, in this case refusing food in a restaurant. Mine will be different you told yourself as you knocked back your second glass of white wine and turned your attention back to the dessert list. And my son is here today to show me that mine are not different. Children are like dogs, how much they know you want them to eat something is relative to how likely they are to refuse it, and today Giulio is in top canine form, refusing a dish (pasta) that he normally eats without fail (and at school has seconds of) every day. I'm giving him the hairy eyeball when the waiter intervenes offering an olive branch in the from of prosciutto (ham). We gratefully accept.
We sit back to wait for our order when I realize that we have left Livia's baby food in the car. Lorenzo offers to walk the 10 minutes back to the car to get it, but that seems absurd when she can nurse right here. Except that we are in the middle of the restaurant and instead of concentrating on eating and therefore keeping everything decently covered, Livia keeps twisting her head to gaze around the restaurant. I try to keep her focused for a few minutes and then give up, I don't want to frighten the waiter. Men are all fine with exposed breasts when its for them but have a baby attached to one and they run a mile in embarrassment.
Lunch takes ages. It would be fine to go at a leisurely pace if it was just Lorenzo and myself talking about whatever it is people talk about when they find themselves at a restaurant without children, but after an hour we have only been served one course and the meal has become an exercise in tag teaming. Livia has decided that today will be the day that she too will be lively, defying her role as the Easy Going One, and is not content to sit in my lap or in her stroller. We eat in shifts. One eats with one child at the table, usually in our lap, while the other is outside letting the other child blow off steam. Shift changes are signaled by cell phone to announce that the next course has arrived, one of us wolfing it down so as to get back outside as quickly as possible, while the other is left gazing around the room at the other guests who are all in the midst of meanful (childless) conversations over mouthfuls of spaghetti alle vongole. Bringing children to restaurants is not taboo in Italy, but today we seem to have been the only ones to attempt this, though our fellow dinners barely give us a glance, unlike the death glares we probably would have gotten in the States. We finally get away after over two hours, Giulio collapsing in his stroller, his legs limp, tired after his lunchtime romp. We ask him 10 times if he needs to go to the bathroom before we leave and he refuses, waiting until we are halfway back to the car before announcing that he has to go. Livia, whose energy hasn't left her since we arrived in Genoa is asleep before we have gone a hundred yards.
We decided to drive further down the coast, to Nervi, which is just outside Genoa to take a walk to work off lunch and to get an ice cream. Here in Nervi it's hand to hand combat for a parking spot, but in the end, some distance from the shore, we find a spot. We are asked by three different passing cars if we are leaving even before we've had time to unfasten our seatbelts. This time I make Giulio walk, holding his hand and trying to distract him by pointing out passing buses as if they were something new and exotic. "Look!" I cry "A bus!" Giulio is not impressed. Our walk ends much the same way as our lunch, Giulio needing to be carried, claiming he is too tired and refusing all offers of the bathroom, though the gelato that we get is excellent.
We finally get home around 7. I know Sunday is supposed to be relaxing but I am exhausted. Tomorrow Giulio goes back to school, and he is asleep before I turn the light out, Livia goes a few minutes later. Peace finally prevails. Lorenzo and I are finally alone and we are too tired to talk, case in point, it's 10 and Lorenzo is asleep on the couch. Wonder why.
We get seated at the restaurant, that luckily is almost empty and then encounter a new crisis. We are in a restaurant whose speciality is fish, pasta, and pizza. Guess who only wants meat? The waiter stands patiently by the table as we try to trick Giulio into thinking that he really does want pasta but to no avail. "I want chicca," he says, using the dialect word for meat that he learned at school. There are moments when you get a glimpse of yourself, from before you had children, watching someone else's child, in this case refusing food in a restaurant. Mine will be different you told yourself as you knocked back your second glass of white wine and turned your attention back to the dessert list. And my son is here today to show me that mine are not different. Children are like dogs, how much they know you want them to eat something is relative to how likely they are to refuse it, and today Giulio is in top canine form, refusing a dish (pasta) that he normally eats without fail (and at school has seconds of) every day. I'm giving him the hairy eyeball when the waiter intervenes offering an olive branch in the from of prosciutto (ham). We gratefully accept.
We sit back to wait for our order when I realize that we have left Livia's baby food in the car. Lorenzo offers to walk the 10 minutes back to the car to get it, but that seems absurd when she can nurse right here. Except that we are in the middle of the restaurant and instead of concentrating on eating and therefore keeping everything decently covered, Livia keeps twisting her head to gaze around the restaurant. I try to keep her focused for a few minutes and then give up, I don't want to frighten the waiter. Men are all fine with exposed breasts when its for them but have a baby attached to one and they run a mile in embarrassment.
Lunch takes ages. It would be fine to go at a leisurely pace if it was just Lorenzo and myself talking about whatever it is people talk about when they find themselves at a restaurant without children, but after an hour we have only been served one course and the meal has become an exercise in tag teaming. Livia has decided that today will be the day that she too will be lively, defying her role as the Easy Going One, and is not content to sit in my lap or in her stroller. We eat in shifts. One eats with one child at the table, usually in our lap, while the other is outside letting the other child blow off steam. Shift changes are signaled by cell phone to announce that the next course has arrived, one of us wolfing it down so as to get back outside as quickly as possible, while the other is left gazing around the room at the other guests who are all in the midst of meanful (childless) conversations over mouthfuls of spaghetti alle vongole. Bringing children to restaurants is not taboo in Italy, but today we seem to have been the only ones to attempt this, though our fellow dinners barely give us a glance, unlike the death glares we probably would have gotten in the States. We finally get away after over two hours, Giulio collapsing in his stroller, his legs limp, tired after his lunchtime romp. We ask him 10 times if he needs to go to the bathroom before we leave and he refuses, waiting until we are halfway back to the car before announcing that he has to go. Livia, whose energy hasn't left her since we arrived in Genoa is asleep before we have gone a hundred yards.
We decided to drive further down the coast, to Nervi, which is just outside Genoa to take a walk to work off lunch and to get an ice cream. Here in Nervi it's hand to hand combat for a parking spot, but in the end, some distance from the shore, we find a spot. We are asked by three different passing cars if we are leaving even before we've had time to unfasten our seatbelts. This time I make Giulio walk, holding his hand and trying to distract him by pointing out passing buses as if they were something new and exotic. "Look!" I cry "A bus!" Giulio is not impressed. Our walk ends much the same way as our lunch, Giulio needing to be carried, claiming he is too tired and refusing all offers of the bathroom, though the gelato that we get is excellent.
We finally get home around 7. I know Sunday is supposed to be relaxing but I am exhausted. Tomorrow Giulio goes back to school, and he is asleep before I turn the light out, Livia goes a few minutes later. Peace finally prevails. Lorenzo and I are finally alone and we are too tired to talk, case in point, it's 10 and Lorenzo is asleep on the couch. Wonder why.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
TGIF?
Ah the weekend! The long week of working evenings are now behind me and I get to enjoy quality time with my children! Yes! Tonight I shall be the one who puts the kids to bed, laughing with them in the bath, singing to them as they put on pajamas, and that blissful sense of happiness as I turn on the nightlight and watch them drift off to sleep. Except, well, except that now it is only Saturday morning and I am already looking forward to Monday when I wave Giulio off to nursery school escorted by his daddy. This week is a bit of an exception, Giulio has been home from school with laryngitis that turned into bronchitis since last Friday and here we are on Day 9 of All 3 Year Old, All the Time. This morning Giulio was up at 6:45, ready for breakfast and Thomas the Tank Engine even before our alarm clock had gone off. As my husband Lorenzo dozed for a few more minutes (he goes to work on Saturdays and often Sundays but more about that later) I got Giugi his breakfast of milk and a slice of what in the US would be considered pie, but here in Italy is considered breakfast. Italians like sugar and caffeine first thing in the morning, though breakfast cereals are starting to catch on. I try and strike a compromise with Giulio, bread with Nutella and also offer cereal which is occasionally accepted, but it's hard to get a kid excited about whole grain flakes when his father is standing there eating a breakfast cake. This particular morning it's crostata, a kind of thick apricot jam over a pie crust and with a lattice-work top. All is calm until about 8 o'clock when Lorenzo goes off to work and Giulio goes crashing into his room to get his Thomas the Tank Engine train set and in doing so wakes up his sister Livia, seven months, who I had managed to coax back to sleep after nursing around 6:30. She is furious about being woken and then furious about being left alone in dark bedroom. I wait, hoping that she will calm down and fall back asleep the way she does when we actually have to get out of the house in the morning, but she keeps yelling so after a few minutes I go in and get her. Livia is a happy baby, and never happier than when her brother is there, so I put her down on the floor with a few cushions so she can watch Giulio play with his trains, and he gives her a few pieces of plastic track to play with as consolation for waking her. It's a rather one-sided relationship; Livia all smiles and adoring eyes for her brother, him a mix of smiles and well-place bonks on the head for her. Livia takes a lot of the abuse in stride, but sometimes Giulio's impulses are stronger than him, and this morning when my back is turned their adorable grab-my-camera-to-take-pictures play turns ugly and next thing I know Livia is red in the face and screaming, while Giulio looks on a with a guilty expression. He is promptly banished to his room while I coo over Livia and after a few moments she is cooing again too. She keeps fussing though, even after a snack of baby yoghurt, so I put her down for a nap around 10:15, where after a few minutes of outraged crying, she falls asleep.
Sometimes I think if I was a better organized and more energetic mother I would have both children dressed and downstairs in the huge yard that surrounds our apartment building by 8:30. Giulio on his tricycle, Livia in her stroller we would go over to the park down the street and all of the scenes and mess that make up our morning would be avoided. Instead here it is 11 o'clock and Giulio is walking around naked from the waist down (he took off his pyjama bottoms and couldn't be bothered to put them back on) and I am here in my pyjamas, though we need to get a move on if I am going to get to the supermarket and have lunch ready for 2 o'clock when Lorenzo gets home. I'm feeling tired this morning, though all things considered I had a "good" night, I was only woken twice between 11 and 6 and only one of those times was after midnight. For me though the ultimate luxury of Saturday is not having to go anywhere, no trying to get two kids plus myself simutaneously fed and dressed before being taken to school and daycare and then going on to work. When Lorenzo is home that's harder to do, he is a man who never wastes a moment, and in fact suggested that tomorrow being his day off if we felt like going to Liguria, to some town near Genoa and spend the day at the beach. The weather promises to be good, and golden images float through my mind of the kids playing happily together in the sand. But to make the two and half hour drive to Genoa we are going to have to be up early, like 6.30, yet another reason to savour sitting around doing nothing today. But as anyone who has small children can tell you, sitting around doing nothing is really impossilbe. It may be what you are trying to do, between cleaning up messes, wiping noses, conforting tears, making snacks, and changing diapers, but the next thing you know it's 12.30 and you have spent your entire morning trying to just sit down long enough to read the New York Times on-line.
Sometimes I think if I was a better organized and more energetic mother I would have both children dressed and downstairs in the huge yard that surrounds our apartment building by 8:30. Giulio on his tricycle, Livia in her stroller we would go over to the park down the street and all of the scenes and mess that make up our morning would be avoided. Instead here it is 11 o'clock and Giulio is walking around naked from the waist down (he took off his pyjama bottoms and couldn't be bothered to put them back on) and I am here in my pyjamas, though we need to get a move on if I am going to get to the supermarket and have lunch ready for 2 o'clock when Lorenzo gets home. I'm feeling tired this morning, though all things considered I had a "good" night, I was only woken twice between 11 and 6 and only one of those times was after midnight. For me though the ultimate luxury of Saturday is not having to go anywhere, no trying to get two kids plus myself simutaneously fed and dressed before being taken to school and daycare and then going on to work. When Lorenzo is home that's harder to do, he is a man who never wastes a moment, and in fact suggested that tomorrow being his day off if we felt like going to Liguria, to some town near Genoa and spend the day at the beach. The weather promises to be good, and golden images float through my mind of the kids playing happily together in the sand. But to make the two and half hour drive to Genoa we are going to have to be up early, like 6.30, yet another reason to savour sitting around doing nothing today. But as anyone who has small children can tell you, sitting around doing nothing is really impossilbe. It may be what you are trying to do, between cleaning up messes, wiping noses, conforting tears, making snacks, and changing diapers, but the next thing you know it's 12.30 and you have spent your entire morning trying to just sit down long enough to read the New York Times on-line.
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