Busy pre-christmas weekend

Well, it was a very busy pre-Christmas weekend for us. Now that it is Monday I am finally getting a chance to recover.

It started on Thursday night. The moms of Colin's first grade class organised a pizza party at a local restaurant for the kids. Nice idea, because they chose a restaurant with a play area for kids, complete with "entertainers" (a nice euphemism for babysitters) to watch them while they are in the play area, and a big screen out in the dining area, so the moms could keep an eye on them, when they weren't chatting away. Unfortunately, it was supposed to start at 7:30pm, which of course means that it did not actually get underway until 8:00pm, and we finally made it home at 11:00pm! On a school night! And since Marco was out of town for the night, Lucia was also out until 11:00pm (she did however, nap for about the last half hour on my lap at the restaurant). Colin had a blast, and the children only stopped running around long enough to shove some pizza in their faces, then later, ice cream. However, getting them out of bed for school on Friday was a nightmare.

Saturday was Lucia's big day. December 13th is the feast of Santa Lucia, or Saint Lucy. In Italy, is it common to celebrate the feast day of your patron saint with gifts, etc. And Santa Lucia is a very important saint here, in fact, in parts of Italy, gifts are given to children on Santa Lucia instead of Christmas. Lucia was psyched with the attention this afforded her, and referred to the day as "Santa Me". I tried to explain to her that nobody would ever take her for a saint, but that there was a woman whose name was also Lucia, who was a very good person and.... And that was about the point she lost interest and walked away. At any rate, we had swimming lessons in the morning, which is fun for the kids as well as Mom and Dad, because there is a little gym right above the pool where Marco and I can workout while the kids are swimming. Then in the afternoon it was off to Lucia's Christmas show. She was a woodsman (woodsgirl?) in the play in which the king, queen and princess of a castle were searching for the perfect Christmas tree. Most of the big parts go to the 3rd year kids of the pre-school, Lucia and her fellow 2nd-year woodskids (?) did a nice little dance, some kids played trees, in general it was the typical chaos of pre-school Christmas shows. Big news this year is that none of the first-year kids cried. It's funny how the first year the kids are absolutely terrified - last year Lucia hid behind another kid, and at Colin's first year program, he just stood there looking out at the audience with a deer-in-headlights kind of expression. By the second year, they are much more comfortable, actually able to sing the songs with the group at the end, though still a little shy. By the third year, they are champs, ready for their close-up, Mr. Demille. Lucia was adorable this year. She did her little dance, then sat on the stage at the end with all the other kids and sang a couple of songs and recited a Christmas poem. I had made 2 little braids in her hair, as I thought this would go with the woodskid costume, and at the end when they were singing, she sat there with her little hands up near her face as she held on tightly to both braids the whole time. I asked her later why she was holding on to them while she was singing, and she said that another kid was tugging on them backstage. Then we were back home again, as Colin had to do his homework and Mommy had a birthday cake to make, because the next day was the party!

Yes, Sunday afternoon we had a little party for Colin. We only had 3 little boys come over, but they had a blast tearing up the house. We made a pinata, and of course the boys thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to bash something. Thankfully, no children were hospitalized as a result. We also played musical chairs, which Colin had played at another kid's party and he now loves I made a space rocket birthday cake, decorated with red and blue M&M's, which pushed the limits of my rather limited baking capacity, and then my husband never got a photo of the masterpiece! It was a nice little party, and Colin was so excited. He has talked of nothing but his birthday for weeks.

School Daze

I sent my son off to first grade this year, with a new backpack and a cool Ferrari pencil case, and all the supplies that were on the list provided by the teachers. His pencil case had, among other things, a full set of colored pencils and markers, and I thought that all those supplies should last him through to January, when the supermarkets have a second sale on school supplies. I had no idea that I would be making nearly weekly trips to the stationary store, or picking up school supplies at the supermarket, in what seems like the endless task of keeping my son's backpack properly equipped.

Take, for example, the colored pencils. His cool Ferrari pencil case has slots for 24 pencils and every weekend when we sit down to do homework, there are at least 5 pencils missing. "Colin , are you sure you didn't leave some of your pencils in your desk?" "No, Mom. We have to take everything out of our desks on Fridays." "Then what happened to your pencils? You had a full set on Monday." "I dunno". Needless to say, shortly after realizing that this was going to be a weekly restock, I purchased a huge box with every possible colored pencil under the sun. It is now December, and the refill box is nearly empty. It is especially annoying because they ask that we put names on all the supplies. So every weekend I have to take adhesive labels, write out Colin's name a couple of times, and then tape a label securely to each colored pencil. Why, you may ask, do I bother when the pencils don't seem to last for more than 2 weeks, and having the name on them certainly doesn't seem to help in getting it back if it is misplaced? I have no idea. I'm a sucker for stupid rules.

There is also the glue saga. I have no idea why, but first graders go through glue at a truly alarming rate. I keep wondering if they are sniffing it. I have purchased at least 5 huge glue sticks so far this year. And any day, I imagine that Colin will waltz home and tell me that he needs another one. Is he selling them on the underground glue market to junkie pre-schoolers?

Finally, the pencil sharpeners. Along with the endless procession of new colored pencils, there has been an endless procession of pencil sharpeners. Just last week, I purchased pencil sharpener #5, only one day after having purchased pencil sharpener #4. In the beginning, he didn't have the right kind of sharpener. He needed one with a narrower opening to sharpen better. Then the teachers told me it would be better if he had a sharpener that had a little container attached to collect the pencil shavings so he wouldn't have to get up from his desk and go to the waste basket every time he needed to sharpen his pencil. Then, of course, some were just crappy quality and broke shortly after purchase (pencil sharpener #4 broke before even making it to school).

I'm sure that any experienced parent reading this is shaking his/her head, laughing, and saying, "What an amateur!" But I miss the good ole days of pre-school, when everything was included, and I only had to supply the child.

Time waits for no man

My son is enjoying learning to tell time. He is completely fascinated by it.

"We are going up to bed in 5 minutes guys!" "No! 6 minutes!" "OK, 6 minutes."

"The pasta will be ready in a few minutes." "When the big hand is on the 7?" Yea, more or less when the big hand is on the 7." Then God forbid the pasta is not ready when the big hand gets to the 7.

There is an electronic clock in my car. Everyday, after Colin finishes his breakfast and brushes his teeth, he trots off downstairs, puts on his coat and shoes, and hops into the car. Meanwhile, Mommy is running around the house frazzled, as she tries to hurry Lucia along (Lucia likes to linger over her breakfast and she is not nearly as independent when it comes to getting herself off to the car) and also trying to gather up the necessities for school (backpack with AM. snack for Colin, clean bib for Lucia on Monday mornings, etc.) Colin sits in the car in the garage yelling "Hurry up Mom! We're going to be late" to his harried mother. He also gives me very frequent updates on the time. Even after I've finished running around the house, and have finally gotten myself into the car, he continues to harass me with, "Mom, it's 1 minute after 8 o'clock.......Mom, it's 2 minutes after 8 o'clock". This continues all the way to school, unless I manage to distract him with some good songs on the radio or a discussion of what fun things we are going to do after school.

The other day I tried to introduce the concept of understanding the difference between time. As we were finishing up our dinner, I asked Colin to look at the clock and tell me the time. He proudly said "8 o'clock mommy". So then I said, "If it is 8 o'clock and Daddy said he would be home at 7:30, how late is Daddy?"

This time Lucia chimed in, to show that her understanding of things reaches way beyond mere minutes and hours. "Very late", she said.

Why are people like me allowed to procreate?

Most of the time I like to think that I have this mothering thing down. But then, inevitably, I do something that makes me wonder how much my kids' therapy sessions are going to cost me.

Case in point. A couple of weeks ago, Colin had gone off to school with his dad, and I was letting Lucia catch a few extra minutes of sleep, which, trust me, is really best for everyone. While she was sleeping, I went up to the attic to use my printer for some work documents. I guess I hadn't started printing yet, as Lucia never heard me just one floor up, nor did I hear the little pitter patter of her feet getting out of bed. The next thing I knew, I heard shrieks of terror from downstairs. I ran down from the attic, to the bedroom floor, to the main floor, then to the basement, all the while calling, "Lucia, it's okay, it's okay!" She was standing at the door to the garage, looking out at the space where her dad's car was supposed to me, and screaming in terror, tears streaming down her face. She told me later that when she got up, she looked in the top bunk for Colin, looked in our bedroom, went downstairs to check if we were eating breakfast, then went down to the basement, and couldn't find a soul. I felt so terrible for her, waking up one morning and thinking her whole family had left her. That required about 15 to 20 minutes of cuddle time to get back on track.

Then about a week later, I failed miserably again. Every morning, Lucia likes to stand at the window of her classroom, and wave and blow kisses as I walk to my car. On that particular morning, I had to go into Milan, which always involves massive traffic jams, desperate searching for car parking at the metro station, then the fun ride on public transport, the employees of which are perpetually on strike. For someone who generally works from home, this causes a great deal of stress. So as I was walking out of the school, my mind was consumed with how much I was dreading the race into Milan to make sure I wasn't late for my meeting. AND I FORGOT TO WAVE TO MY LITTLE GIRL. I didn't even realize that I had forgotten until about 15 minutes later, as I was sitting in a traffic jam. I was horrified, I felt sick to my stomach all day, thinking about how awful she must have felt when mommy didn't turn around. I almost called the school and had her put them on the phone so that I could apologize, but then I thought it might upset her all over again. That afternoon when I picked her up, I thought I would wait for her to bring it up. And she didn't. So after an hour or so, I asked if she had been upset when Mommy had forgotten to wave to her. She was in a good mood at that point, so she didn't seem too put out. But for the next couple of weeks, every morning when I dropped her off at school, she would ask me at least 5 times if I was going to wave to her at the window.

So I am going to start saving up now, putting a little money aside in an account so that one day my kids can lay on a therapist's couch and spew invectives about their incompetent mom.

1st Elementary School Parent-Teacher Conference

We had our first parent-teacher conference with Colin's teachers last week. It was, all'Italiana, pretty disorganized. They said that they were assigning slots for the 4pm - 6pm period, so we wouldn't have to wait long. Our slot was at 5:40pm, but we didn't see the teachers until around 6:30. We finally left around 7pm. We brought the kids along thinking that it would be a quick 20 minute deal, and we would let them briefly wreak havoc in the hallways while we talked to the teachers. Instead they ran screaming up and down the halls for about an hour and a half. At least they were really tired when we put them to bed that night!

The teachers' comments were about what we expected. They said that Colin was a bit shy for the first couple of weeks as he was trying to find his way in the new environment, but that he has really blossomed and seems to enjoy school. They said he is a very sweet boy and is a pleasure to have in the classroom. They also said, to my surprise, that he is always enthusiastic to do whatever the teachers suggest, never complains, and that when they correct him for something (like erase a letter because it wasn't written well so that he can try again) he is always positive, and says "Yes, I'll make it better this time".

One of their "concerns" (aside from the handwriting thing, which we expected) was that he "sometimes has trouble concentrating and focusing on what is going on". Basically they said that sometimes he just goes off into his own little world and starts singing a song, or telling himself a story out loud. They were saying that they had just learned a new song the other day, and that when they were done singing, Colin just sat there, happily continuing to sing the song, not really caring that the rest of the class was trying to move onto something else. They teachers said that they needed to work on this with him, because they wanted him to stay present and not distract the other kids, and I agree. But I have to tell you, the idea that Colin is so happy at school that he just starts singing or chattering away to himself, makes me smile......

Roman Holiday

What a great weekend. We took the kids for their first visit to Rome (actually, Colin visited Rome with Grandma and Aunt Monna when he was about a year old, and Lucia was in my tummy at the time, which she thought was very cool). But this time, Colin was big enough to appreciate things, but Lucia was still small enough to be a bit overwhelmed by the hectic schedule.

We arrived around 6:00pm Friday night, and headed to Roberto and Jessica's apartment near the center. Then they had reservations for dinner at 8:30 at a little trattoria around the corner. Magnificent food, but by the time we got the kids to bed it was nearly 11:00pm. Not a good start to the weekend for Lucia. At any rate, we were up as usual at 7:30am, much to Roberto and Jessica's horror (they are in the process of trying for kids, up until they spent the weekend with my kids, at least). We had a great morning walking around the Coliseum. I wasn't sure how much the kids would appreciate it, but Colin really seemed to be into it. He kept grabbing my camera and taking photos. I'm sure he didn't grasp the significance of the structure, but he did seem to enjoy the visit. We walked around a bit more that day, saw the Pantheon, threw some coins into Trevi Fountain, checked out the Spanish steps. Then we spent the latter part of the afternoon at the Children's Museum, which they loved, but after having been to the one in Indy, I thought was pretty disappointing.

Lucia had a hard day. She had this cycle going on where she would be all happy and skipping along and enjoying things for a while, then she'd get all difficult, and start pushing her brother or not listening to her parents, which was followed generally by breaking down in tears and wanting to be carried and held for a while. Then she'd recover and go back to happily skipping along. The cycle continued throughout the day. The words that kept going through my mind were "Lather, rinse, repeat". But given her short night, I have to say that she did better than expected. We had a quiet pasta dinner that night at our friends' house, but she still didn't pass out that night until nearly 10:00pm.

On Sunday Roberto drove us around Rome a bit to show us some sites by car, and Sunday morning seems to be the only time you can actually get anywhere in Rome in a car. At any other time, you simply sit in your car, not moving, as people honk and scream obscenities in Italian around you. We stopped at St. Peter's Square, but unfortunately did not have time to stand in line to go through the metal detectors to go inside. We left later that afternoon, and Lucia slept for nearly 3 hours on the train home. I kept thinking as I looked around at my fellow passengers, "Do you people have any idea how lucky you are that this child is unconscious?"

We had such a great time with our friends, and Rome is truly amazing. It can be very chaotic and touristy, but it is truly amazing to walk down streets so rich with history. Colin is already planning his next trip....to Paris. Not a bad life.

Mothers and Sons

As someone who works from home, I don't often get very "gussied up", as Helen would have said (well, the real reason is most likely just laziness). I might put on make-up once every 2 months. My daughter loves it when I do this, and she often comes in the bathroom to join in the fun. Her favorite thing is to take my purple eyeshadow and brush it all over her face. When she sees the results in the mirror she is ecstatic, and I love the fact that she can get away with such bold fashion statements, when at my age, I must be more concerned with minimising defects and wrinkles.

After one of our girlie sessions in the bathroom, we went downstairs, and Lucia started saying that now she was pretty. Trying to affirm my daughter's sense of self, I assured her that she was always beautiful, even without make-up, that she was my beautiful little girl. Colin was listening to this, and looks at me, and says with all of his endearing earnestness, "Mommy, you are beautiful, too."

Now I think I get the whole mothers and sons thing.

Rebel Yell

It is not news to anyone who knows Lucia that she has a bit of a rebellious streak. She has been this way basically since her first few months of life, and I don't expect that it will change anytime soon. This school year has been a bit hard for her, as she is trying to cope with the concept of pre-school without Colin, her "best friend". We started the school year with sobbing every day, which broke my heart. Well, she has moved on from this stage. Now, she has decided that the best way to deal with the problem of pre-school is to rebel against it. Each day we arrive at school and check the activities board to see what she will be doing that day, and then check the menu board to see what is for lunch. And every day, she decides that she is either not going to do the activity for the day, or not eat what is offered up for lunch. to which I invariably respond, "That's fine, Lucia. You don't have to color the caterpillar drawing today." Or, "That's fine, Lucia. If you don't want to eat anything at all for lunch, you don't have to". But that is not quite good enough. She insists that I also tell her teacher that she is not going to go on the walk in the forest today, or eat pasta with tomato sauce today, and so every morning we have to go to her teacher and say, "Today Lucia doesn't want to learn a new song about fall, or she wants plain pasta instead of pasta with pesto." EVERY DAY. Every single morning, there is something she doesn't want to do or eat, and every morning I have to inform her teacher that this is the case. Of course at the end of the day, the teachers always tell me that she was perfectly happy all day long, participated in the activities and ate her lunch, but apparently she just needs to establish some ground rules before the day begins. I'm told that this kind of rebellion is normal, nothing to worry about. But then again, these so-called experts will not have to deal with Lucia as a fifteen year old.

Here is Lucia's school photo for the year. I have no idea how the photographer managed to capture her inner troublemaker so perfectly.