Weekend Update

We all had a really fun week on our excellent adventure.

I Bambini - At the kids’ school, all children are placed in one of four “houses” (yes, in the style of Harry Potter) – Giotto, Dante, Donatello or Galileo. They make sure that all the kids in a family are in the same house and we are in Giotto. Each week at school children can earn points for good behavior, finishing homework on time, picking up litter around the school, being good listeners, etc. etc. Giotto has won the house “cup” two weeks in a row and Nick won an individual award for doing all his homework (you wouldn’t believe how much homework his class has – it is ridiculous!) and Isabelle won an individual award for helping others in class. (This reward system may be a bit much – Isabelle came home this week from school, made a chart with all our names on it and is going to award us “points” with a prize at the end of the year. Although, her view of our family is pretty pathetic. The boys earn points for not “pounding” her and Bill & I earn points for not yelling at her. Are we really that bad? Or is this just the universal, existential position of the youngest child?) Sam attended the fourth and fifth birthday parties he has been invitied to this yearh and they are always at these great places because most people live in condos/apartments and so they are too small for a big party. The party this week was out in the ‘burbs near the mountains in an area famous for its hot springs. The party was at a spa hotel and included playing football (i.e. soccer), a magic show and swimming in the pool! We stayed for about an hour because these parties are generally a little bit of a drive and the parents sit around, chat and have a drink or coffee. This party we got to have champagne while we watched the magician tie up the father of the birthday boy with help from two of the beautiful, babe Italian mommies. Also, Isabelle had a lot of fun because the younger sister of one of the kids was there who is in Isabelle’s class – so everyone knew each other and now they know us because we keep coming with Sam to all these parties and all the parents and all the kids are making friends. (My god, I feel like I’m describing Grosse Pointe!) Nick had his first invitation to play at someone’s house who has just returned from two years living in England (so everyone spoke English very well) and they had a satellite dish with Nickelodeon in English – he could not have been more thrilled. His class is not as social as Sam’s, so he hasn’t had the opportunity (or inclination) to make buddies as much as Sam. And, even better, he and the little boy got along well and had a grand time playing some battle game blowing up enemy ships, creating armies, etc. – all that great, testosterone driven boy stuff that Bill and I are terrible at providing for our sons. Thank goodness they got along well, because we got lost going from the spa hotel and we were very late in picking him up - the parents were quite good natured about it and the mom of Francesco, Monica, made homemade pizza, even the dough, as Nick excitedly explained! It is really a good “mom” feeling to watch the kids making friends, going places without us, enjoying the school days, etc. And we are all much better off when we are out of each other’s worlds for at least a little while each day. They have also joined a couple of clubs at school that start next week. Nick and Sam are playing in the football club during their lunch hours, Nick joined the French club, Sam has the Spanish club and Isabelle is in the “Fun in the Gym” club. I know what you’re thinking – the French & Spanish clubs? In this school the students start a third language in 6th grade, so the 3rd-5th graders can join language “clubs” to give them some fun, non-academic exposure. Sam and Nick thought it would be fun to learn a little bit in addition to their Italian lessons, so why not? Also, we found a little music shop, right around the corner from us, so Sam and Nick have picked up their music lessons again – they were both very happy about that. So, now our schedule is full and the kids have enough to do. We aren’t doing any community sports because honestly, they are just more than we like for our kids or ourselves – for example, football, for all children, even the youngest, is two 2-hour practices per week, plus the games on the weekend. We were thrilled that the school has these lunch hour clubs, so the kids get to do a little something and our evenings have not turned into a family shuttle service.

La mamma- I started Italian lessons, 2-3 hours per day this week, a great teacher and it was a lot of fun for me. I am going to continue indefinitely. Bill has been very diligent studying and practicing Italian and I have been very . . . what’s the opposite of diligent? I also have finally been able to meet some other women to buddy around with that speak English. There is a women’s group in Padova that meets 2x per month for coffee during the afternoon and next week I am invited to lunch with some other women I met at school. And the best of all, we leased a car this week for 10 months and will pick it up early next week. A Fiat of course! It will probably cost about as much as we have been spending on our sporadic rentals, it is brand new and will be sitting in our backyard whenever I want to drive someplace. As I have said before, taking the bus, walking, riding my junky bike around is fine for many, many things – but when you need a car to take a kid to a birthday party, pick him up from a friend’s house in the evening, run out for a big grocery shopping – the taxi or bus just don’t “cut it.” There are also lots of local places we would like to explore and it really isn’t that easy with the bus or train. Another fun thing about this year is that because of the more relaxed style of our lives, I am meeting Bill for lunch a couple of times per week. At home we are too distracted by our friends and colleagues, but here with less friends to distract us, we are spending more time together. That is nice because in the evening we are so busy with the kids and so exhausted by the time we get them into bed at night, that we generally too tired for much of anything. At lunch we are both still chatty, freshly showered & shaved and in a good mood! We will have to figure out how to continue this practice when we return.

Il papa – Bill’s various bacteria, DNA and other things have finally arrived in his lab so he is “back on the bench.” He loves his lab, his colleagues are wonderful and it is a good place for him to be professionally. He also got a junky bike to ride around town, so now he can bike to work instead of the bus or walking which will give him more flexibility to do things during the day (like meet me for lunch!). He is also going to start going over to my language school a couple of times per week to practice his conversational skills. Although, his skills are impressive for an American just learning. For example, he is able to go into government offices and conduct all of our bureaucratic nonsense in Italian. Actually he can do almost anything he wants in Italian, be it more slowly and less articulate than he would like – but he really is good. Poor Bill, after 15 years in Detroit and being the dedicated baseball fan that he is, can’t even watch the playoffs. He has to “watch” the games on some ESPN website that reports each play in real time. It isn’t terrible, there is a little picture of a baseball diamond and even a little ball that goes up in the air when there is a hit. But there are no people, just little “x’s” where the players are standing. Also, we are 6 hours ahead, so last night at 2 am we got up to check the score and watch a couple of plays. By the way, there are some SERIOUS Yankee fans on his side of the family. So while of course we hope, I mean know, that the Tigers will go all the way, even if we won’t be home to enjoy the hometown glory, we will be turncoats and cheer for the Yankees if the unthinkable happens this weekend. Finally, the biochemist we (mostly I) like to razz about his scientist sense of fashion, left to go run errands this morning in a pair of jeans, a very Italian patterned shirt, blazer and good shoes. I give you Exhibit A. Could he be any cuter? We may have to move here!



I just finished a book, Paris to the Moon, written by a guy who moved to Paris with his wife and baby for five years – a writer’s sabbatical of sorts. At the end of the book when they are happily returning to the U.S. he quotes his wife, “We have a beautiful existence, but not a full life in Paris and in the U.S. we have a full life, but not a beautiful existence.” That is how our Italian life felt this week, especially to me, since I am the most removed from my “full life” as Bill still has work and the kids still have school. The everyday beauty of living in a small Italian city, the birthday party, meeting friends from all over the world, the small shops, congenial nature of others, the beauty of learning a new language, more time with my husband, hearing Isabelle start to speak in a tiny English lilt that she is picking up from her teacher, having one of the most beautiful squares in Europe right outside my window and on and on.