Prosciutto dreams

I have a lovely husband who fixed me hot tea for my sore throat this evening, but failed to make the caffeine-free variety. Now, regardless of how many times I will have to wake with the baby in the night, we are approaching midnight and I cannot sleep. Fine. I haven't really had a moment to my self since we returned from our trans-Atlantic trip home to Oklahoma.
As he snores on the couch, I dream of the past weeks back at home in Oklahoma, though I guess it really isn't home anymore. I love that my kids get to settle in and feel at home for a little bit there, doing things that I took for granted as a kid. Eating pancakes for breakfast, eating lots of "colored" food like Fruit Loops, running barefoot through a green grassy yard (Oklahoma's usual end of summer brown had been replaced spring-green from heavy rains), sleeping cold, though it is hot outside, swimming in chlorine, visiting cousins and aunts and uncles, catching toads and grasshoppers, seeing cows. ...and corn dogs on the menu. (I think my son ate a corn dog everyday.)
I think the top thing, however, was visiting family or being visited by family. It always amazes me how the kids really appreciate MY aunts and uncles and MY cousins and MY grandparents. These are the people that made up the special moments in my life and it means the world to me that my kids are circled in love, when I go back, by the people that encompassed my world as a kid. They are the aunts and cousins that made it to school programs, remembered my birthday, saw me through graduations and life's peaks. They remained steadfast with prayer or friendship or accountability though life's gullies. They are the cousins that made my Christmases and summer vacations of consequence. I never felt the need to stand out among my siblings and I never felt unspecial or never felt a need to NEED exceptional attention from my parents. But, when one aunt would pick me up for lunch or shopping when I was very little, or another would lend an ear to my little life, I did feel set apart, and well... special. My extended family was always forefront in the backdrop and they mattered to me. Now, although like a distant mountain range solidifying the horizon, my kids can have the same sort of landscape that I had by knowing these relatives.
Funny, the word for relatives in Italian is parenti. It took me awhile to understand who my son was talking about when he kept talking about his "parents" in America. He gave convincing details about these "parents" of his, which made me wonder if he was adopted, though I clearly remembered birthing him. I later realized his translation for "relatives" was because he did not know the word in English. Anyway, in 2008, my son was a toddling baby and I made sure to take him and my daughter to Arkansas to see their great-great grandmother and the other family members that trickled down from that branch of the family tree. Our trip of 2009 diverged into Kansas, and as a two year old, he met my dad's cousins and their kids and grandkids, and my great-aunt. For this year's 2010 trip he was still talking about the "parents" with the turtles (Arkansas) and the "parents" with the snakes in the backyard (Kansas). Either he really likes reptiles or he truly remembers his parenti. It is amazing to me how although our Italian life spans across his year, the marks left by family over a few short weeks matter to him enough to remember.
There are many things I miss about living in America. I have trouble remembering to use the garbage disposal when I return to Oklahoma as in Italy they are non-existent. I miss Chinese food, and having people sack my groceries at the store, and big parking lots, and drive-thrus, and return policies at Wal-mart. I come back to Italy and I miss the American streets laid out on an easy grid with four-way stops. I miss conveniences and punctuality and customer complaint departments that get the job done. I miss talking freely to people without reconsidering my verb tense or pronunciation. But, I guess these things don't matter. Taking the "new baby" on my little branchlet of the family tree to meet her extended family bough is what counts to me. To me it was her second christening in that I have dedicated her into this family that God has encircled around me.
My kids' reality is far different and larger than I could have ever perceived when I was 4 or 5 years old... or 8 months old, for that matter. I didn't mean for it to happen or really choose it to happen, it is just a concurrence of living two cultures and spanning the globe. It is an actuality that extends something beyond Sesame Street and Saturday morning cartoons, which is more than I could have said at the same age. I don't think this is better or worse, just different and I try to blur the line separating their American and Italian roots by an indifference to preference. But, as time goes by, there are truths and preferences that they find on their own. (Thank God, God is our foundation on both continents!) Their family tree offshoots in all sorts of directions, as our Italian family here is wonderful as well. I wonder what that will make of their future childhood memories? I know that upon returning my son's first request was for salami because it "is greasy and yummy and makes your hands messy" and I know that his second night back I overheard him say "prosciutto" in his sleep. But, as the dust settles and both kids recollect their memories about our 2010 trip, it isn't the Italian food they missed or American treats that they recall, but their cousins, their grandparents, their great-grandparents, and their aunts and uncles. Our little family will always share this plight of missing someone and wanting to be somewhere, but the dream of next summer's trip will surely be ahead binding us to our awaiting family.