Tricks and Treats

I have things to say about international plane travel with small kids and babies. I have things to share about having an 8 month old in Italy. There are neat festivals in the towns around us, activities at school, and new friends from France and Greece, but I just can't seem to get caught up! From a road trip beginning in the heel of the boot stretching to the northern reaches of this country, and back again, and then sick kids at home, and then top it off with a teething baby, I haven't had a moment to even breathe. My only solution is to do this in small doses... so I will back up... only a smidgen... to Halloween.
Italy doesn't do Halloween like America, but they make an effort. Why ever so, I am not sure. Probably because of the fun portrayed in American films, and I can't complain. It is easy to feel homesick this time of year, and being able to share my childhood memories and traditions with my kids helps a little. In my seven years here I have seen a slow progression in the amount of holiday paraphernalia that stores carry. Mainly witch costumes and some gory masks. Then some jack-o-lantern banners and some black and orange balloons entered the array of holiday decor. And, for their own touch the Italians added sparklers and those "pop" things that you throw at the ground on the 4th of July. Usually the week before Halloween I can find a big American pumpkin running about 11 euros. The candy is their usual mix of fancier chocolates or gummy fruit chews, but no over-sized, mega bags to accommodate the masses that go door-to-door... mainly because I am not sure very many actually go door-to-door, and if they do, they are older elementary schoolers and middle schoolers. There are no "Elmos" or "Buzz Lightyears" totting house-to-house, or I guess that would be, apartment-to-apartment.

However, my kids' preschool celebrated the holiday with a Halloween party at school. Funny, there is no controversy in honoring America's tradition in their Italian public school. If they only knew the line that this festival sometimes draws in the USA! Here, it remains innocent.
Anyhoot, my day had begun, as usual, with buckling the three, a strawberry fairy, a pumpkin fairy, and Buzz Lightyear, in their carseats. Upon arriving at school, I could see that my 2 were the only ones dressed up besides a few kids with witches hats and the teachers in full witch garb... even though the teachers had told them they could wear costumes. I hate having them stand out as "different", but my daughter could have cared less-- she was in a tutu and tiara, and costume would be her daily preference for attire any day. My son, however, was stricken shy, but happy to be out of his grembule, which is a smock that Italian kids wear to school through middle school. It is the style of a doctor's coat (but more feminine for the girls) and the color depends on the school or grade. Usually white, royal blue, black or light pink or blue, or light pink or blue gingham. I digress.

Maestra Rosanna show off the Little Pumpkin Fairy.

The kids sang really cute songs, in Italian of course, about bats and owls and pumpkins. The school even had a glowing jack-o-lantern that was of a greenish pumpkin variety, more commonly found here. Then, as the Italians interpret the tradition of "Trick or Treating", the teachers, dressed as witches, hid inside the school's playhouse and let the kids knock on the door for either a treat, candy (that I supplied from Walmart), or a trick, a spritz of water! I also made Kleenex sucker ghosts with Sharpie drawn eyes and mouth, like my mom did when we were kids, as a little treat for my kids to pass out. I guess our family's tradition will be more along the lines of passing out the candy, instead of receiving it.
Of course when the kids got home I had Halloween treats of pastries and cookies waiting for them that one of the local bakeries had made, but I also had their bags packed as we were rushing out of town for a 7 hour car trip up the Adriatic coast to my in-laws house, and then the following day, another 3 hours north to check on the house we own in the Veneto. It would be a long, hurried weekend (Halloween falling always the same time as All Soul's Day; the Monday after Halloween was a national holiday with everyone out of school and work) and my kids repaid my festive mood my making their own Halloween coriandoli, or confetti, and decorating the living room as I put the finishing touches on their suitcases in my room.


Was I tricked or treated?

They were grounded from scissors for a week, and I am still finding their merrymaking in nooks and crannies of the house, or I'm pulling bits of the paper out of the baby's mouth. 



The real treat of the Halloween weekend, however, was taking the kids to see their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents in Rimini. After cleaning up the living room, we got on the road late and arrived at the Nonni's, or grandparent's, house at 2am. This was the first time for many to meet the baby so we were up way into the wee hours of the morning eating strudle and talking. It didn't make it easy to get up in the morning and drive on to our old stomping ground, but nothing could have taken the joy out of being back in the north of Italy in the golden fall weather.



An American friend with an Italian husband and her 3 Italo-American kids had us all over for lunch which included all the courses-- appetizers, the  primo of gnocchi with gorgonzola and walnuts, and the secondo of cavallo steaks... and for we two American ladies to eat the latter, you know we've lived in Italy long enough to not care! Next were sides of vegetables and a salad, which follows the meal in Italy. Dessert and coffee last. But, the biggest treat was her huge bowl of American Halloween candy that her kids had gotten the night before as a nearby American Army post opened its gates for local kids to trick-or-treat.  I was pleasently pleased to find Reeces and Skittles and candy corns and all sorts of America-only goodies!



Like Easter eggs and the Easter bunny, Santa at the mall, Thanksgiving, football season, 4th of July, and all those other marks on the calander that I have had to give up, Halloween as I knew it is just a distant memory as long as I am here in Italy. It probably isn't a big deal, and my kids wouldn't be any worse for the wear if they never had all the glitz of an American holiday, but it is fun. And who am I to deny them that... but I will supervise the use of scissors from now on, afterall, paper snowflake season is right around the corner.



Trick-or-Treat? Are you awake?



Oh, that little goblin!



A girl went back to Napoli

Rosemary Clooney sang in Mambo Italiano, "A girl went back to Napoli, because she missed the scenery..." It's not exactly why I went back, and if you ask my mother-in-law, the scenery isn't what it used to be. Today Naples, Italy looks as if it is held together by wire and crumbling plaster. Wire clotheslines are strung from balconies as far as the eye can see. Television antennas poke into the skyline from every which way.

Five hours up the road, and our first long car trip crowded with 3 car seats and tre bambini, we made the journey to the American Consulate in Naples for one Report of Consular Birth Abroad, one new passport, and three renewals of passports. Worse than a thousand are-we-there-yets from the backseat, was the speculating on how far we were from "the volcano" and if it would be safe to stay nearby Mount Vesuvius. With that came a thousand questions on what "dormant" really means, as I was happy to lecture on the status of that particular volcano... until I got home and googled it to find, I quote, "Mt. Vesuvius is still active today. It is the only active volcano on the European mainland. Its last eruption happened in 1944. The danger is that over 2 million people live near Vesuvius and may be in danger. I think that the reason that they still live there is fertile soil."

Lemons from Zia's garden

Whoops. Guess I was wrong. Maybe I wouldn't have slept so well knowing that bit of info, but I guess that fertile soil is what makes the fruits and veggies so tasty.

My husband has family in the big city so we were able to plan to stay relatively comfortably for a few nights. Ha, comfortable. We would be staying in an older building. The kind that as soon as you hit the door you are invaded with the oppressive smell of mildew, at least on the ground floor. It is an apartment building that was built by my husbands grandfather, who was a builder like my own father. The building has lots of layers. For instance, a basement that I have never dared venture into, a rooftop terrace spackled with old Christmas decorations, a back garden that you must enter from a kitchen window and then scale down a rickety wooden staircase to the patio.

A few years ago, I would have shuttered at the idea of having to put the family to sleep in the same room... a hot, un-air conditioned room, furnished in the 1960's, worrying over if silly kids would ever settle and sleep. I've learned to adapt and, this trip, I found comfort in hearing all of life's sounds out our open window as we slept together, like emigrants crowded into a ship's cabin. I could hear children playing into the night and families watching the soccer game. In Naples, it seems as though everyone, including pet birds, cats, and dogs, lives outside on their balconies in the summer. I have also noticed that they can grow almost anything in pots and containers to make their own balcony gardens. Plus, I guess it is easy to get kids to fall asleep, after all, if you have an Italian aunt who keeps the kids up until midnight, feeding them lemon sorbet.

The morning we went to the American Consulate, I expected an hour appointment and had been advised online to not bring in too many things, as there would be a security check before we entered. The hour appointment took four hours of waiting and I found myself with nothing to entertain the kiddos. Not a problem. My kids have learned how to make friends fast from their early exposure to Italian preschool and they soon found a boy only a year or two older then themselves to play with. I had also expected to find a waiting room full of American families, but that was not the case. I am guessing that foreigners must apply for a visa before they take an American vacation, so, the boy my kids found to play with was probably from a South American country, I am guessing. The boy must have attended Italian schools because he knew the same sort of kid-games that my kids know, like a game called Uno, Due, Tre Stella! which is like Red-Light, Green-Light. I was happy the kids were playing, although some of the games were getting kinda loud. I ushered the kids away from the waiting people to a corner along the far wall of the stark, office-like room. On the wall I had noticed three nicely framed photos of the President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State. Hmm, I noticed the similarity in my kids' new playmate and the President. Same coloring. Same hair. I could tell he was a smart kid because he kept quizzing my 5 year old on various things. I wasn't surprised, then, when he looked up and asked my daughter if she knew who the guy in the first picture was. I, too, had thought about giving her a social studies lesson and had tried to point out the same thing. She must not have paid attention because her answer was, "your dad." Well, guess if we had been there for a citizenship test, we would have failed. Good thing that in proving I had lived in the US for at least five consecutive years, and I am married to my husband, they just give my kids their citizenship and passports. Well, with that and for about $400 for all we were getting done this particular day.

I'm glad that we got to spend time with the family in Naples. Over the years, most have moved away, as Naples isn't what it used to be. Maybe that is why my great-great grandparents left Naples to immigrate to America. Maybe they foresaw the city changing into a beast of traffic and dirty streets, and guessed there was more land in rural America to grow fresh fruits and veggies, volcanic soil or not. Who knew, I would return someday, and be claiming my kids American in a city that is a complete contrast to what my American life was in the suburbs in Oklahoma. Convenient, predictable, organized, quiet. However, what the city lacks in asthetic appeal, it makes up in character and big-hearted people, I guess that makes it a little like Oklahoma, after all.

The Long Goodbye

Italians can't just say goodbye and go. When you are saying farewell after a meal together, you must first decide if you will partake in an after dinner coffee. The tiny espressos usually take longer to get to the table than the meal did, as the waiters get busy with the diners that arrive at the Italian dinner hour, usually as we are finishing and ready for coffee. We, for the most part, arrive just as the restaurants are opening around 7, or more likely 8 in our neck of the woods. So, over coffee, you prepare to say your parting words. Without a doubt you are at the end of your meal. You stand to say goodbye, but chat a little more. Walk to the door, say your adieus, but prattle on. Again at the car, a ciao, but you collect your final words. Finally, a kiss on both cheeks. I think almost two hours can pass, just saying goodbye the Italian way.  I guess that's why saying our final goodbyes to our neighbors has stretched into a few weeks of nights out, and days at the beach together. We have been so busy I can find my way to blurt on Facebook a few moments, but not to blabber on my blog. One activity has stretched out to meet the next. We grown-ups are as bad as our kids, asking for one more minute. No one ever wants the fun to end.

If you are friend or family, you know that we are a military family. I am quite used to the possibility of the call to move always being around the next cobble stoned corner. I keep an uncluttered life, ready at a moments notice. We, ourselves have moved 4 times in the past 7 years, the last time almost 2 years ago. In the past 2 years here, our kids have grown from tattling toddlers to socially mature preschoolers. Their inner circle of friends quite a thing to behold. Their Italian language skills have blossomed, I realize, as I remember following them around in the beginning as their personal translator. I was worried as they were approaching an age where kids begin to play together and not just next to one another, that they would be left out to play only with each other, speaking English.

Time has told a different story. We live in military housing now, on top of, and all around our friends, in rows of apartments. We can see them as they come and go. We wave from our balcony as we hang out our wash; airing the dirty laundry not a worry amongst friends. They are my substitute family; home away from home. They have wiped my kids' noses, dried their tears, and received fistfuls of weedy flowers from them as well. They celebrated the announcement of last years pregnancy and saw me through to the delivery. They have  helped out by driving my other kiddos to school, and loving on the new baby, doting on her, passing her around, rocking her to sleep. From birthday parties to holidays, life deep in the boot heel of Italy is a little less like Lost and a little more like a combo of Modern Family and My Big, Fat Greek Wedding, with the good friends that we have.

Leaving is one thing if you have an adventure waiting ahead of you. But, being left behind is lonely. Over the course of this summer, 4 families will leave us to embark on their own new ventures. Tomorrow we will say, "Antio", goodbye in Greek, to our inspirational Greek friends. This is a family with 3 kids, large by Italian standards who usually stop after 1 or 2 kids, that arrived not knowing the language. They bravely enrolled their 2nd grader and preschooler into school within their first weeks being here in Italy. They arrived with a newborn and had to find a pediatrician and schedule vaccines and check-ups, with the help of a Greek-Italian dictionary. I remember how difficult it was in the beginning watching the kids stare blankly at each other and resort to making animal sounds as they played with plastic beach animals. Evi, the mom of the family, and I have a special bond as being the only moms in all of Italy and Greece that don't believe our kids, 6 amongst us, will catch a cold by actually getting cold.

They came, they saw, they conquered, and they did it all with the most brilliantly positive attitude. Even as their tour here in Italy has been cut short by a misadventure, they have remained optimisticly calm. In knowing these friends, we have been given the opportunity to be good neighbors and help them with little challenges along the way. Knowing people like that, even for a little while, is worth the conversation being cut short. Knowing people like that turns the nonsensical chatter of life into an epic novel.

All of our stories will carry on, but instead of chatting over ice cream cones or prattling over a pizza, we will email and Facebook.We have swapped Greek, American, and Italian recipes, over conversations about the etymology of Greek, American, and Italian words.  There are no words in any of the languages for how much they will be missed, but I think my kids' dollhouse that they have emptied of its tiny furniture, with the toy moving-container semi-truck parked in front tells me what they see. In fact, it speaks volumes. They see an empty apartment, and a sea of silence between them and their friends. I hope someday we will meet again, perhaps next time in Greece where we can say our long Italian goodbyes over Greek coffee and Baklava.

And Summer Begins

I was enjoying my weekly attempt to post something on this blog... my reliable hour or two in the evening on the computer because I knew the baby and two big kids would be asleep. But, summer has arrived and there is no preschool to rush out the door to in the morning and, therefore, bedtime is non-existent... not because the kids are refusing, but because life is more enjoyable here when the 90's sink into the mid-70s and the townspeople begin to emerge from their hot little houses. Life begins fresh again at dinner time with my after-dinner espresso, as it did at the breakfast hour with my morning cafe latte. Without air-conditioning, it is too hot to be in a hurry for anything so we don't rush eating, playing, or sleeping.
 Last week was a whirlwind of school activities, air shows, and living the seaside life.
Because last week I could not fit in a single moment to post, I will catch up in photos I took this past week.


Friday
I rushed 2 kids and baby out the door while my husband finished a 24 hour shift at work. He met me at the school later to catch a little of the show and pick up the baby to take her for her first vaccines.

A friend and Rachel get ready for their end-of-school year recital as a caròta e melnzana,

or carrot and eggplant.

There are also tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes, and parsley running around.

Little Samuele is the dark green parsley between the two light green parsley.

Later that day, after we met back at home and napped the kids, we went to watch the Frecce Tricolore practice for an airshow that they would have on Saturday.

The kids asked for earplugs...

but, the baby doesn't need them.

Frecce Tricolori literally translates to tricolored arrows. It is the world's largest military aerobatic team and is regarded by many as being one of the most prestigious. The Frecce Tricolori aerobatics team is made up of ten Aermacchi MB-339-A/PAN aircraft from the Italian air force.

Saturday

We began the day with errands into the center of Lecce which usually lands us at McDonald's, a rare treat since this is the only Mc D's in the area, and is not a short drive, nor is it easy to find parking. Next, grocery shopping, home for naps, and a mad dash to get ready for a trip to the beach. On the way out to the car, a neighbor stopped us and asked us to come up rooftop instead to watch the airshow again, Saturday's version using the colored smoke. He had bought ice-cream for everyone and so as not to disappoint the kids already dressed in swimming suits, we hauled up buckets of water and a kiddie pool.

Cars line the roads in the surrounding fields.

At bedtime, little brother comforts big sister as she loses her first tooth!

Sunday

My husband hits the water at 5:30am for some spear-fishing and when he gets home we head out for a day on the beach.

The baby falls asleep after her first swim before I can even put a diaper back on her!

Then we head over to a seaside resturant where a man grills and fishes at the same time.

The food is amazing, but the kids like the bread.

Our Greek friends enjoy the pasta too.

The best Italian food comes on plastic plates while you sit in plastic deck chairs.

You know this if you have spent any time here.

Octopus meatballs

And so, in all the chaos of the weekend, we forgot to buy toilet paper. We'll fit that in Monday before we head outside to watch the Italy soccer game and cook out with friends. 

Eating Snails, or Maybe Frogs

Starting out my kids in school at such a young age, I know what it is like to have a small bribe to get them out of the car and in the door of the school in the morning. I usually promise these particular chocolate eggs with a surprise inside called Kinder Eggs. They sell them everywhere here in Italy so I can always pick some up while the kids are in school, and have the treats waiting for them when they get home. It might not win me any parenting awards, but it helps. So one morning, taking my kids to school, I wasn't surprised to hear another mom coercing her son into school with the promise of something enticing when he got out of school. I was just mildly shocked when I understood that it was snails for dinner. Lumaca, snail, I'm sure I understood correctly.

 Now, the Italians do have a taste for some things that you would rarely find on an American menu and since we moved to this southern region of Italy, I have often seen older folks wearing tall rubber boots, out for a Sunday drive, scouring the countryside with plastic grocery bags in hand. I asked my husband what he thought it could be and we concluded it was either wild herbs, or snails. As time went by, I concluded snails were the object in question because I noticed the cars parked roadside mostly on days when it had just rained. I shouldn't be surprised that they feed their kids the same things they are accustomed to eating.

Luckily, my kids usually just come home from school with snails in their pockets, not in their lunch bags.

The other day I was on the phone with my mom and she had just posted a photo to Flickr that she had taken of a small peeper frog on my dad's Mini Cooper, and my son walked in as I told her I thought it was a fantastic picture, that I loved the little frog. My son continued to play on the floor with some airplanes and my mom continued on in small talk, describing the steak dinner she had fixed for my dad the night before. "That sounds SO delicious!" I replied emphatically, because a good steak, like one from Oklahoma, is hard to find here. My son, not looking up from what he was doing, asked, "The frog?" He thought his Gram was serving delicious frog for dinner. But of course, why would eating frog be strange to him. We eat octopus and other creepy sea creatures, why not frog, too? I can't get the kid to eat his veggies, but he'll suck the heads of scampi.

As a loyal Oklahoman, I should probably not be disclosing this next piece of information, but some Italians, not all, eat horse. It is always sold in the supermarket. In fact, they even make jarred horse baby food, sold right along next to the jarred turkey, chicken, or beef. Italian babies also have the option of eating rabbit, lamb, and at least 4 varieties of fish-- all served in a baby food jar, ready to eat. Culturally, my children are being raised, and fed, totally Italian. I grew up riding horses, my kids grow up eating them.

My mom eats snails in the Veneto

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Once, when I was in college, just when the trees in the student forum where budding, a friend noted, as we watched some flip-flop and short clad students pass by, that she hated seeing people "push summer" by pulling out their summer clothes early. The first sign of a warm day, and it is hard to not want to increase your wardrobe by unpacking your summer attire and adding it to the mix of still needed jackets and jeans. My daughter is about to turn 5, and since she started dressing herself at 2, has always preferred shorts and tees to sweaters, and flip-flops and sandals to sneakers or anything else that confines her toes. She would gladly wear a leotard and tu-tu or swimming suit out and about town, no matter the weather.

Well, as my previous post would tell it, the Italians stay bundled with jackets and scarves into the 80s, or until the page on the calender is flipped to something showing a beach scene. Needless to say, we stand out when we have a walk around the town. I give in to letting Rachel wear a tu-tu... it does compliment her pink cowboy boots from Oklahoma. As Italian little boys wear speedo-styled swimming suits, my son has been wearing his swimming suit like underwear under his clothes for a few weeks now.  Even my Italian husband now breaks out the shorts and "pushes summer" when the temperature hits the mid-70s.  And I, being American and accustomed to everything and everywhere being air-conditioned, am sensitive to getting  uncomfortably overheated; I break out the summer clothes the first day I deem necessary.
 Last year at this time we were just coming off of a long, hard winter battling ear-infection after ear-infection. We had the doctors baffled as Rachel just couldn't knock the infections. The doctor's final advice: Take the kids to the beach every day in the summer. And we did just that. It sure beats fighting the kids to take antibiotics or the Italians favorite cure-all, saline nose spray. We followed the advice and the final verdict for this past winter: not an infection at all, not one!

I swear it was the snorkeling that their spear-fisherman father encouraged that cleared their sinuses permanently.  They spent almost as much time under the water as they did building sandcastles. Throwing his head down underwater, my son was only 2 and unaware that he was swimming, his feet lifted off the seafloor with each gentle wave. Passersby would panic and tell me to hurry and catch him before he sunk, and I would have to explain, in my Italian, that he was breathing just fine through the snorkel. I'm sure I looked like a negligent mother.

Being from landlocked Oklahoma, I am slowly learning the beach culture of Italy. My kids and husband, on the other hand, are hooked, born for this salty, sea life. My husband has been out catching octopus for weeks now. This spring we have "pushed summer" at the beach already a few times. With chilling water, I wouldn't get in, but kids are immune to cold when it comes to surf and sand, and they've been swimming. So, while some Italians are still clothed head to toe, all I can say is that we are just starting in a little early, just doing what the doctor prescribed.