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!



Here, nor There

Diplomat that I am, if you hear me condemn Italy you will more than likely also hear me defend it... nowadays. My first years in Italy were spent comparing the differences between here and there, in the USA. Unfortunately, Italy did not always stack up to America. It was too small, too crowded, too dirty, too complicated. Where was this stereo-typed simple Italian life?! Life was boring, isolated, and difficult. After the climax of a wedding and the excitement of jet-setting off to Europe, la vita dolce was left lacking. I wanted to be there, not here, and there was no "in between".
John Steinback said, "A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." And boy was I wrong when I first moved here. I lost my control of the most simple tasks in life. Everything from putting gas in the car to mailing a letter to pay a bill had to be relearned, or at the very least, the language to do it all in had to be . I was forced to reconsider all things previously known. Houses aren't bought with kitchen counters and fixtures or with bedroom closets, women keep their maiden names, and air-conditioning or clothes dryers are a luxury not a necessity. I was a foreigner in my own life and there was a deep chasm between what I had always been, an artist, a student, a daughter, a sister, and who I was suddenly expected to be, an expat wife.
Now, almost 7 years down the road I realize that somewhere along the way, the line dividing here and there has blurred. I love living the life in between. I feel most alive hanging in suspense over our next move, or moving through an international airport suspended between neither here, nor there. Our travels and mini-adventures have included friends from the top of Italy all the way down to the heel of the boot, big dogs, and babies. And, even though we don't stay rooted for long, my little space between two cultures has taught me how to grow where I am planted, whether that is a tomato patch in Italy or a wind-swept plain of Oklahoma. As old habits die hard, so do old habitats and while I tried so hard in the beginning to make a lil' America among the cobble stoned streets and marble statues, along the way I have learned how to cast off all unnecessary baggage and enjoy the adventure of living in between the old world and the new.
Usually when I wake up my first morning either here or there after traveling for 24 hours with two big German Shepherds or with toddlers I have a strange groggy moment right before I open my eyes of not knowing where I am. Last year, upon returning to my American home, the confusion came in the form of another question. Not where I actually was, but where would I rather be when I opened my eyes? There is no answer for this. I am forever doomed, or blessed, to ride the fence between this life and that. Diplomatically, this blog is the story of our family's life abroad, afloat, and afar.