Who said that men and women are equal? - Chi ha parlato di parita' tra uomini e donne?

Men and women are equal and have equal opportunities. Yeah, sure. Only a career woman obsessively chasing her dream job could come up with such a lie. Really.

Bullshit. Men and women are NOT equal. At least equality isn't true for most women. As a friend often said to me in London, women, whether they like it or not, are made to have (and raise) babies. Having and raising children should become their top priority, whether they like it or not. I remember my friend saying: "Don't kill yourself with work. You are a girl! Come out with us. Do what the girls do! Sorry to disappoint you but, whether you like it or not, women are made to experience the joy of (or bear the cross of) motherhood! Because, sooner or later, it'll come".

Then the words of my first landlord, a Turkish woman in her fifties with long dark hair, come to my mind. "Don't waste your time studying. One day, you'll meet a nice man and that's it. You'll have a bambino and all your efforts, gone! " I remember trying not to laugh at her. What a backward, sexist, narrow-minded loser.

Yet last night, those remarks were haunting me. I could not let them go.

Yesterday, I went to see my gynecologist and soon after I found myself in such excruciating pain I couldn't breathe. They gave me the highest dosage of Motrin allowed and it still took an hour for my cramps to subside enough so that I could leave the examination room. No, I am not pregnant with a second child, no. Three months after I gave birth to William, in order to avoid unexpected children, the gynecologist persuaded me (with all the good things she said) to have an IUD put in place... Yes, the one with hormones. The alternative choices would have been (1) go back to the unbearable devastating side-effects of the past birth control methods I used, or  (2) accept the risk that I might become pregnant again and resign myself to the idea that my London friend is right - women are made to have and raise children, whether they like it or not.

Although there were only few problems for the first two years - I felt like a girl who had just discovered condoms!, the IUD has turned out to be worse than any of the other birth control methods I have used in the past. Recently, I have even come to believe that it has played a role in my difficulties in walking (this morning, I was limping, while I was preparing Tronk's breakfast) and the mysterious swelling in my extremities. So I went to see the gynecologist to ask her to have it removed, once and for all.

So yesterday, after screaming several times while the gynecologist was trying hard to remove the damned thing, each time without the slightest hint of success, I finally had to settle with cramps up to my throat and with a half a smile on her face, while she was making her conclusive comment: 

"I am sorry to have to tell you this, but another option could be to take you up to the 8th floor to have it removed in the surgery while you are asleep. Sorry, but I don't know what else to do". On that same day, I had just finished reading a list of horror stories, written by women, on this particular worse case scenario.

And then... they say that women are equal to men?

Recently Overheard - Origliato Di Recente

Overhead today, while Tronk, who is not three yet, was playing:

- Si accende il motore ed il trenino va di felicita'! (The engine starts running and the little train goes out of happiness!)

- Ecco, e' il motore che va, ed e' pieno di felicita'! (Here it is, it is the engine that is running, and it is filled with happiness!)

- Ascolta! Tu metti l'aragosta nell'acqua bollente e non si muove piu'! (Listen! You put the lobster in the water boiling and it'll stop moving)

- Questa e' la rana che salta nella fontana perche' fa caldo! (This is the frog that jumps in the fountain cause it's hot!)

I had to remove the other lines from this page as they were censored.

When I go to the bathroom I think of you - Quando vado al bagno penso a te

The summer has finally come, a bit more English weather than usual, but that's OK. I imagined lazy days, but I am already tired of potty training. This morning I was close to throwing the potty out of the window! (Naples style). Really. 

What depresses me is the amount of time I have spent in the toilet (please don't tell me I should call it restroom!) since 2010 and the little success I have had. Remember this posting? I started the potty training when he was 18 months old. No kidding. Initially, I was able to get him to successfully poop once a day. Later, he was having his long wee every morning. The potty training was going fine. Then something happened.

Last winter, I had to take a break from it to avoid falling with my glamorous boot on a bunch of poop while I was cleaning the potty. I then restarted the potty training in spring thinking we'd pick up where we had left off. Bad idea. In spring, not only Tronk was no longer able to tell me when he needed to go (his adorable "poop face" was gone), but also he no longer wanted to have anything to do with the potty.

So I went from singing "mi scappa la pipi' papa'" (I need to go for a wee daddy) to reading stories on animals crapping, to telling Tronk that if he doesn't learn to pee in the toilet he will no longer be able to play soccer. I was hoping that the situation would improve. It hasn't. It has gotten worse and I feel I am starting to go mental (sto per sclerare).

This morning, after spending more than 15 minutes playing with the potty, he finally decided to pee in his diaper while eating cereal. After that, I gave him a large glass of water and left him naked in the house - for three hours. For three hours he whined while he played on the large purple plastic tarp that we normally use for messy activities. No signs that he needed to go to the toilet. Then lunch came and I put him in a pull up diaper. He figured that time had come to let go and there was pee all over the chair.

Tronk is turning three in a month and I have decided that I have had enough with the potty training. He either figures it out by himself or he will go to college wrapped in a diaper!

Birthday Weekend in Cape Cod - Compleanno a Cape Cod

What I mostly wanted for my birthday was to get on the road and go to the sea, swim in a heated pool, browse through arty things in cute stores, eat raw seafood, feel the heat of the sun on my arms, drink beer and chill out with a Nikon in my hands. My wish came true.

After managing to get through the night despite the constant interruptions of a very angry toddler asking me to wipe his nose all night long - John is away on a business trip so throughout the night I was the only one on call - as soon as I woke up this morning I posted the photos below and looked at them with a dark cup of PG tips in my hand. Funny how caffeine and a bunch of pictures can brighten up one's day!

Tronk is now begging me to take him back to the green house and I am already dreaming of building one for Tronk in our back yard. We'll see what John will have to say on this. Ugh

Tronk's Favorite Lullaby is in English - La Ninna Nanna Preferita di William e' in Inglese

Tronk has made it very clear. It happens every night and I have to accept it. The last song he wants to hear before he goes to bed, despite all the ninna nanne (Italian lullabies) I made him listen to, is not an Italian song. Nope, it is an English one. The song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. John is convinced that he doesn't understand what it means because the song is in English and Tronk, until now, has only learned to speak Italian. But this time I have to disagree with him, for the following reason.

I used to sing to Tronk the Italian version. He knew the meaning of the words but he wasn't too keen on it. Then, one day he heard the original version in English from his dad and from that day on he rejected the Italian version and, subsequently, all the ninna nanne I used to sing to him when he was a baby had no chance. Now, no matter what ninna nanna I sing to him, Twinkle Twinkle (that's how he calls it) is the only lullaby Tronk wants to hear.

Italian Version Brilla brilla mia stellina Ogni sera sei vicina Lassu' in cielo brillera' Un gioiello sembrera' Brilla brilla mia stellina E sei sempre piu' carina.

English Version      Twinkle, twinkle, little star,      How I wonder what you are.      Up above the world so high,       Like a diamond in the sky.       Twinkle, twinkle, little star.         How I wonder what you are.

I don't blame him. Did you see how the two versions compare against each other? The English lyrics are from an early nineteenth-century English poem, "The Star", which was written by a poetess, Jane Taylor, who was fascinated by the look of a star. The Italian version is a fake, an attempt to translate the English version into Italian, which fails miserably in the last phrase: E sei sempre piu' carina. Literally, it means, "And you are nicer every day", which sounds more like the improvised comment of a nanny than poetry. It's a bad fake and Tronk spotted it!

More recently, Tronk has learned to sing Twinkle Twinkle. You can watch one of his public performances below. He learned this phonetically... as you might gather by the way he pronounces sky as skype - Yes, the computer software that he uses to talk to Nonni, grandma and grandpa.

So, every evening, when Tronk and I reach the last word of the last book we decide to read at bedtime, every time, I say to him "buonanotte tesoro, sogni d'oro, ti amo" (goodnight my little treasure, sweet dreams, I love you)  and I sullenly leave his room, with my head lowered, staring at my feet. I then call John and ask him to go to his room to sing the English lullaby.

I really cannot blame him for preferring the English lullabies to the Italian ninna nanne. The latter are closer to somber songs and laments expressing mourning or grief than to nursery rhymes for soothing babies! In most cases, they either talk about the hard labor of mothers, the weight that they have to bear in looking after their babies, or are about mothers threatening to give their babies away to witches, wolves or saints if the babies don't fall asleep. To not mention the ones filled with tragedies such as the black bird losing his wings, then one eye, then the other eye and so on. I spare you the lullabies with unclear sexual innuendo. The words in the Italian ninna nanne seem to come from the selfish needs of the Italian mothers to get through the day and make their child sleep while everyone else is free. Surely, there must be Italian lullabies that are not so heavy and so depressing!

I searched through Tronk's books and I did some research on the web. I am afraid the closest correspondent to the upbeat Little Star that I used to sing to William is Stella Stellina (Star, Little Star), which brings a bunch of animals into the picture. Not so cheerful, as you can see below.

Italian Version Stella stellina la notte si avvicina la fiamma traballa la mucca è nella stalla la mucca e il vitello la pecora e l'agnello la chioccia ed il pulcino          ognuno ha il suo bambino ognuno ha la sua mamma e tutti fan la nanna.

English Version  Star, little star,  the night is approaching.  the fire is dying  the cow is in the barn  the cow and the calf  the sheep and the lamb  the hen  with the chick  each and everyone has his child  each and everyone has his mom  and everyone goes to sleep.

No wonder Tronk said "basta" (enough) and gave his preference to a well written (and lighthearted) English poem.

UPDATE ON JULY 6:

In the last week or so, Tronk has added one bedtime request to his usual repertoire. He now pretends that I stay in his room for one more lullaby. This time, luckily, the song is in Italian. The only problem is that Tronk is usually the only one who knows what is about, until tonight.

Tonight, just before I closed his bedroom door, Tronk sang this to me:

Original Version in Italian Dormi, Dormi mia bella mamma con la mia fronte in mano Non andare a farti la bua  Vieni, vieni qui con me.

English Translation      Sleep, sleep, my beautiful mom,      with my forehead in your hand      Do not go to get a boo-boo      Come here, come here with me.      .

That song he sang, at the end of a long tiring day, is worth one million hugs. Thanks Tronk for making my job as a mother so worth it.

Feeling like a teen again - Sentirsi di nuovo come una teenager

Going out on a date for three hours without a toddler asking for "coperta bianca" (that's how Tronk calls his secutity blanket) it's an achievement. Going out on a date for six hours without hearing "coperta bianca" is a treat, almost a privilege, for a stay at home mom without grandparents living nearby.

What happened to me last night was far more exciting. It is almost as exciting as the first time my father gave me permission to go out dancing without having to be back by midnight, the first cigarette I smoked on the balcony of my parents' apartment, or the first summer holiday I spent by the sea without my parents. The sort of thing that makes you shake with excitement. Although, in the case of last night, if I add all the costs together (babysitter + dinner out + concert tickets + parking + beers, etc), it didn't come cheap.

Last night John and I went to see Radiohead live. Man, what a night;  I was feeling like a teenager again!

On our arrival at Comcast Center, there were tons of people eating and drinking from the trunk of their cars in the adjacent parking lots.

Loads of beer, wine, cheers and weed

 

Basically, a village of happy people

And a huge outdoor stadium getting more and more crowded.

Then the first band arrived and the stadium filled up slowly.

Then, there was Radiohead on stage with the coolest multimedia effects I have ever seen in a concert in my life.

No, I didn't take this photo. The one I took came black but this is what I remember of that moment, although I was much further behind that the person who took this picture.

And this is the instant I enjoyed the most. Watch it, if you are not a Radiohead fan, you will become one.

There must have been twenty-five thousand people sharing the magic of that instant. I can't stop thinking about it. I was there, drinking pints of beers and listening to a band from Oxfordshire (to be precise, from a small rainy town - Abingdon - where many of my friends used to live and not far from one of the companies I worked for) !! Wait a minute, what were so many people doing in shorts and baseball caps? Of course, I had not suddenly moved back to England. It was England that had come to see me in America!

Strange what happens when you have kids. Soon after they started their encore, John and I left as fast as we could so that we would reach home in time to relieve the babysitter. We made our way out, while wondering what Tronk could have been up to in those six long hours we had been out partying. Hopefully, he was not upset. Hopefully, he went to bed without crying, etc, etc.

It turned out that Tronk went to pay visit to the babysitter's 24 year old niece and that he managed to use his charm to steal her birthday balloon! I can't describe the happiness I felt when I finally saw my boy lying on his bed with his arms stretched (meaning: I have had a great time mom!). I was so happy to be home.

I Am Turning Forty - Sto per compiere Quarant'anni

 

I legally turn 40 in 23 hours and I cannot help thinking about my life. I used to think 40 was old. "Se non lo faccio adesso che sono giovane quando lo faro'? Quando avro' quarant'anni?"  (If I don't do it now that I am young when will I do it? When I am 40 ?) In my mind, there has always been the idea that, when the age of a woman ends in ANTA (e.g. quaranta, cinquanta, sessanta), 90 times out of 100 this means that she is:

a mature and confident (even if she is not) woman that sets and follows rules, has security, is allowed to talk, complain and judge people. She no longer knows how to have fun outside the kitchen, has wrinkles, abundant make up (which often turns her face into a mask), shoulder length hair, short hair dyed to cover the grey and uses tons of moisturizers to stop her skin from drying out. She is respected by everyone, has status, is wise, or perhaps just boring, in some cases, stuffy, I mean

... BASICALLY OLD!

The truth is that a woman turning 40 receives age warnings from every person she meets: the primary care doctor asks her to get parts of her body checked in case there is something rotting away or breaking down - His request usually starts like this: "You have turned 40, I am afraid..."The sales assistant with a tactful tone utters these words: "I am afraid at your age a moisturizer is no longer sufficient". If you Google "turn 40" you get depressing results. Basically, when you turn 40 you are no longer young - you hear it all around - and believe me, this really sucks!

Enough.

So the other night I went on a ladies night out to celebrate my 40th birthday. My original plan was to meet a bunch of girlfriends for cocktails, followed by dinner to end it all on the dance floor. I was sure that in a way or another I would have got all of us to dance, as in the good old days in England.

We drank our cocktails but none of us mentioned the dancing, not a single time during the evening. The night ended with us glued at the table in front of our unfinished desserts. I enjoyed so much chatting with my girlfriends (also moms turning 40) that dancing ceased to be the top priority for the night. We all needed to chat, badly, and believe me, it was such a therapeutic experience! Yet, this morning in the shower, I could not explain why I did not bother to get up and drag my friends to the dance floor.

40 years... as a teenager it seemed so far away and appeared as the age when you will know who you are, right? When you will be sure of your look, what you want to do, your career, your relationships, what you love and hate. The day I turn 40 I will know who I am.

 

Well, in the last year my body has reminded me that I’m not twenty any more. My mom job often feels like hard labor. There are days I feel so worn out I cannot open my eyes in the morning until 11 am. My feet hurt on a regular basis and I use a mountain of pillows to position myself comfortably in bed before I can fall asleep. Strangely, I – my soul – doesn’t feel any different than before: hotheaded, stubborn, rebellious. Yet, me as a twenty year old girl was imagining a very different 40 year old than the one I am now.
 

I don't know why, I always imagined myself either in a brilliant career as a manager or in the role of an artist in constant need of expression. For some reason, there was always in me the idea of a completely different "me", either the idea of a woman  super organized and efficient or the opposite, a woman who keeps a notebook beside her bed to jot notes of her creative ideas in the middle of the night but who cannot remember to turn up at a doctor's appointment. For some reason, I had to turn into one of these two types of women and the men I was dating also had to fit into one of these two categories, always leading to bad mistakes on my part.

So there were two possibilities.

Either I would have put my hair up all the time to look like a manager, I would have lowered the tone of my voice to sound refined and sexy and would have had a wonderful career with the confidence of the woman in Basic Instinct...

Or, I would have been a crazy artist, with the head buried in creative thoughts in a messy and filthy apartment. A terribly good looking boyfriend. The exhibition I could finally go to with my long dress (like Kim Basinger in nine and a half weeks) and my unusually pointed shoes. My friend Laura probably remembers these past fantasies of mine."Oh mio Dio!" (OMG!), she would say at the end.

Come on, I was sixteen. Forgive me for being so naive at that time. When I was sixteen, I was convinced that I would remain single and childless for my entire life, in constant search of adventures. This is what I would have probably said if I had met the 40 year old woman I am now:

- "OMG! a child? I have a husband too? Are you kidding?"

- "Where is my cool job? ah, I moved to Boston. Why? To stay at home with a child? You loser! Yes, the child is really really cute but how can you stay for more than an hour with him without forgetting him on a bus? You have changed!"

I don't know why everything turned out differently than I expected. It did, and I feel much richer for it; more in control of my choices, including the hard ones. Is this what turning 40 is about? Is this why they say that "life begins at 40"? Perhaps. The other night, while I was enjoying a simple chat with the ladies, this strange thing happened:

Man: "Can I just ask you a question? Is the color of your dress green or blue? We are currently having an argument on this. My mother says it's green, I say it's blue!" 
One of my friends: "It could be either, depending on how you want it to be".

The answer wasn't just about the dress. If he had asked me whether I was still in my thirties or in my forties, the answer would have probably been the same. Funny how the mind goes.