Five More Minutes

My days in Italy are flying by. It's not like I have been doing much during the day except for watching Downton Abbey and writing blogs. But here I find myself three weeks into my stay in Italy, when it feels like I just arrived.

Tuesday afternoon Chiara had her third interview for a company similar to the one she currently works for. She had to be in Verona, which is an hour away, by 3:30pm so Marco got off work early to watch Mattia and pick up Giorgia from school. The grandparents also came over to help watch the children because Chiara and Marco had the Michael Buble concert to attend that night in Milan. Marco left to meet Chiara around 4pm, so it was just me, the children, the grandparents, and Senora. Senora is the lady who cleans the house once a week and does the ironing once a week. Yesterday she had so much to iron. It was unreal. Anyway, my job was pretty easy because Giorgia and Mattia only wanted their grandparents. I was able to just sit on the couch and play on my phone. 

Now, the grandparents know very little English. It is quite fun though trying to communicate to each other. It's almost like a game of charades! The grandmother was about to cook dinner, but she wanted to know what kind of sauce I liked with my pasta. She tried asking me, then the grandpa tried asking me, then I just said, "Show me". I pointed to the tomato sauce. The grandmother was making pesto sauce for them and motioned if I wanted some. I was like, "Oh no, Pomodoro!", which is tomato. I'm pretty sure they think I'm a crazy American for the sole fact I wanted tomato sauce with linguine. Because somehow she communicated that with linguine they do not like tomato sauce, only pesto. Tomato sauce is for spaghetti. 

The grandmother also must think Americans eat a lot because she gave me twice as much pasta as everyone else! I was like holy cow! She did tell me that I didn't have to eat it all though. Well, she spoke in Italian and the grandpa was able to translate. We also got to eat mozzarella with dinner. It is my absolute favorite thing so far in Italy. It comes shaped like a large egg almost. You slice it up and eat it by itself. It's delicious. Mattia and I normally eat all of it! I'm sure we probably have this in Kentucky, but I doubt it's as good as the kind in Italy. One night Marco told me they would export some to Kentucky for me when I leave & Chiara chimed in saying, "And Crispy M&M's"! I said, "Yes, please!!" 

After dinner I helped the grandmother with the dishes, then I thought they would be leaving. Nope, they stayed until the children went to bed. Around 8:30, they made Giorgia and Mattia go up to their parents room to watch some TV before falling asleep. Except that's not exactly how it happened. Giorgia refused to quit playing the Peppa Pig game on the iPad and Mattia wanted to play with his Cars puzzle. I told Mattia that it was time for bed and he could not do the puzzle. Of course he starts crying, so in comes Grandpa to save the day. He said, "Let him play five minutes." The grandparents were terrified of making the children cry or telling them no. Don't get me wrong, the grandparents are very sweet. They visit the children at least once a week and always try their best to communicate with me.

But by now it was almost 9pm and I was getting irritated. I finally told Giorgia she needed to stop playing the iPad. She had been playing it for a solid hour, at least. She didn't want to quit the game just yet, so the grandpa told her five more minutes. Finally, he coaxed her into handing over the iPad so they could leave. The grandparents live in Verona and had an hour drive ahead of them. Of course right before they left the grandpa said, "Let Mattia play five more minutes while we sneak out". 

Letting him play a little longer didn't keep him from realizing the grandparents had left, so he cried. He didn't want me to hold him, so I finally just put him in his parents' bed and let him watch TV while he cried. Giorgia tried comforting him, which was cute. I let them watch TV for another thirty minutes. By the time I went in to turn the TV off, Mattia was asleep. Giorgia, on the other hand, was sitting up wide awake. She got upset when I turned off the TV and tried to tell me to turn it back on. When I told her that it was time to sleep, she got mad and ran to her bed to cry. She then went back to her parents bed. Then back to her bed before finally falling asleep around 10pm. 

These kids need a better bedtime routine.