Men to Golf Cleaning Up's for Women

The Golf clubs arrived this morning. Hub's Wilson Ultra TXF Starter Set (13 clubs in total) and Eldest Son's Wilson Prostaff Junior Set (with 6). And their respective trolleys. Men's (expensive) toys, lady to hang around at home to accept delivery.

Though I wouldn't be able to run around today, with Baby Girl all sick and whinny. If I could predict winning lottery numbers like I could when she would vomit, I would be very rich by now. So at midnight last night I was changing pyjamas and bedsheets, giving her a bath and cursing away (as she moved when I told her not to and I had vomit all over the floor as well and she had eaten loads of chicken curry for dinner!). And nobody else woke up in all this excitment, nobody. The Hub slept through it all.

Back to the golf clubs, the old man delivering them told me as he was waiting for me to sign the delivery receipt, that he used to live in the house 45 years ago. Now that really got my attention.

He lived here with 7 other farmhands for 5 years. They used to grow wheat in the fields around. The empty part of the house now used to be the stalls in the old days. And he has not been back for 35 years now. Amazing, isn't it? I wish I could speak better Italian as I would have liked to know much more about the history of this house and all its ghosts.

For lunch we joined a few Kindergarten and Transition Year mothers at the restaurant Il Contea di Montale (between the school and my house) for Tigelle, Gnocco Fritto, Pasta, Risotto and Pizza. Many started to complain about the (low) standards of the school, the incessant fundraising etc though we must admit that the children seem to be happy in it. Next to me Baby Girl was stuffing herself with the cured ham and pizza that she, as I've suspected even then, would promptly throw out once we reach home.

At one point I decided to tell little Hjalmar's mom (sitting opposite me at the dining table) that the Babies have been returning home for the past 3 months complaining that her son has been hitting them at school. I subscribe to the belief that children do fight and should fight things out among themselves, and that as long as nobody risks getting hurt, parents shouldn't interfere. However, it is important for us to know what's going on and why.

She took that badly and said that the teacher has mentioned nothing to her and that if there is any fighting, her son wouldn't be at fault alone. And she thinks that I shouldn't have talked to her like that in front of everybody (not that anybody was listening to us honestly).

Why do some parents take what their kids do or not do like a personal affront to themselves? Just one week after school started, Cesare Wang's nanny came up to me to tell me that Baby Girl had been beating up her charge. I promptly pulled the girl over and interrogated her in front of her accuser. She didn't deny it so I asked her to apologise to the boy and promise not to touch him again. I didn't hear any more complaints about it again and if I did, I would certainly want to know why she would want to beat that very shy and quiet boy. What goes on between kids can be quite intriguing at times. In Stuttgart, she kept being bullied by a pair of brothers and I found out after some investigation that that was because they were in love with her! Hahahaha...

In Hjalmar's case, what happened must be true as I actually had other kids in the class coming up to tell me that he had been beating up my kids. And love couldn't be the motive as he likes to beat up Baby Boy too. Only explanation (given by the teacher who didn't mention anything to the mother) was that he doesn't speak English yet and may be feeling frustrated about it. If I'm the mom, I would be feeling grateful if I could find out important things like that about my children. So anyway, things seem a little tense between us now, though after all these years living in Europe I've become quite thick-skinned and will face any uncomfortable situation with my little boobs perked up and a cheerful smile plastered on my face. I am letting nothing except my weight bother me.