Babies in Italy

Nora is one month old tomorrow. This week concludes the only time I've spent with her by myself. Nathan was home for the first week, then my mom came for the second week. Between the two of them as well as the more than a dozen of Nathan's co-workers who provided meals for us for almost three full weeks, they all saved my sanity. Because feeding the baby was not an easy, painless transition, we have kept outings to a minimum. A dinner out with friends one night, at which the two waitresses were most interested in what type of shoes Nora had on underneath her blanket as she was sleeping in her pram (Answer: none; I think her feet are way too adorable to cover them up), several trips to the base for various Dr. appointments and newborn photo sessions, to the market with my mother (Nora's first market trip was quite exciting and she started learning how to spend her parents' money on clothes), and our big outing to the Amalfi Coast mountain town of Ravello. So far, she does quite well on outings.

Naturally for this family oriented country, having a small baby out and about is cause for lots of attention. Here is what is surprising. A standard question from complete strangers, including the men, is, "Are you breastfeeding?" After they get an affirmative answer, they want to know how often. This is how almost all conversations go from the Italian side:

"Awwwwww. Auguri" [Congratulations]
"Quando?" [When? A way of asking how old.]
"Bella, bella, bellisima" [Pretty - generally followed by more cooing.]
"Mascho o femmina?" [Boy or girl - always this is asked, even if Nora is wearing a pink, ruffled dress]
"Are you breastfeeding?" Asked in Italian - I don't know the word, but I recognize it when I hear it. The first time I was asked, the lady doing the asking just pat her breasts while the young man running the market stall stood with us to also quiz me.
"Quante volte? Ogni tre ore?" [How often? Every three hours?]
"Bene, bene" [Good, good]

This conversation has been repeated over and over again. Two days after we came home from the hospital, Nathan went down to our local salumeria to purchase prosciutto and mozzarella di bufala. He let Gennaro, the salumeria owner, know that "La bambina e qua" [The baby is here], and the first thing Gennaro asked was if I was breastfeeding. This fascination is bizarre to me. One friend posited that culturally, the young women in Italy are electing not to breastfeed, so the older folks are very interested in what I might be doing. My take on it is that we Americans really do seem like bumbling idiots here, so the Italians must think that I don't know how to feed the baby. And I suppose that's why I might also dress my baby boy in a pink, ruffled dress.

I Interrupt This Program -

Lots going on this summer, and still to come on the blog is the Swiss finish to our vacation, a girl's trip to Istanbul, a quick visit to Sicily, and reporting on the Summer o' Beach (meaning we do a lot of lying about on various beaches). But I'm interrupting the more exciting, trip type stuff to report on Baby news. Actually, Baby gear. I got my shipment of stuff yesterday, most of it given or loaned to me by my sister, mom of three. The military provides us with a fantastic benefit when we live overseas of one shipment of baby gear. There are, or course, several rules, but we qualified. This means new moms (the allowance is only available to first time parents) can get the stuff they actually want, rather than being dependent on our very, very expensive choices out in town or our limited, but more economical, choices on base.

Nathan and I have spent the past few years trying to declutter. I'm worse at it than Nathan, but neither of us has been completely successful. And what do babies bring? Clutter. Stuff. More stuff. Stuff that multiplies and gets bigger as they get bigger. I think we're both having nightmares of drowning beneath piles of baby gear. To that end, we kept our baby shipment small. We have just the basics. The basics do not extend to Baby's clothing. See the picture? That is one out of 8 or 9 loads of laundry and only includes what my sister is loaning me - it does not include the stuff we've already bought or received as gifts. When my baby goods arrived yesterday, the clothes, including lots of blankets and some very bulky type items for cold weather, all fit nicely into two plastic tubs and one additional box. Then I made the mistake of opening those tubs and soon, Scully and I found ourselves trapped under piles of baby clothes that were multiplying like little Gremlins. Scully was running scared - his world is about to be completely rocked.

I can see my future now, and it has made me run, not walk, to Pinterest for every organizing tip in the book. Our biggest problem is that while we live in a decent size house, we have NO closets. This is Europe, people. No closets. We have a cantina with wonderful shelving...and everything in the cantina grows mold. We have a closet in our garage. When it rains, is it's wont to do all winter long, that closet streams water down it's walls...which equals mold. So where to turn? Under the bed space, which is all currently in use. Wardrobes, ditto. The key is to aggressively weed out belongings (please note, the key is not to cut down on baby clothes. Baby clothes are cute, and from what I hear, babies vomit a lot, so lots of clothes are actually necessary, esp to people who have a fickle dryer). So I dive into closets and wardrobes with every intent of throwing out things like the cigar boxes I bought six years ago when we were stationed in Key West, but then I realize all the things cigar boxes are good for...like storing tiny baby things. I study my shoe organizers and contemplate getting rid of some of my high heels, but I'm just not ready to face the fact that, since I stumble when wearing heels without a baby in my arms, my high heel days will be disappearing for the next several years. So I turn to my purses, which Nathan believes I could easily cut down. He is incorrect. I use all my purses, except for the bright red, leather, triangle tote that is so gorgeous. I have used it once, and I looked fabulous. The rest of the time it sits neatly organized on my purse shelf making me happy. But me thinks when one has a baby, one does not get a neatly organized purse shelf, or even a neatly organized purse. One gets an ugly, plastic-like, humongous diaper bag to carry around yet more baby stuff. In February, when I was visiting my sister, we went to a consignment store, and I found a very pretty, Coach tote bag that I thought would work perfectly as a diaper bag. My sister just laughed and laughed. Apparently, Scully isn't the only one about to have a rocked world.