What I Wore Sunday

This is a child being tormented with a gluten free birthday cake simply out of deference to his older brother's digestive tract. Look how aware he is of the injustice he is suffering. Look at his disdain for the offending pastry, frosted with an entire jar of Nutella and topped with fresh-picked strawberries.

The sufferings of a younger brother.

On the other hand, a perfectly gluten-full cupcake with real frosting will fit the bill nicely. Points for the other mama at our grande festa di compleanno for not trying to poison the guests of honor with millet and sorghum.

Because nothing says adorable like topless, frosted babies posing carelessly in front of bi-lingual birthday banners.

Jenny outfitted by: 

Unwashed native hair, twisted without so much as a Youtube tutorial 

Dress: Banana Republic outlet

Earrings: Target

Mom arms: nightly night caps. And maybe some of that Nutella 'frosting'

John Paul: 

Top: Baby Gap

Top-less: good genes

Hope you and yours enjoyed a buona Dominica - ours was blessed with new friends, locally-brewed Trappist beer from an Umbrian hilltown, and gluten-free and full birthday treats. 

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

My Birthday Boy

Hanging out over at Hallie's today for a bit of a marital tune-up, which you'd best believe I've only got worked out on paper so far. Work in progress, this little wifey here.

Also, we are celebrating with Italian exuberance the first birthday of our sweet little man John Paul Francis, little-brother-turned-Pope-bait-extraordinaire.

For anyone who does birth chapter books in lieu of simple birth stories, please feel free to click here, here, here, and here...punch me now or punch me later. What can I say? Postpartum makes me obnoxious.

John Paul, you little sweetheart, you bring us so much joy. Even though this was your birth song. And even though you've only been sleeping through the night for 2 weeks. I know you just wanted to give us the benefit of spending as many hours as humanly possible per day with you. And this is the song that we've always sung during our midnight meetups.

Keep getting cuter, you little chunk of baby love.

xoxo,

Mommy.

The Boys

Even though I can't really claim much in the photography department, I can claim a double portion of awesome in the cute man baby department. So, I had to link up with Cari when I saw today's Theme Thursday parameters.

Luckily, while I was busily failing at just enjoying my children yesterday, I had the unknowing foresight to snap about 50 photos of them gallivanting on our balcony.

Sometimes you just want someone to bro out with.

Action shot

.

Gosh, this doesn't look staged at all.

heart

breaker

Watching the construction workers take a smoke break. Enthralled.

A Perfect Day at the Office

I spend a lot of time each day thinking about how much work I'm not getting done. Like now, for example, when I should be wrestling with my washing machine. Or showering. And earlier today, when I was trying to force myself into a relaxed state of 'enjoy them while they're so young and squishy like a pair of puppies' while watching the boys 'garden' in our window box on the balcony, but all I was really thinking of was how much top soil was getting dumped on the tiles. And how Joey will probably suffer his whole life long from a lack of exposure to urban homesteading or something, because I think this was the first time he'd ever dug in real dirt with a real shovel. And John Paul...well his first birthday is Friday. And no one-year-old portraits! So grab the camera. And a broom.

Point being: I have a hard time just enjoying my kids.

I also have a hard time just enjoying being a mom.

Maybe it's a straight-up occupational hazard for one whose occupation is literally defined by multi-tasking. Or maybe it's some latent internalized cultural shame for not being something 'more' than a mom, which may explain why I'm always quick to point out my freelance career and the news site I curate when people ask me what I do for work.

What do I do for work? Everything.

Some days it feels like nothing, though. And even though the house is sparkling and the kids are alive and well in their beds, I lie in my own and wonder why I spent the last 12 precious hours with my head down and my teeth gritted, gutting it out until the finish line where toothbrushes and prayers marked the end of my shift.

I didn't think it was going to be like this. To feel always like a failure and never like I'm finished. But then there are those rare and precious days, days where we might spend hours eating raisins out of the bottom of my purse and lying on the grass in the park, or kicking a soccer ball through the gravel until the sun starts to set...without giving a thought to the unplanned dinner, the unwashed laundry, or the unfinished plans. Those days are so precious. But they are necessarily the exception, because we live in a temporal world where stir fry isn't going to stir or fry itself.

My trouble is in navigating between the two poles, between the moments of 'oh this is bliss, this is what I signed up for' and the moments of 'is somebody going to come and take these kids away, because I am about to scream with the windows open.'

I want to live in the former state, because I know my kids deserve that kind of a mother. But I am not her. I am not the mother my kids deserve. I fail them everyday, in a hundred little ways. Sometimes it's more serious, like letting someone roll off the bed and crack their skull against a marble floor. Sometimes it's less severe, like yelling at Joey for slamming the elevator door after the millionth lecture about not bothering our elderly neighbors with stairwell noise. And then his little face crumbles because honestly, I yelled too loud, and I yelled because I was mad at him, and he's two.

And that's somehow worse than when somebody falls off the bed, you know?

The truth is, I'll never be the mother they deserve. At least not if I spend all my free time planning and executing my endless lists of duties and desires while they nap in the rooms next door. If I spent the same 20 minutes in prayer I spend exercising every day, I wonder what would happen to my heart, and to theirs. If I stopped dwelling exclusively (but not entirely, fear not) on how much I'm screwing up, maybe I'd have some insight into the ways I'm not screwing up today...and maybe that would be encouraging.

Listen, I'm not about to change the tone or title of my e-reign or anything crazy like that, but I do feel a certain urging to expend some effort in elevating the conversation about motherhood, from time to time. Because along with a killer margarita recipe, which of us in the diaper and vomit-lined trenches couldn't benefit from a little of that?

Because if I start seeing my work here with these little people as something more than an endless string of bodily-fluid-related incidents and shouting matches, I think it might change my definition of a 'successful day,' and with it, my sense of accomplishment vs. utter defeat come 10 pm.

Maybe.

I know in my heart that motherhood has an eternal objective. But Lord forgive me, most days I can't see past bedtime.

Let Me Google That For You

Oh, you've never heard of this? Well let me just...yeah. There you go.

The following are actual phrases typed into the search bar on this laptop over the past 48 hours, by various adult members of our household, and in lieu of an actual thought-provoking and potentially time-consuming post, I'd rather distract you with our ineptitude at all things parenting and domestic.

Oh my gosh, until you've moved to a foreign country and can't call your mom/sister at the drop of a hat, you don't know how truly stupid you might be.

Don't believe me? How about some proof pudding:

"How to cook oats"

"What do Russian people look like?"

"How late is too late to potty train?"

"Is it too late to potty train?"

"Self potty-trained children"

"Natural remedies for ants"

"How to kill ants"

"Does cinnamon kill ants?"

"Why am I so fat?"

"Mexican restaurant in Rome"

I believe the last two items may be related, but I will have to do some more research to let you know for sure.

In utterly unrelated news, I've embarked on an ambitious homeschooling effort on behalf of Joey's atrophying brain. In lieu of an actual preschool program, since we A. can't find one that costs less than $350 per month and B. the last one I looked at involved children ages 2.5-5 running wild through 4 open classrooms wearing color-coded smocks and yelling at each other in Italian and even I was scared of them, I've decided to take matters into my own capable hands and unschool him here at home.

Today's lesson: the color red, or rosso, if you're being geographically particular. We gathered a bunch of red stuff, including a pepper, a tomato, an empty pill bottle from (sob) Target, and a blunt vegetable peeler into a bowl and dumped it all out on the coffee table, where I proceeded to drill him on names and colors in two languages. I also happened to be wearing a red shirt and bright red lipstick, courtesy of Dave's selection during a weekend shopping trip.

The end result? He knows the color red, and Mommy is, it turns out, a Montessori goddess. I mean I (unwittingly) coordinated my outfit in order to facilitate synapses in his brain. Come on.

Homeschooling: nailed it.

He might not be any closer to potty trained, but thanks to Google inc. and a bowl of fresh produce and household items, he is well on his way to Harvard. And is currently watching Calliou in Italian. Which is even more obnoxious than the original version, if you can imagine that. On second thought, please don't try to imagine that. I don't hate you, and I'd hate for you to suffer so.

Class is in session.