Living With Boys...

It has definitely been hard for me to adjust here. I've never lived with boys before other than my dad, and now I am living with four little ones. I had been forewarned about the number of kids I'd be living with but I never imagined it would be like this; these are not normal children! Never, in my entire life, have I met such terrible kids! I usually love kids, so just saying that a child could be terrible is hard for me.. But after living with these ones I now know that it is definitely possible. I have never met any kids who scream, cry, fight, and throw tantrums as much as these ones do! And it's usually about NOTHING! They will start whining about anything.. maybe that mom went downstairs to go get something or they were told to "wait a minute" when asking for something. And then the whining becomes screaming.. Which involves sitting on the floor, shouting random words (or maybe just noises, heck I don't know, I can't speak Italian!), and doing whatever they can to make as much noise and be as annoying as possible. The worst part is that unlike normal, quick fits of unhappiness about something, they will continue to scream for about 15-20 minutes! There have been times here when one or two of them will "cry" for an entire meal. The reason I put cry in quotation marks is because it isn't real crying. Anyone with eyes can tell that it is a fake, forced "crying" that is taking place. Luigi, for example, will sit on the floor and sob, but sometimes he'll get distracted by something on the ground or wall and look at it for a minute. But then he'll remember that he was throwing a fit and continue "crying." I just roll my eyes and walk away.

Luigi has officially become my least favorite of the four. He is the oldest, yet his maturity level sure doesn't reflect that. The first few days I was here he was fine, probably just because I was new and he wanted to seem cool or whatever. However, now he is always whining about stupid little things and being a total jerk to his brothers for no reason. Today, for example, he was being such a brat! There is a stupid toy that they like to play with which is a toy car. I have no idea what is so exciting or entertaining about it but they seem to like it. Anyways, Luigi was playing with it and Mattia wanted to join him. Well, to say the least, sharing isn't a common thing in this house. Luigi, who obviously wasn't even that interested in playing with the car anymore, but of course didn't want Mattia to play with it, went into his room where he'd been watching tv and laid down with the car in his arms so Mattia couldn't get it. I was sitting there watching the whole thing go down and feeling bad for Mattia, while hopelessly trying to get Luigi to give it to him by giving him dirty looks, rolling my eyes, and saying "Luigi!" in a tone that suggested he was being a brat. Of course, none of these tactics worst and the situation ended in screaming and crying as usual.

Another instance that made me dislike Luigi occured yesterday, while playing outside. We were downstairs and in the parking lot for the building they had made a small goal using a lamp post, a pole, and a bungee cord (I think). Luigi and I were playing a little one-on-one (and of course I was dominating) when the ball went out of bounds after Luigi kicked it. It was obvious that the ball was mine to kick, but Luigi started walking toward me asking for the ball. I said no once or twice and started to walk over to where I was going to start from and Luigi decides to sit on the ground and start screaming and crying as loud as he can. All because he wanted to kick the stupid ball! Seriously, these kids get upset way to easily. Well of course I wasn't going to give in to it, so I acted like the game was still going to see if he would get over it and play. But that was a mistake, and only upset him further. I kicked the ball to the other side towards the goal and walked away, acting angry at him and decided not to play with him anymore (Ha! That'll show him!). I think he was just upset that he was getting his butt kicked by not only a girl, but a girl from the US! Put that in your juice box and suck it, Luigi!

Anyways, I'm definitely having trouble adjusting here. Maybe things will get better when school starts, maybe not. We'll see! Oh, and to Jessi Callahan: I actually don't think you're crazy for wanting five boys. These ones are monsters but I blame a lot of it on the parenting and you are an amazing mommy so I know your boys will turn out to be wonderful just like the two you already have :)

Well enough about these rotten kids. Today we took a trip to Naples. I thought we were going because it was Simone's 3rd birthday today and we were visiting family or something, but it turned out we were just driving through to see the city I guess. It was very pretty in some parts, especially by the water. I can now say that I've seen the Mediterranean Sea! Monica and Mariano would randomly stop the car near a castle or just the water and have me get out to take pictures. It was a nice gesture I suppose, but I really wasn't feeling like being in any pictures, you know? But I did get some nice shots of the water and everything. It's become very clear on this trip, though, that I need a new camera :/ Mine just doesn't bring out the colors in a lot of my scenery pictures. They're very dull and gray. (hint hint mom...)

Today's meals were great :) For lunch we had some really yummy cannelloni! I though that was all we were having so I had a decent amount. As always, that turned out to be a stupid idea and I realized that when Monica brought out the meatballs. They were HUGE. And they were pretty good.. Not amazing though. Definitely not as good as yours, mom :) Then at dinner we ate in the special room that we never go in. A small card table was set up with a 2 liter bottle of coca-cola, some juice, and food! We had mini pizzas, some weird thing that I don't remember the name of.. (but that doesn't matter because it wasn't that great anyways), and Mariano made a calzone di Mariano, which he was very proud of. It was just a small one, and he cut it up into little sections for each of us. It was pretty good though. Oh yeah, and instead of a birthday cake, we had a giant tiramisu :) It was pretty good, but I think I enjoyed watching it be made more than eating it. Maybe it's just because I'm not a huge fan of coffee and the coffee taste in it was very strong.

So tomorrow I start a new adventure; school! I'm excited, which is kind of funny because at home I would be dreading the end of summer. I have to tell you all about my experience with school so far though. So yesterday I decided I wouldn't take a shower and would just put my gross hair up in a ponytail (because Italians think it's weird that I shower every day..). Unfortunately, as we were walking out the door, my host family says "we are going to look at your school." GREAT, I look like crap and we're going to my school.. but then I though, wait! It's Saturday! No one will be there! WRONG, I forgot that they have school on Saturdays here. Of course I was reminded of this when I saw the millions of vespas parked in front of it. So long story short, after meeting the principal and filling out some papers, lucky me got to go stand in front of my future class with disgusting hair while the principal introduced me. Of course she did all of this in Italian and I had no idea what they were saying as I stood there for five minutes. All I could think was "thank goodness I wore makeup today..." while I was trying to ignore that fact that they were all staring at me and making their first judgements. Lucky for me, there is one kid who is completely fluent in english, without even an accent, and he is going to help me for the first month until I learn the language. Too bad I can't remember his name right now...

Oh my gosh, today when it rained it really made me think of home. It has rained a few times since I've been here but usually when I'm busy or sleeping. Tonight was different though because not a lot was going on and I was bored. I went out on the patio (which was covered) and just stood there listening to it for a few minutes. It was really nice to hear it and for just a brief moment, with my eyes closed, I felt like I was standing on my front porch again at home. I can't say I'm necessarily "homesick", as in to the point of crying "I want to go home!" in my room, but I do miss home as anyone would, and the little feeling of home was nice :)

Anyways, I will be sure to update this after my first day of school. No doubt it will be an adventure and I have no idea what to expect right now. I miss everyone a lot and I hope all is well over there :) Feel free and let me knowUntil next time!

-Zoë