tea time no. 78: Travel Time

Drinking: Coffee warmed up from the morning

Listening to: Weather With You – Neil Finn

In the time I spent traveling yesterday, I could have made it all the way to Venice. My girl and I were traveling solo and she was an absolute champ all day which has me dreaming {probably unrealistically} about international travel with her.

I know an attorney in Lexington who spends a month in Italy every couple of summers. He is one of those people who, every time you see him, seems relaxed and happy. Don’t you just love people like that? I was the first attorney to have a baby at my firm. When I was about four months pregant, I sat next to this attorney in court while we waited for motion hour to begin. In the fifteen minutes we waited, I quizzed him about how he keeps his cases going for a month or more while he’s in Italy. His advice was the best real-world advice I found applicable to materity leave. The fog that I was in for the 9 weeks I was able to be home with my new baby was not unlike being in a water-covered place where sirens sound different and phone numbers begin with zero.

Anywho…much later, I ran into him at a mediation and thanked him for the tips. He shared that he and his wife had just taken their daughter and their two-year-old grandson to Italy. I began asking all of the usual questions about traveling that kind of distance with a little one and he was quick to tell me, “Don’t wait too long to take your daughter to Italy. Italians love children.” I had forgotten about this conversation until yesterday, when at the airport for the seventh hour, an Italian family sat down next to us at the gate and giggled and smiled over my daughter’s every move. The mama didn’t speak any English with me, but that did not slow her down. She spoke to me as though I understood every word and while my husband took Italian for long enough to know a thing or two, I know only enough to order fattening delicious food.  They were so sweet to us and everytime my daughter laughed a little too loud under her headphones at Mickey Mouse on my iphone, they were laughing right with her. I’m sure it’s a stereotype, but stereotypes wouldn’t be so bad if they were all as enchanting as the Italians and their kindness to children.