This weekend was a little long and pretty much consisted of stress intermixed with some relaxation and tons of food (as always). On Friday afternoon we had to get everything prepared to go down to Forte dei Marmi for the weekend. I picked Bea up from the bus stop and Paolo went with his mom to Kung Fu. When we got home we organized her backpack and then went with her dad to go pick up Paolo and Gaia from kung fu. Because we left Milan around 6 pm we hit all the rush hour traffic. I was sitting in between the two kids for the entire ride...which ended up taking about 4 hours due to rush hour and an additional accident (incidente in italian). Before we hit the windy roads of Tuscany we stopped in a small town by Parma for dinner. I had a delicious ravioli type of pasta stuffed with cheese and spinach. The wine that Mr. Borra ordered was a sparkling red wine that is a specialty of that region. It was different, but really good! For the rest of the journey the kids and I fell asleep. In fact when we finally arrived at the house in Forte the kids continued to sleep as we changed them and got them ready for bed. On Saturday morning Gaia had pilates and the kids had tennis which their dad took them too. So I was only in charge of Kiara the chihuahua. I took her on the bike and rode around the town of Forte dei Marmi before going to the Minerva beach club. I relaxed on my own for a bit until the kids came. They played well together in the morning and when their cousins came (3 girls) they were all running around and being very loud! I managed to organize a game of marco polo in the pool...which was a hit (none of them had ever played before!). After that we tried playing the game colors, but unfortunately fell into some drama. When Bea was "it" she tagged Paolo and scratched him (accidently or on purpose...the jury's still out on that one). Paolo immediately began yelling and screaming (many of which were italian curse words...that I didn't know). After trying to figure out what was going on the kids were separated by their parents and both were punished....mainly because of their reactions after the event. Paolo was yelling and screaming at Bea and Bea refused to apologize...it was a mess! Meanwhile all the cousins were trying to get involved taking sides on the conflict. For the rest of the day Paolo stayed with his dad while I watched Bea.
Before the huge explosion I had just met another au pair from Australia. Her name is Kimberly and it was her third day working with a little girl. Kimberly had been in Italy all summer working for another family and loved the country so much she decided to put of a teaching job and stay longer. She will be living in Milan fairly close to where I am so we exchanged numbers and emails and hopefully will get together at some point! It was really nice to just discuss our experiences so far and compare notes. It was nice to talk to someone that is doing the same thing as I am and having a similar type of culture shock!
This morning after breakfast and getting the kids ready for the beach, and going home afterward, Gaia asked me to work on some homework with Bea. After asking a couple times for her to come with me another tantrum ensued. Finally after lots of yelling and screaming she sat down and started to do some reading and writing. It was not difficult for her at all but she needs to be pushed a lot in order to actually get the work done. We then went back to the beach for the morning. When Gaia came back from running some errands she gave Bea a silver package and told her to give it to me and say sorry for giving me a hard time earlier. When I opened it, it was a sparkely gold headband. A very nice gesture!
After huge lunch of pizza we packed up the car and headed back to Milan. Unfortunately Paolo's sinuses were bothering him today so we went to the doctors tonight and he was given antibiotics. Although the doctor said that he would be ok to go to school they decided to keep him at home to rest because they want to make sure he gets better for the trip to London this weekend.
I think I will have a pretty busy week ahead of me. Gaia has invited me to go to Vogue's Fashion Night Out on Thursday which she said is the major designers fall fashion preview. Should be exciting! Then on Friday afternoon its London again! Who knew I'd be back in the UK so soon???
Ciao!
xoxo
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