Little Man

We had a Mussolini era apartment in Ottaviano up by the Hilton Cavalieri.  Tobias was enrolled in a little school five minutes walk from our apartment which was run by nuns among his favorite, Suora Marta.  I asked him one day what was his favorite thing to do at school.  He thought for a moment and then said “Running and jumping”…thus the title of this book.

At around age 2, he was taking a bath with me and wanted to know what “that” was pointing to his little penis.  I gave him the simplest of explanations given his young age.  I got out of the bath and was dressed and brushing my teeth and he said still sitting in the bath “But Mummy where is your peanut?”  This story was told much to Tobias’ horror but to the delight of the guests, by his father at his recent California wedding reception.

One day down in Sperlonga, he was drawing at the dining table and he said “Mummy, I know where babies come from.”  “Oh do you,”  I responded.  “Yes, first the Dr. cuts open all the mothers’ tummies then he takes the babies and puts them in boxes on a shelf in the back.”  “But how does he know which babies belong to which mothers?”  I inquired.  Tobias had obviously not gotten that far with his plan but after a few seconds’ thought, he gave me this smug little look and said “Oh, he knows.  He knows.”

One night we had given a dinner party and I was so tired that I left the mixed raisins and peanuts in a bowl on the coffee table.  I slowly awoke on the sofa in the living room probably because of his Dad’s intense snoring.   “Slish, slosh, slish, slosh.”  I dimly thought what the hell is that…wake, prop open eyes and there is Tobias in his Mattel truck riding backwards and forwards through a little beach of raisins and peanuts.

On another occasion, we just got in the apartment and I ran the bath and was just about to take his snowsuit off when the phone rang.  I said I’ll call back later and hung up.  It was the office, I had been on the phone literally seconds.  I ran into the bathroom and there he was headfirst in the bath waving his arms and legs around like an upside-down tortoise.

In Sperlonga we had many white-washed stairs leading to a palm garden.  Lining the steps were pots of red geraniums.  I was down in the garden on the lawn chair reading when all of a sudden rained upon me three year old, pots, soil, and geraniums.  His mouth was full of soil and he had a little nick of the back of his head.  I sat him in the sink in the kitchen and cleaned him.  Finally, I asked what were you doing?  He looked at me sheepishly “Windsurfing!”