One of the few people who manages to get me to sit down is my two-year-old son. When he has had enough of my multi-tasking, he commands attention by piping up: “Mamma, sit down.” It stops me in my tracks every time. If a toddler notices how much I’m running around trying to do too much at once, then it’s time to sit back and revel in the moment that he’s craving my attention now.
Sitting down, or sitting still, is hard for me to do. There never seems to be enough time in a day to do everything that needs to get done. And, as Luca gets more independent and capable of doing things on his own, I find myself often keeping one eye on him instead of two. (This is not great parenting, I realize, but I doubt I’m the only one of this sort.) Whether it’s my opening the mail while he’s putting together a train track or my chopping vegetables while he’s parking his cars in his toy garage, I’m rarely doing one thing and one thing only. I pay for this, too, as there have been some incidents I’d rather forget from moments when I’ve been distracted or he’s being more sly than usual. But, somehow, we get by and he still kisses me good night at bedtime.
Part of my always being on the go stems a bit from the lifestyle we lead here. We have my husband’s parents and one sister in Paris, his other sister in London, and various relatives in Rome. In less than two hours, either by train or plane, we can reach any of these cities. So, we often do. We pack our bags, we call a taxi, and head off to either the plane or train station. It’s to the extent now that when Luca sees me with my gym bag he thinks we’re going on a trip.
Being a constant traveler is fine-tuning Luca’s eyes. He is an observer. My mother says that I’d rarely fall asleep in my baby stroller, likely because I didn’t want to miss out on what was going on around me. Luca is the same way. He takes it all in. Lately, his obsession has been cars. He has a bountiful collection of toy cars, and he knows their every name. At first, I thought he recognized only the cars of his own. But, then, I saw, and continue to see, that he is capable of identifying just about every single type of car parked on the street. Ford, Peugot, Mercedes, Audi, Alfa Romeo — very few cars stump him. I can barely recognize my own.
He has started adding descriptive adjectives to objects lately, thereby showing appreciation or distaste. “Beautiful necklace” or “nice backpack” were comments he made about playmates yesterday. “Yucky pasta” was a result of a recent restaurant review.
He’s right to insist I sit down, however. I see more — both through his eyes and mine.
