Lord, beer me strength

These children are terrible. That's not true. They just have listening/respect/obeying problems. X 4. Individually I like each of them. Cris (cristina) is by far my favorite and I have no problem saying so. Vitti (Vittoria) is who I consider the baby, even though they're all the same age. Leo is the most sensitive (not in a positive way) even though he's the boy. and Lala (laura) eh, I could probably take her or leave her and be fine either way.

None of them ever listen so I've taken up whistling (like for a dog) or turning their games/tv/ipads (that's right) off to get their attention if they don't respond after the second time I call them. If that doesn't work I flick them in the forehead. Since physical abuse is out, I've settled on inflicting tiny amounts of pain. They kind of think it's funny (especially when I do it to one of their siblings) but then they know I'm serious.

The other problem is that there has never been any consistent discipline. Example: Vitti is the worst about eating. She always fusses and refuses. Friday night we had spinach and she was refusing to eat it. I told her if she acted like a baby I was going to treat her like one so I fed it to her (which actually wasn't a big deal because their mom spoon feeds them all the time. Ridiculous) So after she'd been chewing a huge disgusting bite of spinach for a long time she spit it back on her plate. I fed it to her again anyway. Sunday night she did the same thing with her meat but we were eating with her parents (they usually eat later because Marco gets home from work so late.) so I didn't really feel like the authority in that situation. Needless to say I think I just added to the inconsistency.

The country house was huge, of course, but not what I expected. Marco is part of a horse racing team (except I don't think they race, it's all jumping, but the whole family kept calling it racing) so their house is in some kind of compound with other houses, stables, practice rings, etc. The horse riding they do is not for pleasure, it's for sport. I'm not as cool as I thought I was seeing as I never got to ride this weekend. The kids had riding lessons, but we didn't take the horses out just to ride. Not as much fun in my opinion.

In other news. My english might be getting worse and I've developed a bad Italian accent. If anyone ever tells you that you can't decorate your apartment with 36 4x6 photos, fishing line, mini clothes pins and plastic wrap, they are wrong. And Bagno means bodywash. Not shampoo...