Grande Bambini

I didn’t realise this in advance, however taking an 8 month old baby to Italy is a sensational move towards international socialisation. Particularly if you’re primarily interested in socialising with the country’s Nonnas.

As we carried our precious bundle over a small bridge a local woman stopped us to say something like “ai, la bambini. Molto buono.” We smiled and I offered something like “Si, si. Grazie Signora.” This had been happening all week and I’d started to study how to do a little better in this circumstance. “Quanti anni?” asked the small woman, she wore a scarf across her hair and I imagined she had been crossing this little canal asking about babies for decades. “Otto mesi.” I offered hoping not to horribly confuse the situation. He was 8 months old. The sparkly eyed Nonna coo’ed with satisfaction, and we moved on through the summer heat filled with a little more joy.

Like many Italian cities the layers of tourism, ancient history and local existence are stacked on top of each other. At lunch on this day, Dani, baby Pan and I managed to cross the line and sit down for lunch in bar full of locals.

We perched at a tiny round table against the wall opposite the bar. There were five more of these tables around, as well as standing space at the bar. The woman working at the counter paused briefly in her passionate discussion with an elderly man as she arrived to take our order. “Buongiorno, ciao bella,” the ‘bella’ was directed to the baby.

At one of the tables across from us a man in his 40s was having lunch with his roughly 14 year old son, Giovanni. I knew his name was Giovanni, because I’m pretty sure Giovanni had to come to lunch with his dad often, and he received a lot of very familiar attention from the regulars. “Hey Giovanni, something something alto.” - hair ruffle, cheek pinch. Giovanni smiled with admirable good nature as he received another round of mirthful assessment.

At one point a Nonna stopped at our table on her way out, “la bambini, bene, bene.” “Grazie, si, grazie,” I said, and with burgeoning confidence I went with “grande bambini.” He was quite large for his age.

“No, no, no,” said Giovanni’s father turning towards us and the interaction moved to the very centre of the cafe’s shared attention. “Bambino piccola,” he motioned at our small child, as smiles grew in the room. He turned with a flourish and pointing to Giovanni “Grande Bambini!”

Giovanni ruefully smiled as hands slapped tables and laughter grew. “Giovanni,” called his father with arms outstretched. Suddenly Giovanni was on his fathers knee in mimicry of Panboy on mine. Calls of “Grande” and “Bella bambini” shot around the bar and there was joy and hilarity for all.

Dani and I looked at each other as mirth and bemusement danced within us. The baby on my knee gnawed on a tiny fist unaware of the delightful interaction he was contributing to our Italian adventure.