Heat

"Voglio la mamma..." whines my little charge.

I hand her a pebble, which, miraculously, distracts her. The three-year-old brain is a marvelous thing. She flings it over her shoulder, narrowly missing my head, and runs for the swings. I pray that she won't fall down.

"Spingimi forte!" she commands (push me fast). I push her gently.

"Forte, t'ho detto!" (I told you fast!) I push her a fraction harder. Having spent a total of three hours with her so far, I bet you she'd get all excited and forget to hold on if I pushed her any faster. I tell her that this is as fast I as I can make her go, and that only daddies can make the swing go any higher.

"You're not very strong," she comments. Yes, well... But she has already moved onto a new idea before I even finish my mental grumbling. "Look! A pigeon! Let's catch it and and tie it up and put it in the stroller and trick it into coming home with us and then nonna will put it in the pot and I'll put some salt and pepper on it because that's my job e lo MANGIAMO!!"

She flings her arms out in excitement and I grab her off the swing before she can go flying into the gravel (knew it! it is a small and rather worthless victory). I put her down and let her chase the pigeon for a few minutes.

"You catch him," she orders a few minutes later. I consider how ridiculous that would look and wonder if the amusement she would get out of it would be worth it. The pigeon runs out of the shade and into the sun. I'll pass. I explain to her that I don't know how to run. She informs me that grown-ups aren't very good at playing. (Yeah, well, you weren't complaining when I hauled your heavy little arse the whole way to the playground on my hip because *somebody* was too tired to walk.)

"At least you can push me on the swing. Push me again. Fast." The sun has moved and the swings are no longer in the shade. I glance at my phone. Forty-five more minutes until her mother returns from what she calls work (I don't know what it is that she actually accomplishes, given that she calls me approximately three times per hour).

"Push harder!" I comply and start to count while sweat dribbles down my back.

One mississippi... two mississippi...

I have counted to 60 mississippi three times when the kid's grandmother shows up and starts telling me what she has prepared for lunch. This takes five minutes. She tells me about her health problems... her husband's health problems... her son's cough (contracted because he had the air-conditioning on in his car and his throat was exposed)... she moves on to more general topics: how children grow up and move away from you, and even if you set them up in houses that are within walking distance of yours, it's just not as easy to keep an eye on them as when they live in your own home.

By the time her daughter (the kid's mother) arrives, she is telling me that we really should take the child off the swings because so much movement before eating is going to upset her digestion (what, like, retroactively?), and also a sliver of her pancia (tummy) is exposed to the wind from the swinging and that is just no good at all. I smile feebly at the mother, still trying to decide whether I most feel like laughing or like collapsing in a heap of sweat and boredom.

"Ciao!" I wave cheerfully a few moments later. On my way home, I pick up some gnocco, noting that I have turned into an Italian twelve-year-old with my snacking habits, and some gelato. I shower off the sweat-and-playground-dust combination and plunk myself down in a chair with my lunch and a book.

What's funny is that six months from now, I bet you I will totally be looking back on this fondly: oh, man, self, remember when you used to have gelato for lunch and read all afternoon and the most stressful part of your day was pushing a little kid (who, alla fine, despite being mildly snotty, did have some hilarious little-kid speech peculiarities) on the swings and coming up with potential conversation topics for your shy elementary student? Those were the days...

In the meantime, I really do need to get some actual (non-childcare-related) work done and it really is a bit toasty and despite my glorious post-playground shower and a lot of splashing-water-on-the-face and having the fan sitting a mere two feet away from me and the fact that I'm not moving except to type, I find myself feeling a bit fuzzy and melty. I think I will go shelter nella Panizzi. (The local library. They must have air-conditioning there, right?)