The Flying Fried Potato Ball

Caterina'a First Birthday Cake

A little fried potato ball flew across the room and hit my darling Caterina on her new dress that her father bought her last week in Madrid. I charged down the hall, past the dessert table and into the private room at the pizzeria where we were having a 14th-birthday party for Caterina with all of her class. 22 of them.

In my toughest voice, I squawked, “That’s it, if one more of you boys throws a piece of food, this party is over!!” My attempt at authoritarianism was about as useful as one of my tweets. “Go away, Mamma, please” Cate urged me. So I marched back down the hall, cursing under my breath for ever agreeing to a party with the whole class, and took up my position at the doorway together with Gustavo.

A nightmare birthday party. Is there any parent out there who doesn’t have a tale to tell on that topic. And we never learn. Year after year we keep inflicting these horrible events on ourselves because we can’t bear to tell our little darlings, “NO– you’re not getting a birthday party this year!!”

Nico sitting on his Tyrannosaurus Rex throne at his third birthday party.

I swear I’ve done them all. Let’s just go over a few. There was the dinosaur party when Nico – my first child- turned three, and I was still attempting to be a super-Mamma. I spent hours decorating the house with dinosaurs, made a Tyrannosaurus Rex throne for Nico to sit at, and a dinosaur cake. All the kids came with their parents who stayed and it all went off smoothly until Nico looked at one of the other kid’s Dad and said, “Why are you so FAT? You are a BIG BRONTOSAURUS!” There was a moment of silent shock and then Gustavo – who is obsessed with his children’s etiquette– swept up Nico and took him in the other room and gave him a scolding loud enough for everyone to hear, “You Never, Ever, Call Anyone FAT!”

Then there was the party in the Roman park, Villa Torlonia, where little Camilla disappeared. We ran all over that park desperately yelling her name, convincing ourselves that she had been kidnapped, that it was all our fault, only to find little Camilla sitting by a pond making daisy chains and ignoring our calls. I couldn’t blame Camilla, I don’t like chaotic birthday parties either.

Then there was the all-girl sleepover – where no one slept, and the acqua-park party – where I had to do every dangerous ride with every little girl because they couldn’t go alone and Gustavo has a fear of heights. The rides were fun, but ten times on each one was a bit much and I ended up soaking wet with a topsy-turvy stomach.

I think the all-time birthday nightmare prize goes to my brother Stephen who miraculously survived to tell the story. Stephen lives down in Tucson, Arizona with his beautiful, Never-Lose-Her-Cool obstetrician-wife and their four kids. He is a brilliant, funny writer but too busy with his brood to write these days. I will give you the highlights of his tale and leave him to write up the full story some day. It went more or less like this.

They organized a pool party in their backyard, happy parents pulled into the drive, dropped off their kids, some who didn’t even know how to swim,  and headed out likes bats-out-of-hell. Not long into what was clearly going to be a challenging effort – watching all the kids in the pool while doing all the other party stuff– the beautiful, Never-Lose-Her-Cool Obstetrician got called into work to deliver a baby. Things went from bad to worse with someone getting bitten by a scorpion, someone else getting stuck to a cactus (perhaps it was just a towel, but it had to be left there), rough-housing in the pool, a rattlesnake appearance etc. By the end of the party I think my brother may have asked his wife if she could come back from the hospital with an ambulance to take him a way and a week’s supply of valium. I may have misconstrued a few details here, but you get the idea.

Last night by comparison was easy. From my position at the doorway down the hall it was hard to keep up on the goings-on in the room. We could see the girls’ end of the table and they were on their best behavior, dressed up prettily, chatting nicely and remaining seated. There came a request for many more bottles of water. I went in and collected up five bottles and had waiters bring in more. Then came a request for extra napkins. I went to get some of those. But when I brought them in I discovered the boys were throwing glasses of water on each other. So that was it on the water. I went back to my doorway position.

After a bit the the restaurant owner complained to us that the boys were jumping out the back window. Gustavo had to go round up boys in the street while I gave them another useless threat about climbing out the window. The girls decided to make a group trip to the bathroom, which we allowed, but when the boys decided to do the same thing, we had to enforce a one-by-one rule. Several times when we checked in on the room the boys were gathered at one end making innocuous prank phone calls on their cell phones.

The party started at 8pm and all the boys arrived precisely on time or early. The girls arrived fashionably late. A friend of Caterina had prepared the invitations for Caterina on her computer but she had mistakenly written from 8-11. Three hours with 22 13-year-olds can seem like an eternity.

By 10:15 we couldn’t keep them in the room anymore. We told the kids to text message their parents to come get them. We took them out in the street in front of the restaurant to await their parents. Bad idea. The boys exploded, running up and down and across the street. We decided it was too dangerous, Gustavo began ferrying the boys home in his car three at a time, while I tried to keep them out of the road. At one point I let loose at cute little Lorenzo who I have known since elementary school as he dodged in and out between parked cars and into the street, “I’m going to call your mother now!” I yelled. Another lame attempt at control. (Hats off to all the junior highschool teachers and camp counselors, I don’t know how you do it.)

Of course, I have my own son, who was 13 once, so I couldn’t be too judgemental of those rambunctious boys. When Nico was 13, one of his friends had a disco party at a country club on the outskirts of Rome in April. Nico led a group of rebellious boys, followed by a bunch of girls, diving into the recently re-opened swimming pool. The country-club owner had a fit. The mother, Antonella, is the daughter of a famous Italian diplomat and she must have diplomacy in her DNA. She did not get the least bit flustered, instead, she quietly calmed the owner and with great aplomb suggested that the parents take their wet kids home or they might catch a flu.

At 11pm, when Gustavo and I were desperate to call it a night, in a scene that seemed to come from a movie, a car pulled up in front of the restaurant and out stepped a glamourous mother in a black fur coat. Her head was covered with perfect dark ringlets that must have taken hours at the hairdresser to arrange and she was holding a Chihuahua. “Darling, here were are”, she said to her misbehaving son, handing him the chihuahua. “I hope they have been behaving,” she said vaguely to me, clearly not wanting to hear the answer.

Gustavo and I vowed last night that we are done with birthday parties forever. Chiara got up this morning walked into the kitchen and said, “Mamma, now that Cate’s party is over we can start planning mine.” AARRGGHH

7 thoughts on “The Flying Fried Potato Ball”

  1. This is why I will never be a mother. Oh that and I like to finish a book whenever I want. That said, I love kids and I work with them happily but that old cliche I don’t know how you do it … applies. Wow, you know, I think you are more chic than that woman who showed up, yes I get what she represents (and it fills me with the same awe) but you know what, I like a little edge to my polish. Maybe that’s just me.

    Maybe you could have a birthday for the kids – favorite foods, favorite activity, a few favorite friends, a favorite place… with a WOW present, simple, but special and without the headaches!

    But what do I know! I’ve held court over crazy toddler birthdays in Wellesley, Chestnut Hill, Newton, Beacon Hill, all over… 30 mad toddlers screaming, eating, dropping, dripping, etc… ;)

    1. Rebecca, You’re the Best!! You always make me feel so much better about myself. A big trans-atlantic hug. Trisha

  2. . . long held the belief that if everyone was sterilised (even Italian men) then the planet would be better off and the rest of us could die out in peace and quiet :-D

    1. Alan — you are such a riot! I can guarantee you that sterilization is not a popular idea among Italian men who generally believe they are God’s gift to Mankind. Their Mammas do that by telling them how Bello and Bravo they are from Day One. (Of course I am not talking about my own husband who is ever-so-humble. Poor thing, he’s had a horrible American wife poking a pin in him all the time to let out all the air when he gets puffed up)

  3. I despise kids’ b irthday parties…always have! And I gave them up (ruled them out) long before any of the kids were 13. Sei una mamma abbastanza brava

    1. I wish I had ruled them out from Age 1 onwards. My birthday is on December 30th and because that comes during school vacation I always just had a cake with family but never with friends from school. I had wonderful birthdays and never felt I missed out on anything. Don’t know why I feel I need to do them for my kids!

  4. I had to chuckle. I am definitely an Italian mom at heart, always telling my very special son how very special he is. But the biggest chuckle is about how “American” the Italians are! We moved into a Chicago suburb when I was expecting my second to find an actual circus across the street. Turned out to be the birthday party of the little girl. Ponies and elephants included. Maybe not the elephants but I was so overwhelmed with the whole thing I decided parties for only #5 and #10. Whew! Wait til they’re 21!

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