When in Rome …

…. squeeze other people’s babies. I had always heard that the Italians LOVE children, but never having had an available child when I backpacked through in my early twenties, I was not able to experience it first hand. Let me tell you. It’s true.

We brought the shitty weather with us when we arrived on Thursday. So we napped all afternoon, and when it was still thunderstorming into the evening, we decided to eat dinner at the hotel. Unlike Gran Canaria, where the the 6:30 p.m. dinner seating was full, there was only one other couple in the dining room. (Remember when eating that early was So. Lame.?)

We siddled up the stroller to the table. We ordered our appetizer and glass of wine. We took turns eating while the other held M. All of the waitstaff come by to give M a little foot tickle and tell us about their kids. Halfway through our stuffed artichoke blossoms, our waiter asks if he could take M into the kitchen so that we could eat. I’m not sure he waited for us to respond before scooping him away. As more diners arrived, he greeted them with M as his “assistant.”

It was like that everywhere. I had to change his diaper in a public bathroom, and the toilette lady grabbed him out of my hands before halfway to the diaper station. I took M with me into the hotel spa’s changing room while I changed out of my wet bathing suit, and out of nowhere, four Italian ladies swoop in on M and take him off of my hands.

That would never happen in the U.S. or Germany or, presumably, any non-Mediterranean country. But why not? Wouldn’t you like to squeeze that little baby on the train, or give some parents 20 minutes to eat dinner in peace? But could you imagine asking a parent on the New York subway if you could hold their child? They would simultaneously mace you and call the police. Those New Yorkers — always multi-tasking.