My small victory over the five-year-old.

For the past month I've been working with, or rather for, a five-year-old little girl. She is the most spoiled rotten brat I've ever met. I mean rotten to the core. She treats the housekeepers terribly (like her mother) and gets away with everything - she even hits them and calls them witches. There is no discipline in this house. I understand that it's not her fault but that doesn't mean I can tolerate it. I've done very well at keeping my mouth shut. Well, for the most part anyway. There were a couple of times I said something ;) Basically, I play with her everyday for four hours. We color, we read books, we watch movies, etc.

The first week I was here, she spoke no English to me although it was obvious she understood me (she has a lesson in English everyday at kindergarten). The first week I tried not to let her lack of manners bother me. Just the first week. After that, I decided that if I was going to teach her English, I would teach her manners while I was at it. For awhile I was pretty sure she hated me. Fine by me. She can hate me, but she's gonna be nice about it. I wouldn't give her things until she said please. She would hit me and I would tell her I would not play with her until she apologized. One day, we had a MAJOR stand off. She wanted to do something other than what we were doing and I said we have to clean up our mess first. Of course, she didn't like this and went into a huge tantrum. Fine. Surprisingly, I can be patient in some circumstances or maybe I'm being stubborn. I mean, I want my way too. Either way, I tell her we're not doing anything until it's all cleaned up. I know she's used to people cleaning up after her, but I refuse. We sit. I wait. I sing. We wait. I tell her it sure would be fun to go outside. We wait. After a few minutes, she starts cleaning up her mess. I win. We go outside.

Here we are a few weeks later. The scene I described is a pretty common one and somedays I really want to hit her. I haven't yet. I have had a lot of wine though. She's now speaking English to me most of the time. Sometimes, she speaks Italian and I've learned a lot of Italian from her. Yesterday, I still think the girl hates me. As is usual here, it's raining and I think it would be a perfect day to watch a movie. We're sitting on the bed and the next thing I know her little head is on my lap, then she grabs my arm and wraps it around her. Crap. She's attached. I completely wasn't expecting it.

The victory happened today though. We were in the kitchen. She says, in English, "Can you give me the water, please?" It wasn't until after I gave her the water that what she said registered. I literally almost fell over. Her mother even looked at her. "Please?" her mom said. "All on her own? Brava." In my head I'm thinking, "see how easy that was?" I must say, it felt good. Okay, maybe I feel like I won again.

So, I know I shouldn't feel bad about leaving these kids, but I do. It's not that I'm going to miss them, cause trust me; I'm not. It's that I feel bad that someone else is leaving them. It's just not fair to them. They're both obviously attached to me and here I am leaving. There are people in and out of the house all the time. The mother said she'd tell them what she always tells them, that I've gone on vacation. Can you imagine? Talk about having emotional problems later in life. These kids are doomed.

Well, hopefully I'll be remembered as "that mean American who made me say please."