403. Nonas

Three months after she gave birth to her first child, Jo Piazza and her husband took a trip to Italy. Today she shares one of her favorite stories from the trip, when a

Jo Piazza is an author, podcaster and journalist. Her latest book, The Sicilian Inheritance, is on sale now and it’s SO good!! Jo also hosts the podcast Under The Influence, about social media marketing and how we all interact with it.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

 Jo Piazza: I’m Jo Piazza, and it’s going to be okay.  About seven years ago, I took a trip to Sicily. I went with my husband and my three month old baby at the recommendation of a man I met in Home Depot when I was massively pregnant.  This Home Depot worker saw my giant belly, was clearly concerned I was going to give birth right there.

And when I told him that no, I still had quite a ways to go, I was just very, very big, uh, he decided to give me some advice. And his advice was that I should take a trip with this baby when it was three months old. Because when they’re three months old, they can’t do much. And they’re still kind of lumps and they get to fly for free.

And he just, he seemed to think that it would be a nice break. for my husband and I. And it was my first baby, so I listened to all of the advice, most of it unsolicited, and off we went. Off we went to Sicily for two weeks. And to be honest, it was mostly wonderful, despite the fact that our stroller, which was also our car seat, was unceremoniously lost, and just followed us around the island the whole way, because the airline just couldn’t, couldn’t seem to get it to us.

But we made do. We got another one. It worked out fine.  But my favorite story from that trip is when we went to this island, this island off the coast called Maretimo. Wow. It’s teeny tiny, there’s no private hotels, there were no private cars, or at least this, this is seven years ago. There probably are now, because there are everywhere.

But we had to stay in the house of a man named Peepo. We stayed in his son’s room, and Peepo owned the company that would take you on a boat on a tour around the island. The company was called Circle the Island. People  really wanted us to come on his boat, but it was, it was a tiny boat. It was not the kind of boat that you’re going to take a three month old baby on.

So I politely declined.  People said, okay, well, why don’t you leave the baby here at which I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Remember, this is my first baby people. Okay.  So my husband, my sweet, sweet husband was very encouraging. He was like, look, you haven’t, been physically separated from this child since, since they came out of your body and you’re not doing great.

You’re not sleeping. You’re, you’re anxious. You’re a little bit depressed. Why don’t we try to figure this out? You need help. a break.  And so, Peepo decided that he would find us a babysitter. And to do that, he just started running through this tiny village’s main street, yelling, Nona, Nona,  I need a Nona.

Can I get a Nona over here? And pretty much every grandmother in that village came out of their doors and offered to babysit for us.  I was still terrified. My, my husband assuaged my fears by saying, look, one, we’re on an island with no cars. And I think people has the only boat that baby’s not going anywhere.

And also I think that these women probably have a hundred children and way more grandchildren between all of them.  So I agreed. And I left my baby with about a dozen babysitters for an hour and I went on a boat ride around this beautiful island filled with sea caves and just incredible scenery. I went around it with my baby.

my husband and, and also people. And I had a glass of wine and I relaxed and I kissed my husband for the first time in probably about four months. And I remembered what it felt like to be a human being without a baby.  And that was nice.  When I got back, the scrum of Nonas were so happy. My baby was happier than he’d ever been.

And I felt great.  I felt like myself again. And I also learned that sometimes, sometimes, you have to let the village take care of you.