The quiet Italian

My son had a play date the other day. His best friend’s mother dropped him off afterward, and came up to the house to say hello.

“I think I scared your son,” she told me.

The boys had been playing video games in the living room when she came in to tell them to get ready. Three rounds of WWE wrestling later and they still hadn’t moved … so she did what any self-respecting mother would do. She lost it.

“Your son thinks I yell a lot. I told him ‘I’m just Italian,’ ” she said. “Then he told me, ‘I’m Italian, too, but I don’t yell.’ ”

You get that from me, kid.

The quiet Italian

My son had a play date the other day. His best friend’s mother dropped him off afterward, and came up to the house to say hello.

“I think I scared your son,” she told me.

The boys had been playing video games in the living room when she came in to tell them to get ready. Three rounds of WWE wrestling later and they still hadn’t moved … so she did what any self-respecting mother would do. She lost it.

“Your son thinks I yell a lot. I told him ‘I’m just Italian,’ ” she said. “Then he told me, ‘I’m Italian, too, but I don’t yell.’ ”

You get that from me, kid.

The quiet Italian

About:

I was just a simple girl living a simple life, until I married into an Italian-American family.

A little over a decade later, I still don't understand the rules.

This is my attempt to understand where my husband comes from, what it all means for our son and the Italian mystery that is traditional Sunday dinner.

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