Italian Family at Christmas Eve

I guess I am missing them all a little tonight.  They are all gone now.  We had some crazy, maddening, happy times.  When John was born I was at my wit's end with his crying endlessly, my absolute lack of knowledge on how to handle a newborn.  Sal's Grandmother Amelia and his mother Marcella came by for a visit and fussed endlessly trying to help and take over.  They brewed a little concoction on the stove to give him to drink, cut the bottoms out of his booties....I went crazy, grabbed him and stormed off into the bedroom.  They left the house angrily and I could hear them yell at me, "We'll be back when he's ten years old.....if he lives that long!"  It ended up that I came to love those women more than Sal did.....and what's more, I didn't realize they knew less than I did about taking care of babies or young children.  Sal's Grandmother was a singer and declaimer of poetry and Sal's Mother was something of a party girl, waitress, wise-cracking and a little bit of a performer.