Gelato Mama

South Bay parenting can be a riot.

“I am Gelato Mama: Unemployed Wife of One and Mother of Two. Some would call me the CEO of my household, but Slave or Maid works fine.”

As you read this, summer is over, and possibly you are like me, attempting to gracefully re-enter the school year. The rushed mornings. The inability of offspring to put on shoes without being asked 78 times. Not to mention attempts at secretly packing lunch before objections of “I don’t LIKE that” fill the room, and we take deep breaths instead of screaming, “PEOPLE ARE STARVING AND YOU’RE COMPLAINING ABOUT PEANUT BUTTER AND HONEY?”

Because, let’s face it, such screaming will only breed endless questions about starvation and what it is and how does it feel and why are they starving and where are they starving and while we want our children to feel compassionate … can we please do that on a Saturday when all we have to do is press “brew”?

But as I write this, it is summer, and a 5-year-old is hitting me with his lightsaber while a 3-year-old is requesting, in possibly the shrillest voice the human ear has ever endured, another Band-Aid for yet another invisible injury, and can Husband just DEAL WITH THAT ALREADY?

Five-year-old is Son. We call him Prince. Three-year-old is Daughter. We call her Crazy. Or JLo. My mother calls her Karma. Husband is Husband. I call him all kinds of things; other people call him Saint.

I am Gelato Mama: Unemployed Wife of One and Mother of Two. Some would call me the CEO of my household, but Slave or Maid works fine. Because, really, if I was the CEO of my household, wouldn’t I just hire other people to attend to the menial tasks I do each day while I instead hop a private jet to the Maldives, typing out a quick hello on my Blackberry to my perfect offspring who attend boarding school somewhere on the East Coast?

Alas, I am not a CEO. Simply a Mother. The world’s most important job? I strongly concur. The world’s most difficult job? Very strongly concur. Made even more difficult during the eight or so weeks of summer when lazier mornings translate to My.Ears.Hurt.Please.Stop.Fighting.Pretty.Please.

But we are not alone in this journey. My adventures are your adventures … let’s discuss and make fun of them once in a while, shall we? Because if we don’t stop and laugh about it … well, surely we would have all been committed by now.