Where Did You Go, Aunt Margaret?

I'm right here! And presenting the last of the Zach Week reports. In these photos of him eating spaghetti you can see that he's moving so fast, twirling the spaghetti noodles around and trying to get them into his mouth, that they make this really odd digital blur or transparent impression, or something. Check it out!

Can you see it? He's holding the noodles in one hand, and trying to spear them with his fork with the other. Quite an interesting experiment in physics.

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Life has continued and now I am alone again, the blissful independence, the silence, the security. It was really, and I am not kidding, a true joy/Zen challenge to spend the week with my two-year-old nephew, and I am the better for it. I hope he is, too. We forged a bond, built of repetitious food choices and much time spent in the water; of lessons learned again in how to make for a toddler a rhythm of days that's comforting, interesting, and contained enough to feel secure and his experience that here is another adult who can be counted on to be always present and responsive; and of pure proximity. A whole 'nother part of my brain it took to do this job of "mothering" that I haven't done in, well, 16 years, quite this way. So I apologize for the lapse of four days here, but things did become a mite overwhelming there at the end, and there was no real moment at which available time and creative impulse converged.

Just couldn't get a clear shot. But I think you can see the layers of sauce on his happy visage.

After exploring the MOBOT Childrens' Garden (wow -- I highly recommend it, even though I haven't liked the way it looks in the Garden, from the outside) we had our most exiting meal of the week at Mama Campisi's on The Hill. I ordered him a child's meal of chicken tenders and fires (homemade, nice looking), but he was only interested in the comp bread and my spaghetti , big shock! I loved it when he said, after picking up a piece if the pre-meal bread and taking a bite, "Dis is good. Tank you!" Smile.

Is it actually raining noodles?

Surprise! Free spumoni!

Check out the smile behind the digital blur. He was having fun! Thank goodness the waiter was understanding.

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So now back to my news cycle awareness and yoga and Tony Bourdain and long periods of undisturbed time. It's bitter-sweet, actually. Kind of makes me wonder if I wouldn't make a pretty good (& expensive of course) nanny.