Every one-year-old needs their day of glory: bare toes and an under-the-bed plastic box filled with cooked spaghetti noodles. When Ms. CP was about 14 months I undertook this activity with some of my friends and their toddlers. It was such a riot, that I knew that If I failed to do this for Gus, it would constitute child neglect. Last Monday I invited a friend and her small daughter over while Ms. CP was at preschool. I cooked up two of the largest boxes of generic spaghetti I could find, unfolded a thin sheet on the laundry room floor in the basement and plopped the plastic box of noodles right in the middle. (The sheet was 25 cents at a garage sale last summer, so it didn't matter if I just threw it out in the end).

Oh the squeals of happiness, the pure and utter joy of a whole plastic box full of noodles, and a wooden spoon in hand. My friend's little girl was somewhat of a neat freak. She stirred. She swished her hands around. She stepped in the noodles and looked at her mother like, "Get these things out of my toes." Oh, but Gus! He was in his element. Throwing noodles. Eating noodles. Tossing noodles behind him at me by the fistful. He slid the noodles. He gripped the noodles with passion. He embraced the noodle slime.

There were noodles on the wall. Noodles on the dryer. Noodles on the washer. Noodles on the closet door. Noodles on the world map. Noodles on me. It was remarkable.

We cleaned up the toddlers but left the noodles for Ms. CP, who was out of sorts because she had to miss the whole affair. It worked nicely because when she came home she played in the noodles while I made lunch. She played and ate the noodles after she was done having lunch. She scuplted noodles and build a noodle castle after her nap, and she impressed the babysitter with her noodle creations while I was teaching piano lessons in the afternoon. Late at night, I finally got around to cleaning things up a bit. It was delightful because Dr. Pediatrician actually scooped most of the noodles into the garbage for me while I was at choir practice, so I only had some minor clean up to do when I got home. He said the whole basement was filled with the aroma of dyhdrated pasta.