Spaghetti Night

As parents of toddlers know, there is only one key to success on spaghetti night: nudity.

Now I know what you newbies are thinking. Why, on earth, would we subject our daughter to having noodles in all the wrong places? What type of disturbed abuse is this? The answer, unfortunately, is that it wouldn't matter. Clothes or no clothes, the spaghetti will end up where the spaghetti will end up. I think its like rule 4 in the parenting guide. A few other spaghetti pointers:

• if you have linoleum or tile in the kitchen, go ahead and throw down a towel under the high-chair. It'll pay dividends. I promise.


• cutting up the noodles only makes them harder to pick up off the floor. [Unless you have a 75lb golden retriever that will eat anything that even remotely smells like food. Our next golden will actually be named "Hoover."]


• laughter is the mortal enemy of any spaghetti evolution. a chuckle or a sneer from you is all that it takes to send your tike into a downhill spiral of "grab and fling." Unless you want to pick noodles off the refrigerator for hours, try your best to suppress the laughter.


• once you fail the bullet above, go ahead and give in and throw some spaghetti too. By now you're probably also down to your undies, and the absurdity of the entire thing should be sinking in.

Ah, the things we do for a little spaghetti.

- pac