As we prepared to head out to San Francisco for dinner, Aunt JoAnne told Kiernan we were heading to one of their favorite restaurants, in Little Italy.
Kiernan: "Little Italy? There's two Italies?"
Later, after we got off the Bay Bridge and started navigating our way through the Embarcadero to Little Italy, Kiernan would return to this subject, asking me why we weren't going to dinner in "the real Italy".
Eventually we found parking, a bargain at $25 (seriously, when we went out to dinner in Boston with Wendy's Uncle Steve, Aunt Pat, and cousins Matt and Jennifer parking cost around $38...for a couple of hours...oof). The girls fared better, finding street parking. Not bad for a Saturday night.
We made our way to the restaurant and they were immediately accomodating, installing us in a private room in the upstairs area. [Pic Note: the above picture is not a great pic, it's just designed to show you the little private room.]
As everyone got situated I headed off to the restroom. Upon my return I found that the ladies and boys had already befriended one of Boston's finest, who was sitting at a nearby table. He offered to pose for a picture with Kiernan, and m
oments later, with Dorian and JoAnne.
We set about the serious business of ordering drinks and perusing the menu, first selecting a bottle of the house red. This turned out to be a real score as the house red on this night was a great Malbec, a varietal that is rapidly becoming one of my favorites. I'm not a big fan of Chianti--don't hate it, just not a big fan of it--so this was quite a nice surprise, especially since it was a very good bottle of wine (considering our price range, which is indicated by the term "house red").
Going through a new menu while simultaneously entertaining two toddlers can
be, shall we say, a challenge. Aunt JoAnne preemted any difficulties by breaking out her journal and commissioning Kiernan to color a picture of the planets for her. She had originally asked him to do this earlier at the house after seeing him do the planets on his Doodle Pro. He was otherwise occupied at that time, so we decided this might be a good restaurant activity. It worked like a charm, with Kiernan producing a picture of not only the planets, but also several stars he had just learned about, and also an extra planet, Planet Aunt JoAnnis.
After the mini-mural was done, JoAnne and Mitch asked Kiernan to read a book to Dorian. Kiernan agreed to do so, reading the book
Big Bugs, Small Bugs to Dorian. This was cool, in and of itself, but what elevated the moment was the way Kiernan brought Dorian into the experience of reading the book. This truly blew me away. Aunt JoAnne encouraged Kiernan to engage his cousin as he read the book. He responded by asking Dorian comprehension questions about the text he was reading, just the way a teacher would, the way we do when we read to Kiernan. It was truly beautiful.
On the page Kiernan is pointing
to in the picture to the left, it says, "This ant can PUSH, That ant can PULL." The whole book is a study in contrasts like this, starting with the question of what kind of bug you might like to be. As Kiernan read he would ask Dorian, "Where's the ant that can pull?" Then he would ask, "Where's the ant that can push?" Dorian got right into it, responding by answering the questions and pointing to the answers. I just cannot describe to you how wonderful it was seeing them do this together.
At one point Dorian became distracted by something, probably his father acting goofy. The picture to the left shows Kiernan putting a hand on his cousin and directing his att
ention back to the book. It was a lovely, gentle little move. Asking the question on the page and touching his cousin to get his attention. Just lovely.
