We were away for four days visiting MHH's parents, who are lovely people who inhabit a slightly different earthly realm from the rest of us. Barak got the full grandchild treatment (impressive, considering he is very far from being the first grandchild) replete with a trip to what is possibly the best playground ever, a ride on an actual steam train (yes, E, we thought of M the whole time--I'm sure he would have kicked the engineer out of the driver's seat and driven the thing himself like he did in England), a visit to the pizza shop, fascinating new toys and lots of love and attention.
Oh, and did I mention we went to the pizza shop?
First, some back story, for those of you who like such things...
In general, according to Jewish law, when you eat pizza as a meal (not a snack), it counts, blessing-wise, as bread. This matters a lot. When eating a French fry, a piece of chocolate or a hunk of cheese, the blessing you say after you're done takes about fifteen seconds. The blessing you say after a cookie or a piece of cake takes maybe forty-five seconds. The blessing you say after bread, however, takes three minutes if you're fast and five or six if you're not, and is so long that many people prefer to read it out of a little book of blessings commonly known as a bencher. Kids learn it to a song, either at home or at camp, which makes it much easier to learn. I sing it to Barak after we eat and sometimes at bedtime, which occasionally makes me wonder if I am dooming him to a life of falling involuntarily asleep in a Pavlovian reaction after every meal containing bread. But I digress.
All right, back to the story at hand. We're at the pizza shop. My father-in-law has finished eating his burrito (because there is no kosher pizza shop in the world that serves only pizza) and has his bencher and is saying his blessing. Barak starts writhing around yelling Ma! Ma! Ma! which means, I want something! In this case, a bencher. Since the benchers belonged to the restaurant and they probably wouldn't appreciate having them shredded by a toddler covered in pizza and other unnameable substances, I went and found a stack of flyers for tae kwon do lessons, folded one in half, and handed one to the ever easy-to-please Barak. He took it with a happy ha!, hunched over it just like Zayde, puckered his lips out, stared down intently, and started moving his lips with great concentration, also just like Zayde.
Anyone else notice a pattern here?
1 comment:
Well, girls have to bench too! It's a gender-neutral obligation. But if he were to imitate me, he'd have to sing...
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