Oh, my goodness me

Okay, so, I know already that Barak is an observant little person. He seems to figure out something new every day, or pick up something that we hadn't realized we'd taught him. A couple weeks ago, for example, I brought him to shul, for the ten minutes of mussaf that he can sit through with reasonable degrees of decorum. I got there during the chazzan's repetition, in time to answer amen to the brachos. Barak was cool with this, peeking around the mechitza to the men's side with interest. The chazzan got to kaddish. Again, everybody answered amen. Including the little person in my arms. "Ah-mennnn..."

Okay, very sweet. Very cute. I kvelled.

And yesterday...

Barak, in his blue hippopatomus pajamas, made an escape from his room at bedtime and toodled into the living room, pacifier in mouth, blankie in tow. He found one of MHH's seforim in the living room (Kinos, noch--it was just past Tisha b'Av). He set it on an unopened box, as through it was a shtender. He opened it up.

And he started to shuckel.

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(Okay, this is for Jacque. This is what happened, in English. My son went into the living room and found one of my husband's Hebrew books--a very serious, depressing book used in connection with a day of fasting and mourning. He put it on a box in imitation of the way my husband reads such books, opened it up, and started pretending to read it as my husband would read from such a book--i.e., rocking back and forth in classic Orthodox Guy fashion. He does not miss a trick.)