More Jack

So we are (okay, Katherine is) teaching Jack some baby sign language from a few books we received from our kind and talking-kid having friends Marty and Cyndy. Jack has mastered one so far. Fish. Pucker lips..that's a fish.

So in the bedtime book we read to him (yes, WE) when we get to the page with the fish on it Jack lets loose with a litany of puckers. Turns out, the kid really does know it means fish, and it isn't just an auto-response to a page in a book.

Here he is at our local park saying hello to the stone fish.

Now, our son isn't exactly deprived, like, say a distended-bellied African child who has naught to eat and only a stick with which to lazily stir the dirt. But he does only have the toys we packed with us, our stuff being somewhere that is decidedly not here. So he, like kids that have all the toys in the world anyway, has taken to playing with pots, pans, cell phones, belts, books, and basically whatever he can get his hands on.

Problem is when he ends up ass-in-pot and can't figure a way out. Then we have sad Jack. Luckily Katherine was smart enough to grab the camera before extricating Jack from his little predicament so I (and now you) could share in the fun.

And he does a pretty good job of feeding himself.

Today we took a walk around the neighborhood and were by the Vladimir Cathedral (very nice, survived the war and Stalin) just when the bells started going off for the afternoon service. Guys in the bell tower were working hard, creating a kind of syncopated rhythm, calling people to the service with both God and a beat you can dance to in their hearts. Two Orthodox Priests were outside greeting the people as they arrived, then they kind of straightened up and stood at attention as a silver Mercedese 700 series (does that exist?) with tinted windows jumped the curb and came to a stop next to them. The door opened and the Patriarch of Kyiv emerged. Tall hat, flowing black robes, long white beard...he looked the part. Only his choice of conveyence a bit incongruous. I guess the Orthodox Priests don't take a vow of poverty.