My Boy, descendant of Herakles

While they were boys, the Spartans were not allowed to wear anything but one cloak. No shoes, no underwear, and no additional clothes were permitted -- even in winter. They slept in their military groups, on reeds they plucked at the river with their own hands. What they were given to eat was never enough, so to keep from going hungry they were forced to plan ingenious schemes to steal food. If they got caught, they got a severe whipping -- not for the moral wrong of stealing, but for the military sin of not being careful enough to avoid capture.

-Plutarch, Lycurgus, Father of Sparta

OK, the boy has more than one set of clothes, wears underwear and has shoes. Also, he has a bed. However, notwithstanding the fact that he is only fifteen months old, the boy has taken to stealing his food. I have watched him eye someone else's food basket at the beach with the shrewdness and cunning of a wolf cub. While a lesser child of non-warrior stock would walk straight up to the basket and plead for the contents, in effect, begging for his food like a common street urchin, the warrior-boy will wait until an opportune moment arrives, sneak around (i.e. outflank) the owner of the desired food, wait until they are not looking and, with a slow and steady thumb and index finger, carefully remove the item. Once in his grasp, he will "hide" it with both hands and run back to his "territory" (my chair) to eat it. He even gives me a "look what I did!" look when he gets back to his territory.

Eventually, I will have to teach him that stealing is wrong, of course. However, at this stage of the game, he is demonstrating something that can not be taught, the willingness to put one's neck out there to achieve a desired goal.

He makes me proud.