Last week, while Minor was in school, I took Aitch to a coffeeshop for a little hot chocolate and some one-on-one bonding time. There was a large group of people holding a meeting in the center of the room while we were there. After about five minutes, Aitch said, “I don’t like those people! They’re mean!”

“Why are they mean?” I asked.

“They’re talking and laughing! They’re laughing at me! That’s not nice!”

This is something new for Aitch, who for the first four years of his life was so insensitive to slights physical and emotional that I worried that his nerve endings didn’t reach all the way to his epidermis. Now a strong wind pains him physically, and a sideways glance hurts his feelings. “They’re not laughing at you,” I said. “They’re just having fun, just like we are doing. See, we’re laughing, and we’re not being mean.”

But he didn’t want to be jollied out of his bad mood. “Don’t do that!” he said. “I want to be…mad face!”

“All right,” I said. “Show me your mad face.”

Then he turned his head to the side, like some Broadway hopeful getting himself in character for the big audition. Head averted, he arranged his face into a Mask of Fury and then turned it on me full force.

I burst into laughter because OH MY GOD WHERE DID HE LEARN THAT? Has he been sneaking downstairs at night to watch reruns of “Inside the Actor’s Studio”?

When I picked myself up off the floor, I asked him to do it again. Each time he performed the same head-turning trick before showing me the mad face. My little Method actor.

And…..scene.