Mal's other favorite day of the week

I forget what age it is when kids are able to grasp time, and days of the week, but I know it's a ways off from now.  While Mal asks what time it is pretty regularly, and asks what day it is, he still can't tell the difference between nap time and bed time.  He uses tomorrow and yesterday interchangeably, but there are 2 days of the week that he knows.

Malachy never forgets Thursday because of the garbage trucks, but he has another equally favorite day and he knows that it is the day after Thursday: Friday (and no, it has nothing to do with the Rebecca Black song).  Malachy loves Shabbat.

About a year ago now, Mal started asking us, "Is it Shabbat tonight."  Very oddly, every time he asked us, it was in fact Shabbat.  It was kind of creepy.  We could not figure out how he knew.  This was before we ever talked to him about the days of the week, and he was going to be so early, we were pretty hit and miss about celebrating it regularly.  We now celebrate Shabbat every Friday, and Mal is anxious about it as soon as he realizes it's Friday.  A few weeks ago, he surprised us and sang the prayers with us.  Up until that point, he just watched wide eyed, but never really sang along.  ...and then he did...and he knows all the words.

Lighting candles for Shabbat

His initial love for Shabbat came from the candles.  He used to try to sing Happy Birthday when we light them.  Now he likes to get giggles out of us by saying, "Make a wish and blow out the candles." after we light the candles.  Now he is all about the hamotzi (the blessing of the bread, which in Mal's case is a rice cracker).  We use a cracker because Mal is allergic to challa.  After saying the prayer, Malachy breaks the cracker and shares with us.  Almost as soon as we are finished, he asks to say hamotzi again, and again, and again...and so we indulge him.  What harm is a little extra hamotzi?