A smiling baby

No sooner do I call Teddy out for his disappointing lack of interesting facial expressions than guess what happens: He starts to smile. And not the type of smiles that are typically attributed to gastointestinal issues, although lord knows he probably generates those smiles too. Instead, honest-to-goodness smiles.

It happened yesterday morning while Abby was holding him in bed. I leaned over and said "Bonk" while tapping him on the nose with my index finger. I did it again. He started to grin. So I did it again. He grinned again. So I kept going "bonk, bonk, bonk" accompanied by tap, tap, tap on his nose and, I swear, he started to giggle. At some point, I asked Abby, "Is he actually laughing?" "I think so," she replied as I kept bonking him on the nose.

Just to verify that this wasn't a fluke involuntary response, I tried the same trick again later. That's the source of the above photos. Pretty cool. At Teddy's age, he doesn't interact with us very much. Doesn't watch his sister, doesn't seem to register the dog, doesn't really notice me. But now we may be reaching the point at which that type of fun interaction begins.

In the meantime, here are some more photos of his sister including some of her with her free Cat In the Hat backpack that we got for joining (in desperation for new books) the Dr. Seuss book club and some from our return today to the Air and Space Museum (Margaret didn't last nearly as long as she did on our previous trip.) FYI, the two photos of Margaret and me looking pensive outside near the end of the slideshow were taken as we watched two squirrels fight near the museum. And the thing on her head in other photos is my camping headlamp (also called a "ding lamp" by those in the know). That, along with her backpack, would suggest a little backpacker in training. Since her mom has shown no desire to engage in that type of activity, I can only hope that Maggie has inherited the backpacking gene from her Papa.