The Little Man's First Smile

The Little Man flashed his first, real, undeniable, eyelid-crinkling social smile right around 5 weeks. We had been seeing the beginnings of smiles for almost two weeks by that time. In play, or when we would talk in silly voices, the corners of his mouth would tighten ever so slightly and ever so inconsistently. My husband and I would catch our breath, waiting for the cheeks to turn up or his eye to flash knowingly, something that could be called definitively a smile.

"Was that a smile?" I would ask.

"He smiled," my husband would reply with certainty. But it wasn't quite there.

No, this 5 week smile was different. It was morning, and we had all just woken up. I left the room for a few moments and came back to give the Little Man my good-morning kisses. When I approached the bed, I saw it - his little toothless mouth open, corners turned upward in a grin, his eyes squinted slightly with joy.

The milk lady was here!

...because we all know that's where that smile came from. Right now, less than two months old, the kiddo doesn't know that we're his parents. He doesn't know yet how much we love him, that he came from us, that we would do anything for him. No, what that smile told me was that he knows that I can be counted on to meet a need. He gets hungry and I feed him. He wants to be picked up and his dad or I hold him. He gets wet and uncomfortable and we make him dry and comfortable. We are consistently with him every day.

That's what that smile told me. That smile told me that we're doing our job with him, or that we're at least on the right track.

And ever since then we've been in pursuit of ever more beautiful smiles, and he's been giving them freely.