Finally the Smile

On Sunday afternoon, as I spent my 100th hour sticking my smiling visage in his face I noticed that he seemed to respond with a smile of his own. Now up until this point, Nathaniel had not given me a full blown conscious smile. He was smiling in his sleep, in his semi-conscious drifing to sleep phase, and at my breast while feeding, but I still hadn't gotten an honest to goodness fully awake directed at my face smile. Friends of ours have children his age who were smiling big bright smiles at the world. In the dark moments of motherhood I became convinced that my son would never smile, either because a) I was a terrible mother and had given my son no moments of happiness about which to smile; or b) our son's indigestion and gas was making him so unhappy he was incapable of having a happy awake moment (which was of course somehow related to me being a terrible and incompetent mother).

I was elated then on Sunday but secretely convinced I had imagined a grimace into a smile out of sheer want. But the next morning he woke up in a great mood and while staring intently at my face he rewarded me with three smiles in succession. I got all teary eyed with joy. Since then he has rewarded Doug, his grandmother, and his Aunt Fiona all with beatific smiles that are just the most beautiful thing to behold. Here is him getting ready to smile while taking a ride in his pram yesterday.

Now lest you think that our little boy is suddenly becoming some frivolous little smiler, fear not. Our serious little boy has not left us. Here is Nathaniel in a much more solemn mood ... I think he looks like some Roman emperor contemplating the fate of his minions.

And last but not least in the pantheon of Nathaniel faces there is fussy.