If you're happy and you know it...

Clap your hands! Or at least that's what I did when I was graced with Evan's first real smile. Boy, I thought his gassy smiles were cute, but they were nothing compared to a real smile of joy! At around 5 weeks, we started giving him more time on his playmat, and one morning at about 5.5 weeks he discovered this was a fine activity indeed. He had me so enamored with him one morning, as he discovered both his voice and his smile all in one playtime! I think since he's able to focus more on the objects above him, it's now really exciting for him to lay there and look up. All of a sudden he started cooing and making new happy sounds which we'd never heard before, and out came a big beautiful smile! It seriously just melts your heart. Since them we've had a grand old time finding all sorts of fun new ways to elicit Evan's smiles (tickles on his bum-bum during diaper changes are currently all the rage), and of course it feels fabulous that Dave and I seem to be the best so far at getting his smiles to come out. Then again, sometimes he still has his fake-out moments, when I think he must love me ever so much to be smiling so big and batting his baby blues at me, only to discover myself sitting in a pile of spit up a moment later, or to feel my lap vibrate with Earthquake Evan when he lets loose with his bodily functions. Ah, well, most of them are real smiles! Here's a picture of one of the first smiles...my sister-in-law Amy astutely observed, "How can you not smile when you're wearing cow diaper?!?"