Smiling

A couple of weeks ago (25th of January to be exact) my little man smiled for the first time. I can't say that he smiled at me because he did not. It was early in the morning and he had kept me up from 5 till 7. He woke up to eat but then was in such a good mood that he did not want to go back to sleep. Trying to get him to sleep just made him angry, so he played. I call it play because I do not know what else to call it. He lies in his bed or on his playmat and looks at pictures. He loves looking at himself in a mirror without realising of course that it is him he is seeing. Anyway at 7 he finally goes back to sleep. So at 9 (a more civilized hour to wake up) he wakes up, eats and then needs changing. He is looking and looking and suddenly he smiles. And this time it is not his reflex smile. It is a proper smile. His eyes smile too. And he does it again this time he makes a funny sound that could be a laughing noise. I get so excited I reach for the camera and try to take a picture. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. I don't know what he was smiling at or about. Maybe he was just feeling happy, maybe it was the colourful duvet covert that he likes looking at or maybe he knew that he gave me a hard night and he wanted to do something nice for his mummy. First smile is one of the most wonderful things in the world and to me every smile that came after that is still the most beautiful thing in the world.

Two days ago for example I was singing him a German song about a cat that dances alone till an animal comes and wants to dance with her. Every time it is a different animal. She always declines the offer because of something but then the animal comes closer to her and says something in her ear. You don't know what the animal actually says so you just say giberish at that point of the song. So I whisper in my sons ear: pshpshspshsoshosh. And he starts smiling. Maybe it was he feeling in his ear maybe it was something completely different but it was so special because I felt like he was reacting to something that I did. At this point he still had not smiled back at me.

And then today, again a difficult night, let me explain the scenario: He was ready to sleep, he was fed, dry but fussy for some reason best known to himself. He fell asleep for 10 minutes at a time then woke up again. I was ready to sleep, my husband was snoring already next to me but my little son did not want to sleep. I felt like there was nothing I could do to make him settle. So in the end I gave up on sleep and sat in the living room to watch an episode of Dr. House. At some point he finally went to sleep and then the night became better but it was already 2:30. This morning I had to get up early because I had to take Dan to the kidney doctor, so no sleeping in for Mummy. I started feeding Dan and then he stopped eating and he made his fart face which is basically him opening his eyes wide and squeezing his mouth together. Suddenly I hear loudest fart ever, I look at him and laugh.And he looks at me and smiles back. For the first time he smiled back at me. IT WAS INCREDIBLE.

At least once a day my husband can hear me scream "HE'S SMILING". very sure it won't change for a very long time: If you are a parent or a grandparent I can just advice you to enjoy every smile, every sweet noise the baby makes, enjoy everything. They grow up so quickly.