All smiles

Ever since J was born, his first smile was the milestone I anticipated most. I watched him like a hawk waiting for that wonderful moment. Anytime I started to see his (adorable) little lips beginning to curl, my heart did a little leap. “COULD THIS BE IT?!” I wondered. A drum roll of gas sounds would follow, and I would dejectedly resume my hawk-like stance.

Then, it finally happened in the sweetest way at the most perfect moment.

It was a lazy Saturday morning, and Tom and I had both joined Jacob on the living room floor—something only one of us usually does at a time. He gazed up at both of us, inspecting our faces and probably thinking, “There’s TWO of you?!” In response, we fulfilled our expected parental roles of talking in high-pitched voices and doing the raised-eyebrow-open-mouth happy face that every baby loves, or, at least, every parent THINKS their baby loves.

While we were making ninnies of ourselves, he showed his first real gummy grin. Unlike some of the “smiles,” that he gets while sleeping or from gas, this one lit up his whole face. Even his eyes were smiling.

From that moment on we were hooked. Anytime Tom or I started to see his lips turn up in that sweet way, we would instantly call to the other one. (Even if the other one was miles away and we had to use the phone.) In the first few days after adding “make Jacob smile” to our Favorite Things to Do list, we made more crazy faces and monkey noises than I care to recount trying to recreate that sweet little look. But it didn’t take long to notice that more than anything, he just loved watching mom and dad smile. And, as you can guess, we are always happy to oblige.

Needless to say, there are plenty of smiles around the Palmer house these days, and of course, the most precious ones are always from Baby J.