Smile, Like You've Got Nothing to Prove

There are a bunch of important milestones that you think about as a parent. And there are just as many reasons for monitoring those milestones. For health, for development, for bragging rights; all of these come into play at one time or another.

But for me, for a while at least, the biggest milestone I was looking forward to was this: the smile. It's selfish, I know. For the first couple of weeks, infants aren't much more than living luggage. Feed 'em, clothe 'em, change 'em, rock 'em to sleep. The whole cycle is very one-sided. But a smile, that's a two-way exchange. She does that, and she's giving something back to mom and dad.

So when she first started smiling a few weeks ago, I was thrilled. Babies are often cute, and they don't come much cuter than Little G, but when that smile comes, it just amps the cuteness up to 11.

Trouble is, now I want to share that cuteness. And smiles, wonderful though they may be, are fleeting. By the time you get a camera switched on and ready to go, boom, no more smiles. And so began the quest to capture the elusive smile. It was a very long quest.

Here's an early attempt.
Yeah, nothing. I swear, she was smiling a second before I took this shot.

Then there are the times she's smiling, but then gets immediately distracted, sometimes by the camera itself.
Hey! What's that? Not a smile.
The cute factor is upped by the cowlick, but still no smile. Then we got a little closer. This is more of a smirk.
Finally, this Saturday, I noticed that the smiles weren't so fleeting. Each one lasted a little bit longer. Voilà! Just before we left the house to go to the Wanamaker (Macy's) light show.
And no, the search for a smile doesn't account for my 3-week silence here on the blog. But I hope a bunch of pictures absolve me a little bit.