Smiling Phases

Well, Finley turned a month old on Easter Sunday and we’re starting to settle into a bit of a routine. That is to say that when she cries, we cuddle her. When she’s hungry, we feed her. And when she poops, we change her. And THAT is our routine. But every once in a while, in between the times she’s crying, eating, pooping or sleeping, we get to play with her a bit. We can put her on a lap and watch her check out the world around her. At this point in her new life, she can’t really see much more that a few inches away. The baby books say that all she can see is a fuzzy view of black, white and red. In fact at four weeks, the world is not much more than the midway point of a developing Polaroid picture.

And as she’s sitting on our laps, enthralled by the light flickering through the curtains or just staring at us, her face contorts in a series of random muscle movements. To us, it’s like she’s going through a bunch of emotions at once; She’s mad. She’s intrigued. No, she’s surprised. To her, she’s probably just experimenting with all these new face muscles and hasn’t a clue to what she’s doing. But every once in a while, as I’m tickling her or playing with her little chubby cheeks, she smiles. And of course, it’s the cutest thing ever.

But does she know she’s smiling? I like to think so. I like to think that daddy is the funniest guy around. That my little word plays and dumb dad jokes will be the cornerstone of her education in humor. I like to think that someday, she’ll ask me about Steve Martin and Mike Meyers. I hope to explain to her that fart jokes aren’t always the funniest jokes and that Curly was WAY better than Shemp. That Robin Williams is tolerable in small doses. I can’t wait to talk to her about the difference between Mel Brooks and Albert Brooks and why Woody Allen is a genius. I also hope that when she gets a bit older she’ll want to watch Monty Python, SCTV and Kids in the Hall DVDs with me. Heather is reading this and shaking her head with that look. The “idiot” one. I guess I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m sure she’ll just laugh at the word “poop,” to begin with. We’ll move up from there at a nice, slow pace. Kid riddles and knock-knock jokes. Then we’ll move on to the subtle mastery of Larry, Mo and Curly.

But science tells me she doesn’t know she’s smiling. Not yet. According to science the first real smile may appear as early as 6 weeks, but is not expected to be a regular expression and that babies smile readily by 12 weeks, and by 6 months most smile ecstatically at the people they know best. In fact, this is what science has to say about babies and smiling: “A baby's first proper social smile generally occurs at about four to six weeks, though it may be seen earlier and dismissed as wind.” So I guess she likes fart jokes. We’ll have to work on that, one step at a time. Now, where did I put my Three Stooges DVDs?