A few mornings ago, Claire was lying on her back after I’d just changed her, and I was making my usual assortment of cooing noises and silly faces at her. She smiled. We’ve spotted occasional spontaneous smiles in both girls for a while now, but this was the first time it looked like a social smile. I stopped the noises and faces until the smile went away, did them again, and she smiled again. I shouted to Kat, who was in another room, “I think I’m making Claire smile!” and she dropped what she was doing and came running in to see. (What she was doing, apparently, was getting dressed, because she arrived topless.) We both let loose with the best baby comedy we could come up with, and Claire responded with more smiles. A couple mornings later after an early morning feeding, Brooke started smiling up a storm at Kat. Kat mercifully let me keep sleeping, but I heard about it later and we’ve been enjoying the ability to make both girls smile ever since. This smiling is a big deal.

Social smiling is part of normal development, so it’s not a big deal in the sense of being surprising, but it’s big for us because: 1) Every sign of “normal” development is good news, especially in the context of their preemie history; and 2) It’s the first outward sign of acknowledging or enjoying our presence, which all parents enjoy, of course, but it’s extra sweet after waiting two extra months.

I am completely enamored of my daughters, and my paternal instinct to love and protect them kicked in even before they were born (maybe even before they were conceived), but I think it’s a good thing we have these instincts, because there’s not a lot of personality or “giving back” from a newborn. It’s easy to love the many little things they do, and to feel joy and satisfaction in caring for them, but what I mean is that they don’t intentionally give back, because they still lack the capacity to really want or intend anything that isn’t driven completely by reflex. Social smiling may start out reflexive, too, but at least it’s in response to something we’re doing, which makes it the first hint that these babies we love so much actually know who their Daddy and Mommy are.

On a side note, I’ve confirmed that the phrase, “I think I’m making Claire smile” does not cause Kat to whip her shirt off and come running. Too bad, because if it worked again, I was interested to see what effect, “I’m making Brooke smile” would have.