Sharing a joke

For the first time Oliver has laughed at something that also made me laugh. Unfortunately it was his Mummy!

She was feeding him yesterday and gave him the spoon for a moment. He then tried to throw it onto the floor. Hayley instinctively leapt to catch it and ended up juggling it in a slap-stick fashion before it finally dropped to the floor. This made Oliver roar with laughter. It made me laugh too. Of course, as soon as he got the spoon back he repeated the joke. Hayley then dutifully obliged him by juggling the spoon each time in an increasingly comic fashion.

In the past he has laughed for reasons that are beyond us or at things that only a baby would laugh at (such as his Mummy's hair in his face). But yesterday's fun was a reminder that he really is a little person with his own sense of humour, not that different to our own.

He has been an absolute joy this weekend. Of course he still has a few grizzly moments, but his overall mood is generally very happy.

I remember a few months ago writing about how awful bedtimes were. I read with envy, in one of the books we bought on sleep, how wonderful it was when your baby goes to bed gurgling happily and wakes up in an equally good mood. It seemed a distant land we might never reach. But now he wakes up in the morning and chats cheerfully away to Julien. Hayley and I lie in bed listetning to him for a few minutes on the monitor with smiles on our faces. And the dread of bedtimes has also gone as he generally goes to sleep hugging Julien and talking himself to sleep. Bliss!

While out mountain biking in the pouring rain for 3 hours yesterday I contemplated how it was the bad times that sometimes make the good times feel so good. It's a theory that works for raising babies too!