Stone-faced, Max enjoys a brightly colored ball. I wonder, actually, why baby entertainers need to be in fun shapes - balls, clowns, animals. Babies don't know what things are. A nice plush diving knife, say, or a distributor cap, as long as it was filled with bells or crinkly stuff, would be just as entrancing.



From this angle, Max is smiling. However, I can tell you that this picture is from yesterday, and, in a Fathers' Day Moment so nice that it must be false (but no, it's true) Max began smiling in earnest today. His smiles are big, face-dominating events that, sadly, are as often directed at the reading lamp or dresser as at Leah or me. We are choosing to look at this development in a sort of cosmically detached kind of way: who among us ever truly smiles at another person. Aren't we all just smiling for ourselves? Among 8-week olds, this is surely the case.