Every Man For Himself: Tough To Crack

This kid has been around for 5 weeks. We celebrated his one month last week. As he gets older, he spends more time awake. The more he's alert, the more chance I take at talking, and engaging him in current news and issues.

We talk about our distaste in a New York/Boston Super Bowl match up. He much preferred the World Series when both cities were knocked out earlier. He agrees that while the media love big match ups like this, the average fan could care less.
We talked about the recent internet blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA. He said those bills would hurt smaller internet sites. I told him people would get over it quick as long as they get what they log on the internet for.
We talk about the development and economic growth downtown, local food, the GOP elections, Browns drafting options, Obama's singing voice, and more.

Our discussions are usually one sided and his thoughts are typically improvised by me. But we have spent productive time together recently. Of all that time though, one thing he has yet to do in the last 5 weeks is.......

Smile

While he is very handsome and shockingly strong, he doesn't smile. We've been trying to get him to smile. Anything to start a grin.

I usually start by acting happy and smiling myself. With a big grin, I get 8 inches from his face and try to encourage the smile out of him. I say things like, "What you got? You gonna smile for Dad? C'mon and look happy!" The image to the right is usually the response I get. I don't blame him either. If you had someone in your grill ordering forth a smile, you would probably give a How 'bout you step back right now kind of look. Get's it from his mom.

When I back off, I attempt something else. I try dancing. I try rapping (usually go with Biggie). I even try jumping at him like I'm going to fall. Basically, I put my dignity on the line. I'm very happy that he won't remember any of this. It's embarrassing. Based on the picture, he clearly thinks it's embarrassing too. Check back on this blog in 13 years after I chaperone his first school dance and bust out the same dance moves in front of his friends. He'll be older, but have the same reaction.

When that nonsense doesn't work, I go with jokes. I start, "A guy walks into a bar and sits down..." Before I can get any farther, the kid yawns and begins to fall asleep. Hope those jokes work like that when his mom goes back to work night shifts.

In a last ditch effort, I attempt to toss him around. As the picture shows, I hold him in the air and put him up real high. But it doesn't work. Rather, it looks like he's thinking "Geez Dad, what's with your hairline? It looks like the Mexican coastline from space." I wouldn't be happy if I was 5 weeks old and realized I was destined to have receding hair like that. Can't blame him. All the tossing around leads to him spitting up.

After weeks of no smiles and thinking our child was destined to be a grump, we saw some hope.