Fooled You!!!

"Mommy, I see you snapping that picture with your cell phone. Now feel the thunder!"

One of the most special moments for a new parent is when your baby smiles at you for the first time. It has happened at various times for Supermom, various times for dad, and a few times when we were in the same room. I wondered if it was something I said, some crazy face I made, or maybe he was just thinking about all of the trouble he was about to cause. Whatever was triggering his smile, I wanted to repeat the behavior and see it again.

Then Supermom picked up a book titled "What to Expect the First Year" that she had been browsing through since the day we came home from the hospital. "The First Year" is a follow-up best-seller to "What to Expect When You're Expecting." Basically these books cover all aspects of pregnancy and the first year week-by-week. She wanted to see what the book had to say about smiling, and then she dropped this piece of knowledge on me.

"It says here that a smile this early means he has gas."

The last few blog entries have been all about my son's digestive system...in the front door and out the back. So I apologize in advance, but I'm going to tackle Cubby's mysterious and intriguing smile, and it may or may not involve his digestive system.

Because I'm lazy, and my office has a lightning fast high-speed internet connection, I logged on to Google and searched for "Why Babies Smile." You would not believe the amount of information that is out there. If you don't believe me, do it for yourself.

A couple of anecdotal comments from Yahoo! Answers seemed to confirm what the book says. My favorite was from someone with the screen name Denis9705 who says "Because they remember the one about the dog under the table." Kudos to you, Denis9705. I laughed out loud.

After more browsing the "gas relief" theory seemed to gather more momentum. Until I stumbled across a website called "JustTheFactsBaby." An entry dated 7/14/09 cited Dr. Daniel Messinger, an associate professor of psychology and pediatrics at the University of Miami. From the website:

Baby smiles at 0-1 months
Neonatal smiling occurs from birth to one month of age and shows no emotional content. Smiles are spontaneous and often occur while the baby is drowsy or during REM stages of sleep. Baby smiles are subcortical in origin and will actually decrease with maturity (so premature babies smile more than full-term babies). And, contrary to popular belief, baby smiles have nothing to do with gas.

Ah-Ha!!! So it's neither!

When it comes right down to it I'm still not convinced the gas theory isn't accurate. Especially considering my son seems to enjoy ripping a juicy fart so much.

I can't decide, and because I live in this beautiful democracy we call the United States, I'm going to throw it open to a vote. Cast your ballot in the poll.