Happy Morning Baby

We woke up this morning after a very good night (6.5 hours straight) to find our baby in his crib flipped to his side and exploring the elephant toy that hangs next to him. Awake, but playing happily alone. He has been showing a lot more grasping and self-play the past week, much of it with the dangling toys in his bouncer. He has also been bubbling quite a bit, which I guess is a more "advanced" form of the drooling he was doing earlier. He seems quite proud of himself for blowing bubbles, but he is also quite happy when we wipe his face (usually).

Andrew's other recent developments are the proliferation of the social smile and saying "a-goo". When the aunts were here, Emily became an expert at getting him to smile. She would gently brush his cheek, and he would grin from ear to ear. Jenny never achieved quite the same level of response, but he was clearly happy to have both of them there. Along with the smiling, Andrew is trying very hard to communicate verbally with us. He is obviously not saying anything too intelligible, but his parents are hard at work trying to figure out his sounds. The only thing we've picked up so far, and it might just be wishful thinking, is that he gets really happy when he hears his name. He also got really good at saying "goooo" (as most babies do), and then started adding "ah" at the beginning. I swear he's trying to say "Andrew". He probably has no idea that it's his name, but I think he's realizing that his parents say the word a lot and they always seem so happy when they say it. Perhaps he thinks "Andrew" means "best thing ever", which, in a way, it does.