Giggling at the Giraffe, and His Own Version of Peekaboo

Last night we went to Hoover's for dinner and almost died, it was so good. We split a chicken fried steak, sausage, mac & cheese, and fried okra. And then we had cherry cobbler and ice cream. I know. It's ridiculous. Food heaven. We walked out of there completely stuffed and sort of stunned by how good everything was, even though we've eaten there many times. But I digress. The reason I mention Hoover's is because Eamon was playing with his toy giraffe (from his aunties) at dinner, and he suddenly decided that the giraffe was hysterical. I was shaking it in front him, and every time I'd give it a shake, he'd laugh and laugh. TJ and I looked at each other in amazement--he'd never laughed at an inanimate object before! (We're dorks.) It probably sounds like no big deal, but it felt like a marked change. Wouldn't he have to be using his imagination to laugh at the giraffe? He thought the giraffe was funny! Especially when the giraffe kept wanting to kiss him on the cheek. Silly giraffe.

After we got home, he had his bath and we settled in for our last nursing of the night. Instead of falling asleep, though, he was doing the thing where he pulls off to look around and then latches back on for a few cursory sucks before repeating the process. This time, he would pull off and look at his dad with an expectant, playful expression on his face. TJ would smile at him, then Eamon would get really excited and turn dramatically back to the boob (flinging his arm toward my chest to pull himself close) and give a couple of frantic sucks before arching away and peeking at TJ again. It finally dawned on us that he was playing a game. And he knew it. TJ moved closer and started making faces at him, and E seemed delighted that we'd caught on. Now when he turned to burrow into me, he wouldn't actually suck, he would just sort of wait there in the sucking position for a couple of seconds before turning back over. We couldn't believe it. We kept saying, "He's playing a game! He made up a game!" It was fun. And funny.