Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Many parenting books say that at the age of about two months a child starts to recognize family members. Some go as far as describe the reaction - smile and the rise of activity. But none of them can describe it properly and thus don’t spoil the surprise.

Yesterday, I woke up and went to check upon Maxim. He was taken care of by his grandma and so I didn’t have to rush, but I did anyway, because I missed him too much (he was sleeping when I got back from work). He was in his cradle and he was awake, but silent. He looked kind of bored - didn’t want to sleep and didn’t want to play with his toys. But the moment he saw me everything changed. First, he gave me one of his Hollywood smiles and than he started waving his hands and legs as fast as he could. He almost jumped out of his cradle, so glad he was to see me.

I picked him up and looked straight into my eyes with the look saying something like ‘Dad, where the hack have you been for the last 12 hours? I was all lonely here without you! Let us go play now!’. And he smiled. Even if I somehow can misunderstand his looks, his smile is rock solid definite. And when I see it, coupled with the looks, I feel like a Japanese cherry garden blossoms inside of me. Kind of like they show it on Discovery, in fast forward mode with millions of flowers opening at a split second. Amazing that is, I tell you.

Later Maxim repeated his recognition smiley dance several times both for me and Olga. Not yet for grandma though.