Does my baby have a sense of humor?

Exhibit A: The one thing I haven't figured out how to babyproof in my house is the bookshelf. I have a lot of books and some of them must be stored on the floor-level shelves. I put the heaviest books there -- my college-era ancient lit anthologies, some music books and my beloved Harry Potter collection. We installed baby gates, we put covers over the outlets, we moved all the electronic equipment out of reach, but I can't get Jack to stay away from the books. I don't mind if he pulls himself up on the shelf and admires his mother's row of excellent YA novels, but I cannot abide having him yank them out and throw them on the floor.

The temptation, however, is too great.

"No no, Jack!" I say. And he'll turn his head towards me, a sly grin on his face, one finger on a book.

"No no, Jack!" I say, this time a touch more firmly. My son giggles. GIGGLES. And then I whisk him away from the bookshelves, only to watch him crawl back to the forbidden fruit, chortling all the way.

Exhibit B: We have the kind of laundry machines that stack on top of each other and are hidden in a tiny closet. A few days ago I was moving the wet clothes to the dryer and Jack was sitting on the floor, fascinated by the entire process. (Shall we take bets on whether he'll like to do laundry when he's fifteen?) I was nearly done and stood up to put the last bit of wet stuff in the dryer when I knocked my head into the dryer door. OUCH. I took great pains not to say a naughty word in front of my baby, but he would have drowned it out with all the laughing. My baby! Was laughing at me! After I HURT MYSELF!

Exhibit C: Then last night I was feeding him dinner. The new thing is scrambled eggs (NO, he's not a year old yet, my fingers are in my ears, I can't hear you!) and while he's getting better at the whole chewing thing, it still takes him years to eat a single bite. It makes for a pretty boring feeding session and since I happened to be starving, I popped a piece of his scrambled egg in my mouth. Except I missed my mouth (some of us are still learning how to eat too) and it fell into my lap. At least, I thought it fell into my lap, but I couldn't find it. Where did it go? I'm looking in my lap, on the floor, in the folds of my shirt and the whole time the baby is laughing upROARiously. I honestly have never heard him laugh so hard for so long. His face was turning red and his nose was scrunched up with pure glee.

I found the piece of egg stuck between my t-shirt and my sweatshirt. I fished it out and sat there a few minutes longer to allow my kid to get the hilariousness out of his system. It was actually sort of embarrassing.

Perhaps a better question may be: does my baby think anything else is funny besides ME?

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