These last few weeks have been pretty uneventful for our family, but Olive's been using them productively. One of the most obvious changes recently has been her discovery of her hands. In just the last few weeks, she's figured out that hands are for grabbing, and eagerly explored that capability. It doesn't matter so much exactly what she's grabbing: a chunk of hair, some of your teeth, a rattle, her own other hand; all of these have textures and movements that she's fascinated to discover. She's still hasn't yet figured out her entire range of motion—she'll grab things above her, or placed on her chest, but not placed to her side—but it's only a matter of time now.

As impressive as her new dexterity is, what's really made an impression has been something unrelated. If you'd asked me half a year ago whether laughing was a learned or instinctive behavior, I'd have said it's instinctive, because it's more or less the same no matter where you go in the world. The unexamined corollary was that obviously, if laughter is instinctive, then babies can laugh; why couldn't they?

It turns out that Olive couldn't, at first. That's changed recently: she's started to become ticklish under her armpits and in the folds of her neck. When you get in there with your fingers, she'll squirm and squeeze with the relevant limb and grin wide. What's truly adorable is that she obviously wants to laugh, but she doesn't know how to, so she just improvises with this rhythmic half-grunted sound: "hrrg hrrg hrrg". It's not exactly the tinkling of little bells, but it is entirely endearing.

One more anecdote: a few days ago, we took my father-in-law out to supper. On the walk home from the restaurant, I was carrying Olive in the front-pack as it gently snowed. She started the walk cuddled into my warmth, but at one point she leaned back to yawn. From that time until we got inside, she kept leaning back with her mouth open and her tongue out. It's possible she was just being very clear and unfussy with a request to be fed, but I'm convinced that she independently invented the notion of catching snowflakes on her tongue. We couldn't have communicated that to her if we'd wanted to!

I may not write here again before the new year, so to everyone who's reading, I hope your 2017 ends as well as possible and your 2018 begins promisingly.