I could tell right away that Hazel was going to be a smiler. She smiled in her sleep constantly. Though it took her a couple weeks longer than the other kids to start smiling as much in her waking hours, smiling quickly became her favorite activity, and she especially likes smiling at me.
Today at church she was engaging in her favorite smiling-at-me hobby when my friend commented, “Doesn’t it seem like they can see into your soul?”
I joked back, “If she could, she wouldn’t keep smiling.” (And then I commented, “Nah, she’s my favorite. She doesn’t disobey 😉 “)
But thinking more about that unabashed smile, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes:
It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may have come across four or five times in your life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. (The Great Gatsby)
So, yes. I think maybe a little baby can see right into our souls (and still beam up at us).