Small miracles

Today was a truly great day.  No, the future history books will not have any of the small miracles that I witnessed today recorded.  But in our little world - that I will admit revolves completely around Gabriel - this was a huge day.

Just before Gabriel's nap, we were reading a book together, and he made four different new animal noises during the course of the book:  horse, cat, owl and puppy.  He also started making a "whoo whoo" train noise every time he rides on his big indoor car.  I realized after witnessing Jav carry him piggy back around the house tonight that he is copying DaDa, who always makes a train noise during this expedition.  Then tonight, he turned on his old musical walker that he's ignored for a couple of weeks.  He was humming, clapping, and dancing to the songs that I have endlessly sung, even when I didn't think he was always paying attention.  There's one song that I don't know the words to, so I always just made this soft shoe noise and kind of hummed along.  Tonight he was bouncing up and down and soft-shoeing away, and although it took me about half the song to realize what he was doing, I just beamed with joy when I figured it out.  

We think he's not paying attention, and that we're just foolishly doing some of this stuff for no apparent reason.  Today it dawned on us that he is listening and watching pretty much everything we do, and we can't wait to see what he learns next.