As I've mentioned in passing before, I became a father recently. Gwynneth Kwun-Ning Reeder was born at a little after 7:00 PM on October 22nd. As she's just going on 4 weeks, I and others (basically my mom) have noticed that she has an endless shifting supply of facial expressions. My mom even claimed that she couldn't take a picture that would show how cute she is, because in order to really tell, you'd have to see her changes faces at you.

Well, obviously some looks are more potent than others. As I was explaining to my sister, Lisa, a few weeks ago, there's this one I like to call "Blue Steel." And then there's this completely different one called "Le Tigra." I think they're inspired from the infamous "Ferrari" look, but maybe I'm just imagining it.

When she's not working on her power-looks, she's really busy being cute (well, and converting milk to poop).

Abigail, one of my coworkers and infamous keeper of two blogs, recently stated that her child would be capable of forming perfect, complete English sentences by the age of one. She's a bit of a grammar Nazi. Now, I've only been a father for less than a month, but I felt it necessary to mention to her that once you have the baby, your standards take a bit of a dive. Where you thought you'd be congratulating them on their great achievements and acts of self-discovery, you find yourself congratulating them for every burp or fart they produce, or really almost anything they manage to do that isn't crying (including grunting, stopping crying, eating, pooping, peeing, making faces, moving their arms and pushing with their legs). I'd probably congratulate her for crying, too, except that such an action would likely just prolong the crying, and no emotionally stable people I know like babies to cry for long periods of time.

A few interesting things I've learned to do with babies. The first is something I get from my dad. My dad was always quite fascinated with the small number of instinctive reflexes babies have. My dad spent many years abusing my sisters and me by trying to get these reflex reactions out of us. Frankly, it's just about the only fun thing you can do with a newborn, since they haven't really learned how to play and laugh yet. The three reflexes that newborn babies have when they're born or usually relatively soon after:

• The sucking reflex. This one is important for obvious reasons, and it's probably the only really practical reflex in the bunch. Still, some people think that babies come right out trying to suck on stuff, which just isn't the case. They still have to learn it. Jon sometimes says that the only intuitive user-interface is the nipple, but I think if we got one in the usability lab with some first-time users, we'd probably reject it. That being said, finding first-time users that were available to come to Microsoft's usability lab would be quite difficult.
• The grab reflex. Within the first week, if you put something in the insides of a baby's fingers, they tend to grab it. Hard. Considering how underdeveloped their muscles are, babies have a reasonably good grip. Gwynneth is about strong enough for me to put my finger in her hand and pull her up by her grip to a sitting position. She doesn't quite make it, though, because the action of her lifting her head off the ground distracts her from grabbing (and she can't really hold her head up anyways). My dad used to put his thumbs out for us to grab and lift us up by his thumbs (not sure how old we were). My theory is that once Gwynneth discovers that her thumbs can grab in the opposite direction of her fingers, she'll be able to support her weight as well.
• Finally, they have a panic reflex. Babies are adjusting to everything around them, so they don't just get startled by random things around them. Some things do startle them, though, at which point they instantly extend their arms and legs straight out. One good way to trigger it is to hold the baby, and just when they've basically dozed off, move one hand out from under them (I shouldn't have to say this, but DON'T DROP THEM). Part of their back will probably drop for a second, and then they'll stiffen with their appendages out. Similar effect sometimes if you just put them down somewhere. It's a lot easier to startle a sleeping baby than an alert baby, and often it won't wake them up.

My baby has a particularly interesting sub-reflex - she likes to poop when she's on the changing table. As far as I can tell, it's some kind of Pavlovian association she makes, and I'll start to change her, with a mildly wet diaper, and then the X-treme, Real-Time Diaper changing. Five minutes later, you have a diaper full of post-diaper-removal poo.

And I'm sure you all wanted to hear about that last part.