After smiling, Ingrid has learned to use her face for other expressions too. Ingrid and I now have a game we play: I make a face and she mimics me. We’re limiting ourselves to faces that require no fine muscle control (no wiggling of eyebrows) – just simple things like smiling, opening the mouth wide and saying aaah, sticking out the tongue, or pouting.

Sometimes she gets so excited by this game that she fires on all cylinders at once: I stick out my tongue, and she responds by first saying aah, then sort of sticking out the tongue, and then smiling as well, all within a few seconds.

Our current challenge is to stick out the tongue from one corner of the mouth. She sort of seems to get the point – I can see the tongue tentatively edging towards one side of the mouth – but she hasn’t quite gotten there yet.

And when I try to get her to say aah, she actually manages to produce a strained, gargling “ngaah” sort of sound! I think she’s starting to realise that she can make more varied sounds than just crying.