The game was called “I Forgot I Had a Baby.” We invented it together, my older son and I, one afternoon when he was about eight months old. He was sitting in my lap, facing me. I let my eyes wander around the room, pretending to daydream — and then suddenly caught sight of him and said, with a gasp of happy astonishment, “Oh — I forgot I had a baby!” After a startled instant, he cracked up. It was one of those uncanny, thrilling moments of shared experience. Your child is new and relatively helpless; he has yet to acquire words; but no words are necessary. You both get the joke.