Grasping for the Stars

Every mother thinks her child's developmental milestones are more important, better, and more unique than anything you might choose to compare them to, and so I know I'm blowing this out of proportion. At the same time, every mother knows that her child's developmental milestones are infinitely precious and need to be cherished to the utmost, so please bear with me while I wax nostalgic on two days ago.
I have a bouncy seat sitting next to my computer "zone," for lack of a better word. I will sit at the computer nursing Snapdragon on a pillow, then slip him into his bouncy seat when he's dozing. He ususally doens't sleep hard enough to justify moving him to his crib when I'm at the computer, so this has been a workable scenario.
But lately, he's been seeing farther and spending more and more time just staring with rapt fascination at the world around him, so I have taken to slipping him into his bouncy seat when he's otherwise perfectly content, just so he can enjoy the view from there, which includes a hippo, a lion, and a monkey, all of which dangle from a green arch over the bouncy seat, and all of which have rings hanging from them. The lion plays music if you pull his ring. Snapdragon has observed this phenomenon with great interest and awe, as though he were watching a feat of true wizardry.
Two days ago this changed.
Two days ago I slipped him into his seat in a marginally good mood and the next thing I know his little hand is stretched out in front of him and he's batting the monkey. What's this? Is he just stretching and bumping it? But no, his eyes focus on the task at hand as he bats the monkey over and over again, and then he grabs it midswing!
I squeed like a tween at a Jonas Brother's concert.
Snapdragon has discovered toys. Moreover, he's learned that the things he sees around him, this whole great big world of shapes and colors and movement, all of it can be manipulated by these marvelous things called hands. He has learned that the universe is willfully interactive, and my heart is so full of pride in this little man that it could nearly burst.
I can see how each little step in his development leads to the next step and the one after that. How knowing he can see and grasp will lead to picking things up and teething on them and taking two objects and making them interact with one another, and eventually he'll learn more and more about what his hands can do, what his feet can do, what he can do. It's all part of this process of being human,and oh how we take it for granted, but to him it's new and full of wonderment. He is still batting the monkey and hippo today, frustratedly eying the magically musical lion with determination but not quite the dexterity to grasp something out of line with his hands. Nonetheless, he's decided it's what he's going to do, and it's so cute to see decision on the face of a 7 week old. That is, determination and decisiveness that doesn't have to do with the tatas.
Today he's grasping for the monkey, tomorrow, the stars.