Tonight C walked up to me, holding a drum in one hand and a tambourine in the other. Smiling, he thrust the tambourine toward me and said, quite clearly, "You play it, Daddy!" I was so shocked, I nearly forgot to take the damn tambourine from him. This was neither scripted nor prompted; this was a genuine request, directed at me, in the form of a verbalized desire to interact.
And interact we did: I shook the tambourine in time to his drumming for a good two or three minutes, and every so often C would look at me and smile as we played together.
Hope.