Theories of embodied interaction and environmental coupling have come a long way in their struggle with the slippery notions of mind, matter and sociality, but there is a need for systematic documentation of actual social practices to be carried out from this perspective, especially in relation to children. When parent- child interaction takes place in contexts where physical objects are involved, the handling of an object may suddenly stand out as having expressive (gestural) qualities over and above the instrumental aspects that may also be involved. What sort of expressive qualities may be found in such actions? What is it about these movements, in their context, that provide for their expressive qualities? In short, how do they come to mean (see also Cuffari & Streeck, this volume)? The aim is to provide a principled and systematic approach to address these questions, by focusing on micro-ecologies of expression that have their basis in how human bodies handle objects. The approach is applied to data from five Swedish children, recorded longitudinally between 18–30 months, in an attempt to begin answering the questions above. Asking such questions — empirically, theoretically, and conceptually — is a logical consequence of an approach to intersubjectivity that views it as emergent from embodied interaction. This view of intersubjectivity is a synthesis of, first and foremost, the work of Schutz, Mead and Merlau-Ponty.