Pointing Things Out

It seems right after her 1st birthday, LS really took an interest in pointing things out. It's funny how sometimes learning seems to accelerate.

She loves just pointing to things of course, and we oblige by telling her what the thing she's pointing at is. But what is more exciting is when we ask her where something is and she points to it.

Later in her birthday week I was leafing through one of her books with her as she sat on the sanita (toilet). Thus starts many years of sitting on the sanita and reading. Mamãe will show her the pictures in Papai's copies of The Economist which she takes great delight in.

But this day we were going through a book of hers with pictures of babies doing various things. When we got one page that has pictures of about 10 babies doing different things I figured I would give her a little test.

Onde está a bebé que está beber água no copo? (Where is the baby that's drinking water from a cup?)

She took about 5 long seconds scanning back and forth over both pages. Then... Bang! The decision made, she quickly points her finger right into the picture of the baby drinking from the cup. Nice! (Muito bem querida, muito bem!)

I didn't want my happiness to be based on a fluke naturally, so I decided she had to get two correct to pass. :-)

Onde está a bebé que está tomar banho? (Where is the baby that's taking a bath?)

She scans again. This time maybe 4 seconds. Then... Bang! Right on the picture of the baby in the little bath tub. Extra dessert for you tonight kid.

Of course, now she must imagine life is one big test. Whenever we're reading a book:

Where's the moon?
Where's the stars?
Where's the bird?
Where's the bee?
Where's the horse?

And of course, she can't away from it in real life either:

Where's the ball?
Where's the balloon?
Where's your ear?
Where's your knee?
Where's your foot?
Where's the hat?


Luckily she hasn't yet learned to say: "The same place it was last time you asked. Are you stupid?" She may be thinking it. But at least she can't say it!

My feeling when she first pointed out the water-drinking baby was more than just that she got what I was asking. It was also that she got it and it was asked in what I'm claiming is Portuguese. That this little experiment is taking hold - that she isn't condemned to not understanding anything.

This seems to be the perfect time for her to really get sign language too, as she's quickly adopted this too. We're only using eat, cup, and more (Queres comer? Copo? Mais?). Of course, her favorite method of indicating what she wants is still to point to it, but she's getting it.

Tonight, as dinner time was approaching, Mamãe asked LS: O que é que tu queres? (What do you want?) and LS responded by signing for "eat". Extra dessert for you tonight kid.

We may actually be on the brink of some words too. We're starting to hear some pronunciation that's somewhat understandable for more things.

pêra (pih'-ruh), which means "pear", kind of comes out as one syllable: "pra"

Likewise for bala (ball'-uh), which is "ball", kind of comes out as one syllable also: "bla"