A Rare Performance

Joseph is utterly fascinated with his world. He spends all day, every day, pointing at everything he sees and waiting expectantly for us to name it. If he hears a noise outside, he points to the source. When we read books, he'll let us read through the book once, and then he'll go back through and point at everything on the pages and have us name it. When we go outside or drive in the car, he points at plants, cars, planes, birds, squirrels, everything, and if we don't chime in with the name, he grunts to make sure he has our attention.

He is far less interested, however, in communicating to us the name of anything. Sometimes it's hard to tell what words he knows because he is very selective about when he responds. There are definitely things that will always get a response: "fruit snacks?" or "raisins?" results in an instant grin and dash to the cupboard to receive his goodies; "want to go get daddy?" and he immediately rushes to the bedroom to wake Todd up in the morning; "outside" or "want to go bye bye" directs him straight to the door; "say prayer?" and his arms are folded before you can finish the word -- unless he's distracted by new toys or new people. There are definitely a lot of things he responds to -- every day things like breakfast and bathtubs and what have you. So we know he comprehends a lot.

But when we try to solicit performances, he's very reticent. Often he waves goodbye, but not always, and usually when *he* realizes everyone is saying goodbye but not when we tell him to wave goodbye. And although he is constantly pointing at things for us to name, he rarely points things out that we ask him to show. In fact, he does the opposite. If we're looking at a page in a book with a dog and a cat, and say, "where's the dog," he'll inevitably point to the cat. I know he knows the difference; often I'll ask him to point at something and I'll see him *look* at it, and then point to something else. I think perhaps he thinks that since the dog has already been named, it's time to draw attention to the cat.

But today Todd and I were treated to a rare performance that let me know that he really IS learning all of these words we are constantly saying, even if he doesn't show it. He was playing with a car and making car noises, so we said, "what does a car say" and he responded with his version of "vrrrooom."

Then we followed up with questions like what does a dog say, what does a bird say, and he made appropriate noises.

Then, where is your hair, your ears, your nose, your eyes, your belly button, your diaper, your socks ... and he was pointing away in all the right places.

Of course this stopped eventually and he was back to observation mode. But I'm convinced that when he does decide it's time to work on his oral communication skills, he's got an arsenal of words stored up. For now, he'll just absorb some more.

And point. Which, as evidenced in the photograph below (taken when he was about 9 months), he's been doing for a long time now.