I play a little finger game with Simon pretty regularly called “Where is Thumbkin?”. Each finger has name: thumbkin, pointer, tall man, ring man, and pinkie. You sing it to the tune of “Frere Jacques”, and for the past few weeks, whenever we get to pointer, I’ve been awaiting Simon discovering his own pointer.
He’s been pointing at items in books for a while now, but I was eager to see when he’d look up, out, or over to something and point at it. This interest is motivated in part by my simply thinking it’s cool to watch my baby hit textbook milestones and in part because I know that on-time pointing is a sign that a baby does not have autism. So pointing: good stuff all round.
Last Thursday, we finally got to say hello to pointer when he pointed to something while spending the day with his Grandma. Friday I finally caught him in the act. Then Saturday, he was suddenly eager to show Matt and me everything in the house. It’s as though he wanted to make sure that Matt and I realized how wondrous it was that we lived in a house with windows, cats, and ceiling fans.
I could almost hear him. “Look ma, a ceiling fan. Do you see it? Up there? It’s a fan. Ceiling fans are cool. Aren’t you glad we have one?” Given the long streams of gibberish we’re getting these days, I am sure he something similar to this.
So that’s it: another milestone ticked off the list. In fact, last week was eventful in Simon’s development. He began to scooting much faster, is getting into more things, is much more vocal, is pointing, and is now self-feeding the vast majority of his food.
Autism fears now at bay and a new menu in the works, the next milestone I await is Simon finally getting from his belly to a sitting position on his own, as he awakes thrashing on his belly from every nap and every night’s sleep. But it could be awhile, because I am learning that while Simon’s fine motor, social, and verbal skills are on or ahead of schedule, he’s a slow-poke at the gross motor stuff. Given who his parents are, this seems about right.