My Baby Can Communicate!

So within the last 2 days, Amelia has started pointing! I know this may not seem like a lot, but to me this is an amazingly huge thing.

See, I am a communicator. Let's break it down. I MAJORED in communication for both undergraduate and graduate school. I am an infamous chatterbox. I communicate for a LIVING (in fact, my profession is called "Technical Communicator"). I write 2 BLOGS. I am a social butterfly (which means I connect to people via lots of communication).

Yes, I'd say communication is my forte.

Which means that you can imagine how I've been waiting for my little sponge of a baby to start interacting back with me. And every time she has interacted--laughing, smiling, playing, even crying--I have celebrated that she has communicated with me and let me know what she needs/likes/dislikes. A few months ago she learned a few sign language signals--milk (which she subsequently used to mean tired, hungry, AND milk) and bye-bye. At one point she could do more, but I think we overloaded her brain. In the last month she started saying "Ma" by which I think she means "milk." Since it's the first hand sign she learned and pretty much the only thing she feels strongly about when it's absent, it makes sense it would be her first word. And she's been communicating with us by turning her head when she doesn't want food or, more recently, pushing away things she doesn't want.

And now, she can point! To everything! Two days ago she pointed to her water and then she drank it! Yesterday she pointed to her pacifier. Today she pointed to a water bottle she wanted to play with. It's amazing! She is truly able to tell us what she wants. And, it's also exciting that she clearly understand things now. She knows who mommy is, who daddy is, what the kitty is, what milk is, and more! It's amazing! And it feels like such a breakthrough. We can finally get a teeny tiny window into Amelia's world now that she can "talk back." And it is so exciting and refreshing.