Clap Your Hands

The most amazing thing!!! Adelyn claps her hands on command. I know I must have taught her things before now, things that she just picks up from being around me. This is the first thing I feel like I actively taught her. The first thing that I thought, "I bet she could learn to clap her hands", and then she did learn it. I know it's not a big thing, probably not even really that impressive, but somehow I am astonished by it. I'm amazed that she understands the words, that she can make the movements to actually clap her hands, and then that 2/3 of the time, she actually wants to do it when you ask her to. It's amazing and pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen!
It seems like Adelyn is pretty amazed by her new ability as well. She claps a lot even when she isn't asked to. She always watches the people around her when she's doing it, and I think she realizes that she has discovered this universal form of communication. Everyone knows about "clap your hands"! All the strangers at the grocery store, all the moms and older kids at play group, and all the people that go to baby bounce at Northpark. I can only imagine what's going on in her mind, but I think she is SO happy to have a way to make everyone clap their hands back at her. Because of course that's the first thing that happens. If a baby claps their hands at you at the grocery store, of course you clap back!
We recently started working in "touch your head". Once she had "clap your hands" down, I wanted to add to her list of tricks, and she already seems somewhat fascinated by being able to touch the top of her head...so I started telling her that she was touching her head when she chose to touch it. Then I would ask her to touch her head and take her hand and pat her head with it. She isn't as consistent with this one, but in the last two days, she touches her head probably half of the time that I ask her to. Now we're working on "wave goodbye". Then, I think we'll do "point your finger". I think she's going to be disappointed that some of these things aren't quite as universally used to communicate, but I'm pretty sure she'll still get grins of approval from random strangers when she touches her head on command.

I'll post video when we get it...of course whenever we put the camera in front of her face all thoughts of clapping evaporate!