How to Smile

So many wonderful new developments in The Land of Noa, especially when it comes to communication and social interaction. Until recently Noa’s communication was mostly about what she wanted (or didn’t want) in the moment; it was all focused on the present moment. For example, if I told I that Mommy had to go to the bathroom, her response would be that she didn’t have to go to the bathroom. But this weekend, after having gone to the bathroom, I returned to the table and she signed/said “Mommy bathroom finished. Mommy here table.” Huge! Other observations have included, “Noa sits car here” and “Daddy cooking.”

Some of her observations can get… tedious after a while: “One shirt, two legs, two shoes, one pants, two ears, fan on elbow, hand on knee…” but the truth is, even when it’s tedious it’s remarkable! She just wants to talk all the time.

She’s also using her new found communicative talents to tell jokes – anyone who knows her will not be surprised. She will burp and blame her doggie toy, or her book, or her fan. She’ll pretend to sneeze and so she can say “bless you.” That’s big fun.

I actually starting taping the clip below because she was burping and blaming it on doggie. But as you’ll see she get distracted. At some point I realized that she was practicing smiling. This is another things she’s been working on. She knows that when she hears the click of a camera she is supposed to look up, and she’s now also gotten the idea that she should smile… but she’s still working on precisely what that means.

Of course learning to smile for the camera is challenging – how do you not look like you’re trying too hard? And how do you learn how to do it if you don’t even have a sense of what a smile looks like??? As you can see, at the end of this clip she manages a nice lovely smile – and when she realizes she’s got it, you can see she’s pretty darn happy. Yeah, things are pretty entertaining in the Land of Noa about now!

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