Language development

Madeleine is showing us her ever-increasing understanding of the English language; aside from clapping her hands on command, she is now also to respond to other verbal prompts as well. One of her newest tricks is to wave when prompted, although her version of a wave looks more like a worshipful gesture, seeing as she likes to flap her entire arm (and sometimes both arms) up and down rather than just her fingers. She can also correctly respond to "Where are Mommy's teeth?" Yes, while most babies learn to identify the nose, eyes, ears, etc., Madeleine has been obsessed with my teeth, and I discovered that after a couple days of labeling them when she grabs them, she now understands the word. One of her favorite things to do is pry my lips apart so she can run her fingers along my teeth, and now that she's got a good feel for what they're like, she enjoys sticking her entire hand in my mouth and trying to shove it down my throat and explore what else she might discover.

Aside from clearly understanding things we're saying to her, she has started expanding her vocabulary a little bit (although really only by half a word.) Last night during dinner, Yia-yia taught her to say something new; here's an idea of how it went:

YIA-YIA: Uh-oh!
MADELEINE: Uh!
ETHAN, JULIA, COURTNEY & YIA-YIA: (clapping) Yay!!! Yay Madeleine!

At this point, Madeleine would look around with a confused expression, then tentatively clap her hands, as if thinking, "Oh, is this what we're doing now? I thought we were saying uh-oh." Then we were back to:

YIA-YIA: Uh-oh!
MADELEINE: Uh!
ETHAN ET AL: Yay!!! Yay for Madeleine!

Repeat, repeat, repeat. At one point, the dialogue changed slightly, to our excitement:

YIA-YIA: Uh-oh!
MADELEINE: Uh-oh!
ETHAN, YIA-YIA, JULIA, COURTNEY: YAAAAAAY!!! GOOD GIRL, MADELEINE!!! (Clapping heartily.)

At this point, Madeleine looked totally startled and slightly alarmed by the exuberance of our praise, and glanced around at us nervously. She must have decided that saying "uh-oh" was too risky a gesture given that it elicited such an overbearing response, because afterwards she reverted back to simply saying "uh."