Practicing his Index Finger

From limbs swatting the air, to the exquisite precision of squishing an ant, the motor skills of Sam have undergone such stunning progression and refinement that it takes my breath away. Not least among these wonders involves his index finger.

Every day we "practice his index finger": I put a scrap of food on his highchair tray, preferably something slippery like watermelon. His fist pops out of his mouth where it generally resides, and his index finger emerges from his fist. He stabs enthusiastically at the food. He misses. The chase is on.

Traveling like an inchworm, his finger arches, straitens, arches, straitens as it scoots forward, dragging a fat fist behind. As he pursues his food into the far corners of the tray, his mouth drops open in anticipation. I explain to him that step #1 is to secure a grip on the food, and step #2 is to open mouth. But he already knows how to open his mouth, so he goes ahead and gets that ready.

For a long time, newborn Sam enjoyed the random jerking of arms. Then one day around 3 months he discovered that hands are fastened at the ends of said arms, and that hands can catch each other in the air. For a few weeks he practiced clasping them together like a champion. Occasionally he would forget how to unclasp them, and this would cause his face to crumple into grimaces of bewilderment. When he’d finally give up and relax, they’d fall easily apart, to his great surprise.

Suddenly one day, he came upon his wrists! He shook them excitedly. He gradually refined this into a primordial wave which he brandished wildly in the direction of barking dogs, speeding cars, and the washing machine when it shook on spin cycle. Sometimes he would accidentally hit himself in the face when he needed to wave at a car and rub his eyes. You could practically smell new neural connectors being soldered together in his brain.

From large muscle systems to teeny tiny muscles, the progression has continued. In the past month he has discovered that in his possession lies a full set of astonishingly functional fingers, and an INDEX finger!!! This is cutting edge, people. Sometimes from his playpen, he points at me with one drool-dipped index finger in that gesture of "Uncle Sam Wants You” (a.k.a. Baby Sam Wants Mom). He grins and then seems to say, syke!, and returns to banging his toys around like a monkey.