The Ambiguous Index Finger

I don't remember exactly when it was that G first learned the power of pointing, but naturally there's a lot to be got by singling it out with that chubby little finger. Somewhere along the way, however, G's pointing became a bit of an enigma. This was back when her vocabulary was still pretty limited so she'd rely on her finger to clarify what "that" was. There was a long while when her finger didn't seem to point anywhere in particular. She'd raise her arm and the "extended" finger would invariably curve in some arbitrary direction so that it would be "pointing", say, towards the ceiling. Sometimes, I admit, I pretended to not know what she wanted in an effort to get her to talk more; more often I really didn't know and she'd just end up frustrated at me for not being able to read her mind. Lately, G's taken to jabbing in the general direction of her desired item so quickly that we're not any better off than we were before.