Hands

Okay, trying again to upload the video of Noa playing with Grampy's hands... and success!

You can see how she really takes her time exploring every aspect of his hands. And she'd already been doing this for some time before my mom started taking the video.

I've been reading Helen Keller's autobiography, which is a great read by the by - that woman had the MOST amazing memory, and it's been very help for me just in terms of understanding how important these moments of connection are for her, and how thrilling!

Noa feels things that we don't notice. She gets more from feeling someone's hand than we can probably imagine: she knows people by the veins on their hands, and boy she can find a nerve and push on it (in fact she finds this very amusing as it always gets a reaction). Of course it's not just hands. You can take nearly any toy of her's and touch it to any part of her body - and she knows which toy it is. You can tap nearly toy of hers on a table and she knows which one it is.

Long story short, once she gets to know someone's hand, she gets the same thrill from that hand that we might get from seeing a favorite person walk into the room. So learning grampy's hand is a great investment in future happiness!