Lele can clap le!

Yesterday when I arrived home after work, my MIL told me excitedly that Lele can now clap his hands! When I sang the song "clap your hands... clap your hands... clap your hands till the music stops...", Lele started clapping excitedly at the sound of "clap your hands"!

Actually, I have been trying to get Lele to clap for many months, since Feb. However, most of the time Lele will just smile at me. Sometimes when he was happie, Lele would clap 1 time and then move his with his clasped palms up&down. This is synonymous to the praying action to Lele.

Lele learnt praying from MIL. She taught him to point at the "Guan Yin" (goddess of mercy altar and pray by clasping palms together and moving them up and down! Even though my husband and I are of different religion from my MIL, I must say that Lele is very cute when doing the praying action!
Initially I was a bit pissed with her, but my husband rationalised that we are since we are all Buddhists, it is not a bad thing that Lele is taught to respect and pray to "Guan Yin". He marveled at Lele's affinity with Buddhism.

So I've been trying to teach Lele clapping since Feb but unsuccessful till yesterday when he surprised his yeye and nainai by clapping his hands together when nainai asked his to "paipai shou" (clap hands in mandarin).

This reinforced my belief that babies and toddlers have such fantastic ability to process and assimilate information. I believe that while their limited motor skills might hamper their efforts to demonstrate understanding, this should not stop us from providing various stimulation, information and exposure, while all the while introducing new ideas and reinforcing old ones.