Light Bulbs

It seemed like it all happened in one day! For months and months, I have been putting the phone to her ear so she could here her grandmother's voice, or her auntie's, or her dad while he's at work and she would always just stare at it, completely mystified.
Then one day, she picked up the phone and put it to my ear.
"Hello?" I said. Then she put the phone to her hear and made some "hello" like inflections with her voice.
So I called my mother. Ms. Foo had a two minute babble conversation with her. Now, all she wants to do is put the phone to my hear then to hers, then to mine, then to hers.

That same day, she started patting my hand herself at the end of patty cake instead of me taking her little hand and patting mine with it.

She used to cry a little and crawl over to the closed door when her little friend would go home. Now she cries a little and looks underneath the door!

And then, after months of being in the sling while I do dishes and hanging around while I run the swiffer over my dustable surfaces, Ms. Foo grabbed a sock (twice in one day, so I knew it was not a fluke) and started rubbing it on a book that was on a bed and later on a plastic bowl that was on the floor.

How is it that one day, she just stares and smiles and the next, everything seems to suddenly make sense to her?
Like somebody turned a switch on.
She understands what things are for, where people go when she cannot see them anymore. What comes at the end of the song.
Now she claps when there is applause on the television, even if she doesn't see the people actually clapping.
She laughs at nothing.
She laughs at everything. She breathes in dramatically as if she just cannot contain it all. All this wonder.