Learning to Pluck

One of my favorite things to do is to sit Stanbear on his blanket scatter a few toys about him and sit on the couch and watch him as if he is a hit, primetime T.V. show. I'll just sit there and try not to say anything unless he looks at me or or "asks" me for something. The other night he was playing with the ukelele which usually he just hits/slaps with his hands. He has seen his Pa play it many times so he knows how it works. This time it was especially fun to watch him because I was able to observe him discovering something. He was hitting the uke at first, just flapping his arms (this takes place in the video at about 32 seconds) and his hands would hit the strings which sounded almost like he was strumming it and then for a long while he was looking intently at the strings and touching them and then his finger latched on to one of the strings and when he pulled it away it made a high, clear sound: Plingggggggg! (this takes place in the video starting at about 2 minutes, 32 seconds) Music to his ears. He carefully placed his finger there again and pulled. Plingggggggg! and again and again and again. He would look up at me and at first I would say, "Good Job!" even though I just read something about not praising your children but instead use statements like, "It looks like you figured out how to play the ukelele?!" or "Doesn't that sound nice when you pluck the string like that?" It takes practice to make comments like that rather than just say, "Good Job!" Anyhoo. It was fun to watch him discover something. He would look at me and I swear that look was a, "I'm so humble but proud that I figured out how to pluck the string!" (this takes place in the video starting at about 2 minutes 48 seconds)Here's what I got on video it's a little long and uneventful (that's why I gave you the highlights above in green!) until he starts to pluck!: