Pointing is so complicated. First deciding from the speaker's eyes what what direction they are looking. Then finding their outstretched arm, which is also not what you are looking for. And then if you find the finger on the arm (also not what you are looking for) that takes one's gaze away from the face, potentially missing further info such as little facial movements that indicate more specifically how far away (I do a little chin lift if I'm pointing to something far away). And then imagining their finger if it suddenly stretched a great length in a straight line. A length that differs from instance to instance depending on how far away the object is. And then focusing in on a little sphere of space at the end of that imaginary line to search, now with a search image of the object that is not eyes or arm or finger or line. How complicated is that. It's kind of amazing anyone can do it.
Of course you can be reasonably okay at all that stuff above and still not be able to find the object. I lift my arm to point, DH thinks, "75% chance she means on the table", breaks eye contact and bolts for the table.
So there's patience.
It might be fun to play a find-the-hidden-jellybean type game with a laser pointer or a flashlight. See how short a time one can leave the beam on where DS can still find the jellybean.
My DS is terrible at balls also. He's gotten way better at locating things via pointing as he's gotten older, but not any better at catching a ball. When I asked I was thinking pointing was sort of like an imaginary throwing motion... but if so then maybe getting better at one would make you better at the other. There goes that idea.
