Boy Wonder

DISCLAIMER:  This is going to be the sort of post that is really uninteresting to everyone except me.  And possibly my mom.  If you choose not to continue reading, you should at least enjoy this cute picture:

In the last few weeks, sweet baby Ben has magically started to get what spoken language is all about.  It's amazing (especially to a mother who may or may not be a language nerd)!
So far, his vocabulary includes:

• ball - He says this one allllll the time now.  It started out as "bop," but now he says "baa" in a funny, nasal way.
• cat - He pronounces it "dat," with special emphasis on the "t" at the end.  If he hears me or Daniel say something about the cat, he starts looking around for Justin and saying, "Dat?  Dat?"
• meow - This one is particularly impressive to me because I didn't try to teach it to him.  He just started saying it (pronounced "mih-now") on his own.  He chased Justin yesterday while saying "mih-now" over and over.
• no, no - Hmm... I wonder where he got that one?  He seems to be better at saying it to us than he is at obeying when we say it.  Little stinker.
• uh-oh - Usually when he drops/throws something on the floor.
• pat - He really loves to pat things (anything, really) and say, "Pat, pat, pat."
• mama - My favorite, of course :)  Sometimes we'll be in the middle of playing, and he will point at me and say, "Mama."  But he is especially good at saying "Mama" when he is upset.  Often, he adds an extra syllable - "mamama."
• bye-bye - His Southern roots come out with the pronunciation of this one.  It also takes him a little while to realize that it's appropriate to say bye.  He'll watch someone leave the room and then wave and tell them "bah-bah."

 Other language-related tricks include:

• correctly answering the question, "Where is Mama's nose?"
• clapping on command and when we say, "Yay!"
• answering "aah, aah, aah" when I ask what any animal says
• making valiant efforts to imitate any sound effects Daniel and I make with our mouths
• obeying when I tell him to "pat, pat, pat" anything
• laying his head on my shoulder (briefly) when I tell him to "love Mommy"
• attempting to blow kisses -- he rarely gets all the components right, and sometimes when we blow a kiss to him, he makes the noise in this video: