do you speak english?

back when ben was first born, i laughed at the fact that you're supposed to speak in third person instead of using pronouns. now, all day long, i chatter in third person. "ben, can you bring that to mommy? mommy and ben are going to go in the car now. does ben want to go to the park with mommy? etc etc" to help language development, you label every thing you do and see. "that's a bird. bird. what does a bird say? tweet tweet. nice birdie." oh yes. this is totally me. it's pretty unreal how quickly one transforms. but with all this talking and labelling, what can ben say? "buh-bye." and he doesn't ever use it when we say, "say buh bye!" he can point at the freezer and "buub" which means blueberries. he shouts something that resembles "hi" though no one except his mother would recognize it. and when he sees his baby doll, he says "baba". but he also says baba about a million other things so who knows? (don't get me wrong - i'm not worried and i know plenty of talking is to come) so here i am, talking away, and you're never sure what's being understood and what's just gibberish to him. but yesterday, he had just gotten up from a nap and was wearing a shirt and just a diaper. i told him that we'd be going in the car so that we needed to find ben's pants. "where are ben's pants?" i instinctively said while wandering around looking for where i'd set them down. i turn around and ben is standing by a box pointing at his pants that i'd set down there, waiting for me to see him! whaat? you understood that? what ELSE do you understand? all the talking i do actually is going in? i love moments like that.