Talking Liam

At almost seven months old, Liam is quite the talkative baby. He loves to babble on for long periods of time. Sometimes, he even babbles really loudly. He just loves to hear himself talk. Which is crazy, because I'm a quiet person, and to a lesser extent, so is Will.

Of course, the vast majority of his sounds are just babbles, syllables strung together in an incoherent pattern. But sometimes, he does say actual words. Words I've heard him say include:

Hey - This is pretty much the only word he uses properly. He only says it to me, Will, and if he sees one of the cats. He loves saying, "Hey!"

Hi - I've also heard this variation of Hey. He doesn't say it as much, though, which is strange because whenever we wave to him, we say "Hi" instead of "Hey."

Da Da - He started putting these syllables together a long time ago. "D" sounds are some of his favorite sounds.

Daddy - He will occasionally bust out the Daddy while he's streaming together D sounds. It's so cute!

Dad - Just recently he started saying Dad, with the D sound on the end. He was up for about an hour in the middle of the night last night, just as happy as he could be. He kept saying "Dad" over and over. Will was not amused since it was waking him up!

Of course, I don't think he associates any of these words with Will just yet. But it's still precious to hear them.

Cat - That's also a new one. He hears the word cat a lot, and the other day he said it.

Speaking of cats, last week, Liam also kind of meowed last week and for a split second Will and I both thought it was our cat Squirt. It sounded just like her.

Bye Bye - B sounds are also fun for him, and he usually says Ba Ba over and over, but sometimes it does sound like Bye Bye. I've also heard him say what sounded like "Bye bye Daddy." Another funny string of babbling he said one day sounded kind of like, "I don't want to," but of course, he didn't really say it.

My question is, do any of these count as a first word since he's not really associating them with anything specific (that I can tell)? I haven't counted them as such since I don't know if they really count. But if they do, then his first word was "Hey."

Perhaps he will be an early talker. I've been trying to get his babbling or "talking" on video, but when he sees the camera, he just stops! I love his talking!