first word?

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Jude and I have been debating about whether or not we've been hearing Nathanael's first word.

It started right around his first birthday. We got him a balloon, and he was super excited about it. He would look up at it, and say "Bauh!" in a gravelly baby voice. Several weeks ago, we were walking through our grocery store, and Nathanael fixated on the balloons in the floral department, again making a similar sound. Seems pretty straight forward, yes?

But no. He makes the same sound for lights on the ceiling (usually round fixtures here), balls, and other moving round objects.

My mother says that it should count, as he is clearly indicating a particular type of object, even if we recognize them as distinct objects.

Jude says no, as he considers Elizabeth's first words "Bah-Bsh"(bottle brush) and "cub" (Jacob), which were very specific and only used in reference to singular things.

Eventually he'll say something much more specific, and maybe that will count as a first word. Or perhaps we'll just record the great word debate of 2010, and let it stand as an unresolved question.

What do you think?

Here's a video of us at World Conference, where, each time we walked near the reception desk in the Temple, he would excitedly exclaim, "Bauh! Bauh!"