Bridging the species gap

Cooper does his very best to communicate. Even though he can't yet form sentences, he still points, says 'peez,' and cries to get his basic points across. He is now at the stage when, quite often, he will mimic what we do as he tries to master our (at times lacking) communication skills. Cute as it is, he is also carrying this technique to try and communicate with other . . . um, species. For the past couple of weeks, whenever he hears one of our cats, he will invariably try to 'meow' in reply. One of our cats hides under the sofa for 15 of the 16 hours of the day; and when Cooper hears her, he gets on his belly, looks under the sofa, and meows at the cat for the next minute or so. I don't get the sense that the cats are as enthusiastic about the mimicking thing as we are, though.