mispronunciations

Warning: We are just over a month away from Grace's first day of school. You should expect me to be fairly weepy. You should expect that the posts for the next month will be nostalgic and schmaltzy. I'm such a wimp.

There are words, or rather pronunciations of words, that I want to remember. Since this blog serves as a baby book of sorts, this seems like the logical place to write them down. From the time Grace started to talk, she's had some funny pronunciations. For the longest time, she couldn't say "G's", so as a toddler she was "baby Bace" and Grammy was "Bammy". There have been so many others: playground was "p-pound", pizza was "pippa", oatmeal was "ewtmeal", girl was "gorl", breakfast was "brektist", and remember was "bermember".

By the time she was 3, she could say G's. I don't remember when "P-pound" left us, but it was probably around the same time. "Ewtmeal" stayed with us until about six months ago, and her most memorable, "gorl", just vanished last week. Grace and Julia were playing in the hallway when I heard her say "Julia, let's go have some "girrrrl" talk. She lengthened the word so she wouldn't say "gorl", and then she practiced it a few more times:" girrrl, girrl, girl". She still pauses each time she says the word, but it always comes out right.

I know this sounds silly, but it makes me terribly sad to see these vestiges of toddlerhood leave us. She's so clearly a little girl, no longer even a preschooler. I don't want those words to go, but I know they will--and should--and that it's probably better for her to lose them at home than in Kindergarten.

There are only two remaining: "brektist" and "bermember". Just this morning, I noticed the care she was using with "brek-f-tist". It's only a matter of time before that one's gone for good. It remains to be seen when and how "bermember" will leave us. I hope I'm in the room when it does.