Wednesday, August 18, 2010

EnunciaTe!

Before I had children, I thought that every child was unique.  Like snowflakes, I thought you would never find any two exactly alike, in any situation.  Now that I have children, I realize that for the most part, it's true.  Each of my children are unique, but not in the 100% nature that I had originally thought. 
Some "unique" traits are not specific to a particular child at all, but rather to the age they are. 


For example...
When Sissy was 3, I worried about her sense of humor.  Her grasp of comedy and timing seemed more akin to Jim Carey or the 3 Stooges, than to mine.  I worried, until it was my turn to teach her preschool group. 
When the lunch table came alive with jokes whose punchlines were simple variations of  "Banana Poopy", I no longer worried that my sense of humor would end with me.  It was the AGE.


About 2 years ago, I became nervous again.  Sissy had spent time with another child who was fluent in Baby-ese, and seemed to "lose" her Rs, and over enunciate her Ds.  I thought she might be developing some sort of speech problem, and BEGGED her to speak like a big girl again. 
After about 3 months, her bad habit was gone, and I wrote it off as being a side effect to spending time with the "bad influence" child. 
Until...
Over the last week, the "baby language" has returned. 
"Daddy" has become DA-TEE. 
"Sadie" has become SAY-TEE
and "tomorrow" has become TO-MAH-WOW.


Only...it wasn't Sissy this time.  It was Bubble.  Like clockwork, he had developed his what I pray is a temporary speech impediment. 

Even though hearing this coming from the mouth of a 6 year old is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me, I am resisting the urge to book sessions with a speech therapist for the time being.

But, if the word "mouth" becomes "MOWF", I just may have to lock myself in a closet until this stage is over...
Please tell me I'm not the only one!

6 comments:

The Ninja said...

You aren't. My son has developed the same thing at age 6. I tell him I don't talk to babies. That generally gets him to stop. But, I'm mean like that.

shortmama said...

Layla has trouble pronouncing her Rs but always has. I asked the Dr about it last week and he had said if it wasnt better in 6 mos to a year then I might have to look into speech therapy. However they told my cousin the same thing about her daughter, especially after she was in school but when she was 9 it just went away on its own.

As far as suddenly doing it when you have never done it before I would wonder if they are doing it purposely?

Myya said...

Amira who is almost 5 has a hard time with ST together or TH together. For the longest time Thirteen (which she said often because it is her birthdate) was FLURTEEN. Just within the last month she has been pronouncing it correctly. I figure eventually they'll get it soon enough. Although, I do still ask every time I take her to the pediatrician though. I'm a mom, it's normal for us to worry right???

Macey said...

Yeah, kids seem to do this kind of thing a lot. I have no idea why, but they like to speak like a baby sometimes.

Emmy said...

Alex purposely does baby talk too. But then there are also things she still has trouble with like s on the beginning of words. So a snake is a nake and she always wants a nack. So I definitely try and stop her baby talk as you can't always understand her anyway

Jennifer said...

They also like to experiment with language. Recently, my oldest has been saying "mines" with a soft "s" instead of "mine", when she always said "mine" before. I just act like I don't know what she's saying and ask her if she meant "mine"? while enunciating correctly. She then repeats the word back to me exactly the way I said it.