What They're Saying at Almost 4.5

I do a words and phrases list every now and again to track cute things that will soon vanish from my auditory life forever. The girls are speaking more and more clearly now, though they insist on certain pronunciations more than others, and have trouble re-training their tongues to make certain sounds that they've heretofore gotten around.

For instance:

Skirt: slirt. Only it's not quite SLirt, there's more of a flemy sound in there as the skid past the k without hitting it.

Sp: F - So that sparkle becomes farkle and special becomes feshul.

But, they have trouble pronouncing Fr (though they will do it with my guidance) making frog slog, and freckle slenkel.

They'll occasionally get their Ps and Cs mixed up, though in different ways. Lilly continues to say Prismus instead of Christmas (whereas Dulce says Cwistmas), and preacher instead of creature (Dulce says cweature). However, Dulce will say nickel instead of nipple, and Natalina can say nipple correctly. Interesting.

Another interesting development is the word tomato.

Now, previously, any time their father or I have referred to a tomato, they'll echo it back to us as "bahdaydo." Which you would think would mean potato, but whatever, right? Potato is actually "bahcaydo" for some reason.

Yesterday, we learned that they can pronounce tomato just fine. Except that they say tomato when they want to say tornado.

Tomato, tornado, let's call the whole thing off, am I right?

This development has deeply puzzled me, and needs more thought on my end. What is going on there?

It may play into this: When we repeat the girls' mispronounciations back to them, they get very peeved.

For instance, Dulce will say, "Mommy! You bahstacked me! (distracted).

I'll then say with a smile, "Oh, I bastacked you?"

And with attitude she'll quip back, "No, mom. Bah-stack-ed." She can hear me say it right, knows when I say it wrong, but when she says it wrong, she hears it right. Maybe. I don't know.

A more grammatical error we're trying (not very hard, but when we think of it) to correct is the use of her.

The girls will say "Her told me that. Her did it. Her came to class today." They never use she.

On the flip side, they never use his. It's always "He toy. He ball. He daddy."

Weird, eh?

Th is a lost cause right now (though after several tries, if I'm coaching them and showing them how to use their tongues, they can say it.) Usually, it's sink (think), slee (three), schlrow (throw). They try everything to make that (dat) sound. They have trouble.

They have improved in massive ways (no longer using anchor vowels in the middle of words, for instance) and can string complicated thoughts together. But sometimes their tongues just don't know what to do.

Cute kids.