Thursday, May 29, 2014

"TH"ings WHM Says

CAM used to switch her "th-" sounds for "f" sounds.  We asked about it years ago, and we were told it was developmentally appropriate.  Last year as she made her way through kindergarten, we thought it was probably beyond developmentally appropriate, so we took her to be tested by a speech therapist. The therapist agreed with us that CAM had a small impediment and should have been past that stage.  Naturally, speech therapy was not covered by insurance, because the insurance company insisted it had to have been diagnosed years earlier -- right at the time when all the doctors and teachers wouldn't refer us to therapy because they all said it was entirely appropriate!  It was a catch-22.  We won't treat her because it's developmentally appropriate; we won't treat her because you waited too long.

In any event, now WHM is 4 years old, CAM's in first grade, and we've worked diligently all year to resolve CAM's speech issue.  (For the record, it's all better, she's awesome, and her first grade teacher, a former speech therapist, was and continues to be amazing!)

Because we stress it so much, WHM has taken to fixing his "f" sounds as well.

So now we have THootball. And THriday. And THRee instead of "free."

It's pretty funny.  (And rest assured -- easy enough to fix!)

While I am at it, though, we also have Octimus Prime (instead of Optimus Prime, and instead of Octopus Slime, which is what he called the Transformer originally).

I'm trying to capture all these because one day, just like he stopped saying "cacos" for Costco, he's going to stop saying all of these things, too.

Like "be-lease bepartment" for "police department," and "bepartment" for "apartment," and "Tractor Be-ply" instead of "Tractor Supply."  And let's not forget "be-ghetti!"

And we may remember them -- my sister Courtney used to call Chinese food Shiny food, and we still call it that, 35 years later -- but we may well not.

So, here it is.  Even if this post is only ever for me, it's here.  And that makes my heart happy.

I'm probably going to think of 99 more things WHM says, and I'll add them here as well.

--Jen

update 6/16/14 -- we just celebrated THather's Day yesterday. The gems keep on coming and I never seem to write them down fast enough!

Monday, May 19, 2014

Maine Baton Twirling Championship

I'm not sure I've mentioned this on here before, but CAM is a baton twirler. She loves it.

When we arrive at the competitions, we usually are corraled in the cafeteria to get ready. This Saturday we had to be there by 7:30, and we were ready super early. This is CAM being silly while we waited for her teammates to arrive. 

This weekend was a two-day tournament/competition in Kennebunk, Maine, and she had six events on Saturday. She only had one on Sunday, but we still had to be there all day.  That meant that she had a lot of time in the lobby and running around, playing, twirling, practicing, and so on.

I try, when I don't need to be watching, to grade papers or do other productive stuff, but even I get a tired bum sitting on gym bleachers for 8 hours a day.

So, at one point yesterday, I went out to the lobby with CAM and WHM. CAM had been watching the older twirlers with all their super-high tosses and was playing around, tossing her baton and trying to catch it.

Here's a conversation:

WHM:  C!  Can you throw your baton up in the air, and then spin around?

(She does, attempting a pirouette, but she misses the baton and it falls.)

WHM:  Oh. (pause while he thinks) And I forgot, "catch it."

What was perfect was that he quite seriously thought that he needed to have said that as part of his list of things for his sister to try, and she only dropped the baton because he hadn't added "catching it" to his request.

These are the things that keep me laughing -- and sane!

--Jen