a mom i know recently asked me--in that passive-aggressive, "you probably don't know to look for this" kind of way--if i was worried about ella's "speech impediment". which of course completely confused me because i and everyone else can understand ella perfectly well. the mom went on to explain that she was deeply concerned about ella's TH's--she heard ella say the word "father"--ella says it as "fodder"--and the mom immediately went into diagnostic mode.
the problem with the mom's diagnosis is that it doesn't hold--ella doesn't universally say "D" instead of "TH"--sometimes she says "S"--as in "sank you, mama"--and sometimes she says "F"--as in, "one, two, free, four....". in one instance, she says "V"--as in, "i'd like a fruit smoovie, please". sometimes she does in fact say "TH"--"mama, TH makes the "th" sound".
see, she can say it. she just can't put it all together, YET. and YET is the key to just about everything with ella--patient confidence that she will get "it", whatever "it" is, in her own time.
for now, i'm savoring the words "fodder" and "mudder", and "sank you", and "one, two, free, four...."--because it wasn't that long ago that she was saying, "mamamamamamamamama", in that sweet sing-song voice that only a two-year-old has, and i simply won't rush off the sweet sing-song voice that my five-year-old has. soon enough, she'll say "faTHer", and that will be one more layer of childhood gone forever. i can wait.
ps--that mom told me she insisted her child's school provide therapy for his "speech impediment". she said it took a full year of three-times-a-week sessions for his speech to finally get straightened out. i guess it didn't occur to her that he might have grown out of it by himself in that year.
