If you’re going to be woken by an enchantingly loud three & a half year old any Sunday morning, let it be

to her rosy speech hollering down two flights. Let those words melt you in their sweet lilt, the loudest partial whisper ever, “Mom! Can I use the ssss-prray!!

We just love Kariin’s current sssssp…eech. A whole slew of words that start with “s” are sss…paced out so that she can finish the s before moving on. Otherwise, her dear friend, Smith’s name is…Fif. Yes, Fif. Fif. It is hilarious. Part of me is absolutely content letting her rock these sounds when other parts of her language are so well-developed. I mean, the girl’s bilingual. She regularly uses words like “version”, “although”, “characters”, “absolutely” (with terrific emphasis on the word), “hardly”, “consequence”, “communicate”, “decision”, “massive”, I could go on. So it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we let her go on with “Fif”, “fay” (for spray), or “feshal” (can you guess?) except that our totally casual, amateur speech therapy also proves hilarious and yes, useful.

She can almost tackle and land any of these s words if she says the S, then pauses, and WHISPERS the rest. S…mith (in a very, could-be-creepy, a little bit fast and powerful whisper), S…pray, S…ports. Those endings are spoken with zealous command. She is working at it. I just wish she’d use the word, “S…panish” all the time. Wait, the best is sparkle. It comes out “farkle”. “Can I have another farkle, please”? Or, “Mommy, her shirt is so farkly!”

See, in Japanese, each letter, if you will, is attached to a vowel sound. It is not “sushi” like we think of it, but “soo” (one letter) with “she” (one letter). The adopted word, “spoon”, is written and pronounced “soopoon” in Japanese, because there are no single consonant/no vowel letters, if you get my “doerifuto” (drift).

Oh, excellent book to enjoy: SPOON, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Scott Magoon (also a super fun name to read aloud). I should go through our bookshelves for my comedic titles, thanks to K’s “soo..peech”.

I should teach her the word “sporadic” next. Could be a hoot. Could be Fectacular or s…pectacular. Could be that she’ll “fred” her winds and take to the s…ky.

Love & farkely whispers,

 

Melissa