L-L-L Elk

I am really proud of Gunnar. Not so very long ago he couldn’t say L. He said W. As in, “Mama, I wuv you.” Not that I minded so much in that context (!) but things did get confusing sometimes. Especially since his R is also problematic. If you told Gunnar to say “right, light, white”, you would hear, “white, white, white”.

Or sometimes the L turned into an O. Like “cereal”, or “cere-oh”. “Spell” became “speh-oh”.

So he’s been working really hard and can say wonderful L’s. Lollipop, lily, log and lodge. But sometimes there’s still a little W in there… like “spell” is now “speh-oh-L”, which can make him sound a bit like an immigrant, with an accent you can’t quite place.

We visited the school this week to participate in the Pacific Science Center’s program. Gunnar loved the “Creature Feature” class he got to attend. The kids got to listen to heartbeats of different animals, hold teeth from other animals, and feel skin samples from still other animals.

Trying to identify the animals from the skin samples was harder than it sounds. All the kinders recognized the snake skin. Nobody could guess that two of the samples were from an elephant and a seal.

But when it came to the last sample, Gunnar piped up, “It lives in a cold climate because it has longer hair.” The presenter showed a picture of the animal and all the kids said, “Deer.” Nope. A couple said, “Moose”. Nope. Only Gunnar identified it: “ELK!” With a perfect L to boot.