Now that Gretje is learning to read, she's becoming aware that she pronounces the "th" sound as an "f" sound, like many little kids do. So last night, while we were reading "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" together, she started trying really, really hard to make that "th" sound properly. She could do it, but she had to think consciously about it and try really, really hard, otherwise she'd pronounce "The bear went through the cave" as "The bear went froo the cave," -- adorable, yes, but she was aiming higher.
So she dug her heels in and tried hard, pushing her little tongue up to her teeth and forcing the unfamiliar feeling, saying "Ffffthhroo! Fffthhhroo!" again and again, her smile growing bigger and her voice growing louder each time the noise she made sounded closer and closer to what she was trying for. Until finally, she hit her stride; she figured out how to make the right sound come out consistently! And as we both sang "THROUGH!! THROUGH!!" at the top of our lungs, her great, big, delighted grin stretched from one ear to the other, even as big, sweet tears of joy formed in her beautiful five-year-old eyes and began to leak down her face. She yelled "I can do it!! THROUGH!!" a few more times, before burying her face in my chest, giggling while wiping her tears on my shirt, and cooing "That was hard. This is fun"
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