After a minute or two, the challenge of the flash cards was not enough for her, so she began to answer like this, “Ant, that rhymes with pant,”  Since she was going very quickly, she usually just picked a consonant to replace or put in front of the first letter, and ended up with things like, “Orange, that rhymes with porange,”

The game was going on very well, until we reached the card for “Duck, duck rhymes with…” and you can guess the consonant she chose in place of the “d.”  I keep a completely expressionless face, not wishing to encourage this and we moved on through the rest of the deck.  I felt like I had done a good job in not reacting.

A few hours later, while relating the story to her mother, my in-laws, and my spouse, as soon as I said the word “Duck,” she blurted out again, “Duck rhymes with…”  Everyone else at the table burst out laughing.  So, she repeated the word, much to everyone’s laughter, so she began chanting it.  Doyle, now, recognizing this fun game, began chanting it as well.  So we sat at the table as two toddlers joyously chanted f-bombs.

Doyle still doesn’t speak much, but at least he’s learning the important words.

(Edit: There’s supposed to be a media upload here, but it looks as if some kinks remain in the system)

When I last wrote, we had a pending hearing test for the kid because his ears were blocked with fluid.  This would have been a very convenient explanation for his speech delay.  Upon having the follow up test, his ears are clear and his hearing is good, so we are left with a bit of an enigma as to why he isn’t speaking more.  On a positive note, he has demonstrated that he knows the word “Poop!”  On a less positive note, it was because that was what one of the dogs did in the house.  Life is always an adventure.

So, we’re all a bit behind right now.  Hopefully we’ll all start to catch up in a bit.  Or not.  Maybe we’ll just determine that behind is the new normal and call it a day.