What language does YOUR family speak?

When I was little, my younger brother Isaac had trouble pronouncing Cabbage and Garbage.  They came out "Cagab" and "Gargab".  My mom tried repeatedly to help him learn the word correctly.  

She would say "Isaac, say "Gar", 

"Gar"

"Now say "Bage"

"Bage"

"Garbage"

"Gargab"

You get the idea.  Before long, we all started saying "Gargab".  It just sort of became part of our vocabulary.  Even now, more than 30 years later, I still often refer to it as "Gargab" almost without realizing it.

We're experiencing something similar with Grant.  While his speech is relatively advanced for his age, he does have trouble pronouncing some of his letter sounds correctly.  For example, his "S" & "F" sounds come out like a "T".  And his "L"'s come out as a "W" sound.  I understand him almost 100% of the time, so those small speech impediments are not an issue.  But they do make for some humor...

Yesterday, Grant brought me his slippers.  "Mom, can you pweese put on my twippers?" he asked.

"Your twippers?" I replied.

"No, my twippers!" He exclaimed.  I don't usually repeat his pronunciation, rather I say the word again so that he can hear it correctly.  But for some reason yesterday, I just couldn't do it.  And I started giggling.

"You want me to put on your twippers?"  I asked again.

"NO, MY TWIPPERS!!!!!"

I ended up laughing almost to the point of tears (though I did actually put those slippers on his little piggies) and just hope that my laughter at his words didn't scar him for life.  

I don't know that I'll ever be able to look at slippers without thinking "twippers" again.  And "twip-twops" sounds so much more fun than "flip-flops".  We may just end up with a few new words in our family vocabulary.