You learn something new every day!

Ben has been picking up skills at the speed of light lately. He has really been enjoying cooking. It is one of his favorite things to do. When we make anything with eggs, he always cracks and stirs the eggs. In fact, he can make scrambled eggs all by himself from start to finish. I do insist that only I turn on the stove, but that is it. I make sure to stand near for fire safety, but I never have anything to do! Aaron and Ben love to bake home-made bread together, and Ben is actually quite helpful in the process. He can also make a box of shells and cheese by himself (it's just like mac-and-cheese). I usually do the milk and get the pot of water on the stove, but he does the rest. He is so cute when he tests a piece of pasta to see if it is done enough. He will hem and haw and need to test at least 10 pieces before he is sure it is done. But he knows when it is done!

Another fascinating thing that is happening in our lives right now (**warning, this may be extremely boring to anyone in the entire world who is NOT a speech therapist;)**) is that he is learning to correctly say the "r" sound. He says all the other sounds correctly, but the "r" has still been sounding like a "w". Now, being a speech therapist, I know that the "r" sound doesn't really need to develop until a kid is 7 or 8, so I never once gave it a moment's thought. But out of the blue, about 3 weeks ago, I heard him over-emphasize the "r" sound at the end of a couple of words one evening. I noticed it, just because it was something he had never done before, but I didn't say anything because I didn't know what exactly he was doing.

Well, in the past 2 weeks, he has started doing this with "r" at the end of lots of words,and at the beginning of some. And the correct sound is starting to pop out really frequently.

The reason this is so amazing to me personally is that I have never actually heard a person develop this sound on their own. Everyone I know either can already say "r", is too young to say "r", or is a speech therapy client who is struggling to learn this sound. So to have the experience of actually listening to this skill develop in the course of natural development...SO cool! (you know, to a speech therapist)