There are a few things my son, nearly 4 years old, mispronounces that we've just kind of let slide.
"Marote" for "remote." "Mike Muggilan" for "Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel." "Thinger" for "finger." Heck, in my family we often still say "reg-lee-ar" for "regular" in homage to my brother's mispronunciation, and he just turned 29.
But we've been trying to work with our son on the word "three," which he has been saying as "free," and which comes up a lot since he is 3 (at least for a bit longer).
That one he just wasn't processing, and we weren't really pushing it. But he's been in a mode of learning to spell lots of different words, and he learned three the other day. Since then, he's been adamant about it.
"I'm thuh-ree! Not free! Thuh-ree!"
So yesterday he and my husband were at the grocery store and he saw a "Buy one, get one free" sign. You might be able to predict what happened next:
"Daddy, what is that word?"
"F-R-E-E, free."
"No, Daddy. THUH-REE, not free."
So then he learned the difference between those two words. You couldn't actually see a light bulb, but there was definitely an epiphany involved.
I'm still holding on to marote though.
