"Ackles"

You may wonder exactly what the title of this post means. Let me enlighten you. There are some things I know as a parent I must do and one of those required elements is teaching my children to speak correctly. I have made quite an effort - doing all the things recommended in the books. No baby talk. Instead of "correcting" I repeat what they have said in the correct way. In general, both of the kids speak very well. For those of you who have engaged in conversation with my daughter, you know she speaks very well for a 2-yr-old (and she talks A LOT - she must get that from Ed;) Anyhow, her latest word is "mines" as in "mine". Today she said "you are mines Mommy". If you take a toy away from her she adamantly says "it's mines". I know I should show her the error of her ways - repeating back to her "it's mine" when she says "mines", but I honestly find this new word very cute. I'm pretty sure she'll grow out of it since she is after all only 2. But this brings me to my title. Ethan has always refered to apples as "ackles". This is another one of those things I found adorable when he was 2, and I have to admit I still find it endearing now that he's 5. We were waiting at the hospital today during his pre-op appointment and were making a list of all the things we should get at the store for later this week after he has his tonsils out. I said "how about applesauce?" He looked at me and said "no way, I hate acklesauce". I just smiled and thought about how cute it is that he still says "ackles". Then I had another thought. I am probably instilling in him a trait that will drive his future wife INSANE. Ed still to this day pronounces "pumpkins" as "punkins". This drives me CRAZY - there is no "n" in the middle of the word pumpkin, and those of you who know me well know how serious I am about my pumpkins - especially around October. So I suppose sadly I should start correcting Ethan and teaching him to pronounce "apples" correctly to save his future wife a lot of frustration.