Bittersweet Milestone

Today, when I picked Ian up from school, he mentioned, "I won't be going to Miss Sweeney's class any more."

I wasn't even aware that there was a Miss Sweeney, not to mention that he had been attending her class, and now he was suddenly discontinuing this covert routine.  I asked him what he meant:

"I graduated from speech class."

I know it's not an altruistic impulse, but I never would have wanted Ian to attend speech class, because I always enjoyed his unique way of saying things.  I'll never forget how, back when he was in preschool, he would talk excitedly with his classmates about "Emil-l-l-l-y," pronouncing that wonderful "L" with all the lilting delicacy of an Italian opera singer.  And now I guess he won't be talking about "ambleeances" any more, as emergency vehicles pass us on the highway - a term which he dutifully passed on to Daniel.  And perhaps nobody will ever ask me again, "Is Ian English?" as if somehow we had imported our son from the U.K. with his original patois entirely intact.  That last quotation is verbatim, I think.  Ian's R's following vowels had a distinctly North Sea roundedness to them - some people thought he might be Irish, but more often they thought he was from Olde Albion.

To make matters worse, I think it's just a matter of time before Daniel, and finally Madeleine, are divested of their wonderful linguistic quirks, perhaps by this same Miss Sweeney.  I, too, am an alumnus of speech class - in my case it was the S's that became "eshes", and the like.  But luckily, I've developed a whole new batch of idiosyncrasies in my "adult" speech, and no public institution will ever take the trouble or expenditure to restore me to conventionality.

Where there's a will, there's a way...

(March 21, 2013)