I'm Convinced The Kid Was JFK in a Past Life

My son didn't start talking until around age 3, long after most kids his age (though when he did finally decide to converse with me, he spoke in full sentences.) By the age of four, he was reading and speaking complete sentences, albeit with a small problem of pronouncing his "r" like "w" - typical for a child around two or three. My theory was that since he started talking later than most, my son was behind the timeline of when "normal" kids work through speech issues. I figured he'd work through it eventually.

When he started school, his teacher wasn't concerned with his speech. She said she'd seen it many times and, just as I thought, he would work through it with time. It became a bit of a joke sometimes - he would say, "Mommy, how do spell woad?" I'd be like, "What's a woad?" "A woad!" he'd exclaim. "Dude, I don't know what a woad is!" Exasperated, he would explain, "You know, the thing cars dwive on?" Ah! ROAD! Gotcha.

Fast forward a few years. The Kid still has the speech issue. One day, Aunt Bat-Sh*t-Crazy said, "Zane, you have a speech impediment!" I cringed at those words. Not MY perfect baby! He looked at me, questioning what she said, knowing what those words meant, and I just blurted out, "No he doesn't. He has an accent!" Not really sure where that came from...somewhere deep inside of my self-preservation mechanism, I guess. But we rolled with it. If anyone made a comment about The Kid's speech, he would proudly proclaim, "It's my accent!"

In third grade, Zane made it to the school spelling bee. He outspelled most of his classmates, eventually succombing to a fifth grader. The next day I received the call I had been dreading for 8 years: it was the school's speech therapist. "I heard Zane in the spelling bee yesterday, and I noticed he has a little issue with his r. Would you be willing to let me work with him on that?" Good thing she didn't utter the words "speech impediment" or I would have come down to her office and shoved my phone up her....nose. Although I'd become accustomed to The Kid's cute little "accent" - as well as had a little fun at his expense - I knew it was time to bite the bullet and get him help.

The Kid went to speech therapy every week so I expected him to lose his accent by the end of the school year...but he celebrated his last day of school by shouting, "Summwer's hewre!" Sometimes kids will say, "Zane, you talk cool! Where did you get your accent?" To which he responds, "I don't know. I was bworne with it." Few adults would mention anything (they're prolly afraid to say anything in our politically correct world) until I started working with a woman from Connecticut. The first time she heard Zane speak, she said, "That kid sounds like he's from the East Coast!" Really???? The more I thought about it, the more I agreed. It was hilarious! Whenever someone would remark on his speech, my friend would say, "Yes, Zane and I ah fwom Connecticut. We don't know why his mothah doesn't have an accent."

Not sure what happened to the school therapist this year but I'm not rocking the boat. I love his little accent - and seeing people's expressions when I tell them we're from Boston, complete with my Midwest accent. I dropped The Kid off at drum lessons the other night, and his teacher came out and asked, "Hey, where does Zane get his accent? Are you guys from Boston?" BUAHAHAHAHHA! I laughed so hard and said no, he was born and raised in Central Illinois but we get that all the time.

The clip below is The Kid saying the iconic East Coast phrase, "I parked my car in Harvard Yard."