how Elijah sounds
Elijah is a clever and articulate kid, but you'll never hear him say so himself... mainly because he can't say his Rs. So if he were interested in bragging, it would come out as "clevoo and owticulate". His brothers had some speech production issues too when they were little: Harvey couldn't say Ls for a while (he just left them out) and Zion had a whole range of interesting sound substitutions. But both of them either grew out of those idiosyncrasies, or else learned how to actually pronounce the phonemes of concern in a few easy lessons. Lijah, not so much. He's seven now, and still shows no interest in talking like a pirate for a few days like Zion did to learn his Rs, nor any other corrective methods. Of course, I haven't really pushed it: I'm not a pushy sort of person, and also he's still my baby and I kind of like it that he still sounds so cute! While at the same time being clever and articulate, of course.