Frog -- E.

A vital skill for linguists is a keen listening ear. We will need to distinguish between various speech sounds as soon as we get to Malaysia -- since our first task in the country will be to learn the national language, Malay. This may prove challenging.
I bring all that up because, in our home, there has been some debate as to some speech sounds James has been using. In the following video James attempts to say the word frog.

Queena believes that our son is unintentionally cussing every time he says that word. I disagree. But I do think that his r's and g's could use some work -- and I think he could avoid the problem entirely if he would just call the amphibians in the picture toads, which is what they are.

Hey, did you see the picture Queena put up a few weeks ago of all the water standing in our backyard after Irene? So did every toad in Sussex county, apparently -- and it gave them all the same idea. This week, tens of thousands of their children emerged from the late-summer swamp and surrounded our house. That's what James is looking at in the video. Here are a few more specimens:
Cute, right? One or two pinkie-nail toads are cute.

But too many is too many. Where are all the natural predators? They're not doing their job.