Progress in phonics

Another conversation at the petrol station..

"Mama, why is it p-p-petrol? Why does petrol start with P?"

Mama gets all-excited over his demonstration of phonics knowledge. "YES! Petrol starts with P! You are RIght! Good job!"

Christian ignores me and continues "Why P, mama? Why not D?"

"Well...it's not Duh-trol right? It's Puh-trol."

I decide to test him further. "What letter does 'Peter' start with? Puh-puh-peter?"

C: "P! Peter starts with P!"

Me (excitedly): "Yes! What about... hmm.. can you tell me which animal has a name that starts with E? Eh.. eh..eh __ __??"

C (thinks a bit): "Elephant! Elephant starts with E!" then adds on "Dog! Duh-duh Dog starts with D right?"

I was mightily pleased at his progress, which hitherto seemed rather slow and limited to sounding the individual alphabets only. He'd never made the connection between the sounds of the alphabets and the words, until now.