Oh summer, how I love thee. Filled with swimming lessons, play dates; visits to the park and zoo. During summer, I get to see my children be children. Their carefree smiles light up a room, and the echoes of their laughter can be heard long after they lay down their head. Yes, therapy appointments are a way of life for Ashlynn, but even speech and occupational therapy bring positive updates
I recently read a blog article about not buying into speech and language milestones. The writer asserts: “Because here’s what I think of traditional milestones: f*ck them…………My baby will do that when she’s ready. This is not the Olympics, people.”She went onto explain that parents seem to make milestones into some sort of competition, and she doesn’t want to buy into that. I get her point probably even more poignantly that she
My daughter loves Post it Notes. LOVES them. She loves writing some small scribble on them and then proudly sticking them up around the house to put on display. Today we drew pictures that included her target sounds to work on speech, but we also drew shapes to work on our pre-writing strokes for OT. Based on the response from my facebook post, my kid’s not alone in loving them!
These words are cherished by any parent. These words are eagerly anticipated. When you have a child with a speech delay, the eager anticipation eventually gives way to desperation, and maybe, (though hopefully not) apathy. Ashlynn has been able to say “I love you” for awhile now. Once she really got good at imitating, we had her imitate it every time we told her goodnight and tucked her into bed.
The other night I was reading this book to Ashlynn. If you’re not familiar with the “David” books, they center around the main character David who is mischievous and frequently getting into trouble. These books are great for early print awareness! As you can see, the print is larger and is written as though a child wrote it. Ashlynn kept pointing out all the capital letters she recognized from
We took our annual Fourth of July camping trip to Glendo State Reservoir in Wyoming. It’s a family tradition, so I decided to document her progress each year. Last year’s experience can be found here: Glendo 2013This was only a few short days after our near drowning incident at her pool during swimming lessons. Glendo is a HUGE reservoir, and a lot of our time involves the beach. I