A New Blog!

Hello, everyone! I’m back to blogging and starting a new blog. I wanted to take this first post to talk about how I got here and what I want to blog about. So here we go! A little about me…

I am a Speech-Language Pathologist. I feel like most people don’t know what a SLP is or does unless you or someone you know has needed one. SLPs focus on all areas of communication, including articulation (how you make sounds, like kids who say wabbit instead of rabbit), language (understanding what is said to you and being able to express yourself using appropriate vocabulary and grammar), stuttering, voice, feeding and swallowing disorders. SLPs work with a variety of people from birth to geriatrics.

Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to work with kids. When I was a kid, I remember playing school with my stuffed animals and little sister. I would take my little tykes easel out to our driveway and meticulously line up chairs for my “students” to listen to my lesson. As I grew older, my passion for kids continued, but I realized that I am an introvert and talking in front of a group of people all day, every day sounded pretty terrible to me. I went to career counseling, where they told me that I should be (in this order) 1. A florist 2. A flight attendant 3. A speech pathologist. My parents politely informed my 18 year old self that if I chose either of the first two careers, they would be happy for me to come home from college, so that left number 3-- a speech pathologist. I enrolled in classes the next year and loved it. Sure, there were ups and downs, but God faithfully guided me through undergrad and graduate school, and led me to work in schools. For the past 8 years, I have worked with 3 year olds up to 6th graders in elementary schools as a speech pathologist. I truly thought I had the best job in the entire world.

Then, one rainy Saturday morning in May, 2015, I took a positive pregnancy test. Life forever changed for the better from that moment. In January, 2016 I was able to meet my little man that I’d been praying for and feeling kick for the past 9 months. In the weeks and months that passed after that, our sweet C grew and developed from a newborn to a baby to a toddler. I quickly realized that being a SLP was the second best job in the world, and being a mommy was the very best job in the entire world.

Becoming a mom changed me as a SLP. I was amazed as I watched the developmental milestones that I’d learned about in class and watched at work play out before my very eyes. I realized quickly that these two worlds of mommy and SLP weren’t so different after all. I found myself utilizing therapy techniques at home on C without even realizing it, and calling kids at home pet names that I called C (I try to reserve a few special ones for him). At first, this kind of bothered me. Why couldn’t I turn off and compartmentalize these parts of my life? But as C gets older, I’m realizing that the language skills I’m working to build in my students are things that C needs, too.

Which brings me to today, and this blog. I want to write about speech therapy to help others gain knowledge of what I can do. I want to help those with kids diagnosed with speech and language delays and provide hope for them. But I also want to write for the everyday mom. There are so many things that you can do each day to foster healthy speech and language development in your child. So many simple, everyday activities-- little things-- can become language loaded and help your child develop communication and pre-academic skills that will help them both now and in the future. I am in no way a perfect parent, but hope that some of my knowledge can help some of you, too! So, welcome! I hope this blog helps you and gives you some creative ideas for your child!