A Different Kind of Graduation

Daniel had a banner day on Monday; he graduated from Speech Therapy!

To the best of mine and Vicki's memories, she started speech with Daniel (and Noah) in 2009....but it may have been late 2008.  (This was before I started blogging....so I have no record.  That is my number one reason for blogging: to remember stuff about my kiddos!)

Vicki, with all of her expertise, was also the one who encouraged us to have Daniel's hearing tested...again.   It already took way longer than it should have to have his bilateral hearing loss confirmed finally...who knows how long it might have taken if it hadn't been for her!




That 6 years of speech....well, it has been kind of off and on.  While the speech issues haven't been the worst an SLP has ever seen, they were apparent and big enough to know that the boys needed help...and Vicki wanted to help.  But sometimes, well, life has gotten in the way.

We've added three more children during that time.  (Adding another speech client to Vicki's roster too...LK.)

And Vicki and Billy have gone from zero to four children.  (In less than 3.5 years, thankyouverymuch)

So, here and there we took a hiatus from therapy...but we did it whenever we could.  But we also made sure to make it fun when we got together.  


I just looked back at the first Goldman Fristoe Articulation Test that Vicki administered to Daniel.  It brings back an icky flood of memories.  I was so concerned for him, looking at the (to me) quite lengthy list of issues he was dealing with at the time:

"Moderate-to-severe ariculation disorder; characterized by Final Consonant Deletion and other omissions; gliding; Consonant Cluster Reduction; deaffrication; stopping; phoneme additions; mild distortions"

Daniel's chronological age at the time of the test was 3y10mo.  His test age equivalent- 2y3mo.  10th percentile.

At the time, strangers couldn't understand him at all.  And I couldn't always understand him myself.



Fast forward about 6 years...


Vicki has been telling me for the past few months that she thought Daniel was getting close to being done with speech.  At our last session, she told me he was done, but for me not to mention yet...she had a surprise up her sleeve.  


While Daniel would have been thrilled to hear in any fashion that he had completed his therapy...Vicki chose to make a wonderful to-do of the occasion for our precious guy!

Daniel was holding Matthew because he thought
he was about to use him for "Show and Tell" with Mrs. Vicki

I am sitting here smiling my fool head off thinking about all of this!  I celebrate what the Lord has done here.  I am so, so thankful for the progress Daniel has made.

And...I happen to love how He chose to accomplish all of it:  He worked through a beautiful-inside-and-out woman to minister to my child(ren)...and become my bestie at the same time.  


We love you "Mrs. Vicki"...and we're so thankful for you!