An Open Letter To My Child’s Speech Therapist

Dear Speech Therapist,

You met my daughter, a little pixie of a girl, almost four years ago. She had round cheeks and two tiny, wispy pigtails that you tell me you remember like it was yesterday. Although my little girl had recently turned three years old, she had less than 25 words in her vocabulary when you met.

You and my daughter clicked almost instantly and began building the foundation for the unbreakable bond the two of you would go on to form. Your kind and loving nature put my timid little girl at ease. I knew from the very beginning that you were the right person for the job of helping her learn to communicate with the world.

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Five Years and Counting…

December 13, 2012.

My family woke up bright and early in a hotel room in Boston. Only we weren’t there for vacation. We were there to have my daughter undergo a cardiac procedure at Boston Children’s Hospital.

In August 2012, our local children’s hospital had recommended that Evalyn needed another open heart surgery. A third open heart surgery in less than two years! My heart broke hearing that news and thinking about how much her 20-month-old little body had been through already. Continue reading

Life Lessons From My Daughter, Part 2464

“Go up to the bathroom!” I said firmly to my daughter.

I was frantically packing folders with school papers and reheating leftover pasta for my daughter’s lunch. The bus would be at our house in less than 20 minutes and we had made zero progress on our getting-ready-for-school routine. And, yet my daughter stood there in her pajamas watching me run around the kitchen trying to get things ready with no sense of urgency at all. 

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