It’s a Tuesday morning which means speech for Lucina. She’s currently in her session while I write this in the lobby.
This mom never rests but guess what I have? That’s right, a cup of coffee lol.
On Tuesdays I get both kids up and going out the door. First we have drop off for AJ and then I drive across our little town to take Lucina to speech.
Today I splurged and got her a chocolate croissant on the way. She didn’t get to eat her usual banana for breakfast because mom – me – once again failed at keeping tabs on the kids food.
AJ is a breakfast man; the kid will eat endlessly. He takes after Joe’s love of breakfast. Lucina is like me, give us a cup of milk and a bite of fruit or toast and we are good.
So why speech for sister? Well, she has an expressive delay.
It was already my concern from birth. “What if she’s nonverbal like AJ? Can I handle raising two nonverbal kids?”
Granted, that just comes with the territory of already having a special needs child and being naturally paranoid, but I love my kids regardless of what documents say.
Fast forward to when she was sixteen months. Her doctor was worried she wasn’t saying much.
AJ’s speech therapist did a quick check, agreeed, and set up an official evaluation for her.
What they found was a receptive and expressive speech delay but no flags of Autism. She actually passed her Autism screenings (she’s had multiple) with flying colors.
It’s not a big surprise Lucina is delayed in speech – her big brother is nonverbal.
She wants to be like him. She mimics his actions and his form of speech. Which is cute, but we needed to give her other examples to grow her language.
We put her in morning school to help with hearing peers communicate, but that backfired a little. Her birthday is late so she is in the “ones” class and not “twos” where all the language is booming.
She likes to baby talk so we have been making her use her big girl words.
She has learned mad sharing skills, colors and peer interaction, so I’m super happy with that aspect of school.
At two years old she only has a very slight expressive delay now. Meaning she’s on target for receptive (her understanding of language). Expressive is her vocalizing words.
Funny fact: Lucina loves speech therapy. It’s all play based. AJ loathes speech therapy, from day one. Granted, homeboy has to work a little harder during his sessions.
I’m not worried at all about Lucina. Her speech is actually in a booming phase and she is doing so good at saying or trying to say multiple syllable words.
Homegirl is the town spunk. She brings smiles to every place we go. Ok, except Walmart. She’s always fighting us at Walmart lol.
Parents, don’t fear speech therapy like young Suhay did. All it can do is help 🤗
Until next blog ❤
RAISING OPPOSITES 