scribblechic

Speech therapy has been a part of my children’s days and our family vocabulary for the length of their academic experience, beginning in preschool. Their challenges are as unique as their personalities. My son’s needs center around sound. My daughter works to structure her thoughts from jumbled fragments into linear, ordered statements. I can tell you that while I support their efforts to develop these skills for successful lives as adults, I find these imperfections endearing.

Monopoly in my son’s mouth becomes mono-poly, the break in the middle of the word creating a new name that never fails to make me smile. Despite errors in articulation, his vocabulary is rich with words that drip descriptive details. This weekend he was parched and I was smitten. Declarations of misery are well received for the language he weaves into his tirade. When a sound interferes with my comprehension, he spells the word out loud for clarification – adding the injustice of the interruption to his frustrations.

My daughter’s sounds ring clear as a bell, tinkling with an artistic arrangement of thought. She is our Yoda, her sentences often rearranged so that the end is her beginning. Errors in tense create expressions like last night ago or sit be next to me, old favorites now retired from her speech. In moments when words escape my daughter and she is intent on sharing a specific thought she will gather the facts into form providing a visual. For example, when I cut my long hair into a chin length bob she happily reported to others that I had cut my back hair.

My son continues to sharpen his sounds while my daughter shuffles her thoughts into order. I am enjoying the growing ease of communication while holding tightly to happy errors of expression. Most recently my daughter approached me eager for help as she practices writing in cursive. With big blue eyes, serious and determined, she asked if I might teach her to curse. The small slip a playful, albeit unintentional, pun. For me each unique uttering is a memory contrasting innocence with translated intent in the language of my children’s childhood.