Graduation!

Kennedi has tested out of speech therapy!  I am so proud of her.  She'd been going to speech for 3 years, and last month she was tested and is performing above average for her age! Whoo Hoo! Three years ago when she was tested, she was performing in the bottom 3%.  She has come a long, long way!

She never talked.  She preferred to grunt and scream.  I'd try to get her to say something and she'd just smile and nod her head.  There was no buying a vowel from that child. She had something like 10 words at 2 years old. Maybe 10. Maybe.  When she was 15 months, we had her hearing and speech tested.  Hearing was OK.  She qualified for speech, (of course you do when you just say Ma and da at a year and 1/2.), and so I loaded her up at 7:30 the first morning of her speech therapy.  I watched the therapist put her in a high chair, get some animals out, and then begin playing and making sounds like a cow.  Kennedi of course said nothing.  Later at home that same day, I got out a cow, said moo to Kennedi, handed the cow to her and she said "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." 

OK, so it's a motivational thing with you, I thought.  She can hear, she can talk (but only if she wants to), so like a bad parent I cancelled the speech therapy sessions.  I figured at $85 an hour, I could get my own plastic animals out and sound like a barnyard for a lot less.  She'll talk when she's good and ready. 

And really, we didn't see much of a vocabulary utter out of her mouth until she turn 2 1/2.  And then nobody could understand her.  But talk she did.  I was her main interpreter.  Poor little thing.  She was 3 but talked like a 12 month old.  But, after a year of speech therapy, my oh my, the difference that finally made.  And she talks and talks and talks and talks.  To everyone.  Literally. 

So, yesterday was her 3 year ARD Review.  I reminded Doug about it Monday.  I had it on the calendar.  11:00 AM.

I didn't look at the calendar yesterday.  I don't know why.  11:01 Amber (her speech therapist) calls me.  "Are you planning on coming to Kennedi's ARD?" 

Thank goodness it only takes me 8 blocks to get to the school.  I show up with my tongue hanging out and dressed in my stay at home mom clothing--sweats and a t-shirt.  Yeah, the principal's wife is impressing a lot of folks today!  Doug said, "I'm so glad you're so comfortable in your skin." 

Funny Honey.

Anyway, we celebrated Kennedi's graduation with ice-cream last night.  Ice-cream that she picked out at our neighborhood Thriftway after school.  And although I am not a spokesperson for Blue Bunny, this stuff she picked out was waaaaaay good! You must try it.  There is yummy icing in the middle! Yeah Baby!!!

I'm not a big ice-cream fan, but these were so awesome.  There are 5 of them left sitting in my freezer as I type this.  I want one.  But should I choose to devour one--or two--they are little--I will suffer the ire of my 8 year old.  She has already told me she'll be checking the freezer when she gets home today to make sure everything is as it was.