Visual Who?

Visual Phonics. In case you were wondering. Today I attended my first of three Visual Phonics classes (VP, no, not velopharynheal, like all SLPs initially think when seeing those two capitalized words together...nerds). The course is designed to teach you a strategy of making each sound in the English language visual/motor so that children can use their entire teeny, growing, developing brains to understand what the f#*@ our ancestors were thinking when they invented English in the written form. Seriously. Have you ever thought about that? An example - there are THREE different ways to say the /t/ and /oo/ sounds together (I know you're saying them together right now) to make three different words with three different meanings and three different spellings. WTF. Now imagine you have some sort of speech/language disorder on top of that...eep.

Thankfully I am taking the class with two of my closest work friends and I kept managing to get "stuck" with them whenever we did (gag) ice breaker activitieS. Yes, more than one. Bah. But since it was with either of them, it wasn't so bad. The very experienced, old-school, knowledgeable SLP took 90 minutes to introduce the class. Not that I was counting. Ahh...thank GOD I had had time to make and drink my coffee before class. I may have died. But didn't. Thank you friends for keeping me going.

After that, the rest of the class went faster and when we got to the meat of it, I got pretty excited to bring the info I learned back into my therapy room. I have several students who are going to benefit from the visual cues and crossover that will help involve their whole brain in the process of correcting their speech sounds. Yesss....I *might* look a little more like I know what I'm doing. ;-) Ha. Take that, stupid /r/ sound.

In other news, Morgan continues her quest on the potty chair. Tonight she was playing and stopped to absolutely BEELINE to the potty...and just about exploded once she got there. Yet again I praise the potty/poop "gods" that help her to now stop and go on the potty and not ruin the undies and rest of clothes she is wearing. I'm not ready to call her a "reliable pooper" by any means but we're definitely on our way. Thank goodness. SO much easier to do a wipe or two and flush than clean, wipe, hold child still, wiggle, get mad, ask her nicely to hold still, tell her sternly to hold still, use my teacher voice and make her cry to hold still, and then get her diaper on.

I need to let go of some of my control-freakedness. Today while I was at class, Adam was supposed to be at some batting cages in the QCs to get ready for his softball tourny in St. Louis with the rest of his team. Well, we couldn't find a sitter on short notice so he was just going to stay home with her. Come to find he failed (purposely!! what!?) to tell me if we couldn't find a sitter he intended to just take her along and see how it went. Well....when I texted him to check in after lunch, he said they were on their way and my internal self freaked!! Oh dear, did he have her sippy/water? toys? diapers? did she eat lunch? what about nap?!!! surely she'll be seriously injured?!?!??!! Needless to say after some forced quiet time (the instructor doesn't look kindly on self-talking when everyone can hear you) I had calmed down and then felt a bit "silly" (read: stupid) for feeling that way when clearly she'd have a great time and start her nap on the way home after Adam deemed her too tired to stay any longer. Which is exactly what happened. Sigh. Someday I won't be so controlling...b/c I'll be dead. :-D At least I'm able to admit it.

Let's see...anything else major this week that I missed...already posted about kickboxing...(which I get to do again next week b/c my stepmom, Susie, is coming for the week while Adam's gone!! YEAH for another pair of hands and adult to talk to while at home!! And all the other good things Susie brings with her kind self). She's set to come tomorrow (weather pending) and leave Friday. I'm eager. The end.

Tomorrow we have church and there's a lady there that's been so kind to us since we joined the church and is rather smitten with Morgan b/c she's got an 8-month old granddaughter who lives somewhat far away and needs some bows. :) So off I go to be bow-makin'-Liss yet again. I'm actually excited...I have quite a bit of ribbon I've collected from the dollar section after a few recent Target trips so this could get to be a late-nighter...except I'm so tired from SOMEONE being up at 6:03am this morning yelling, "pooooooop!!" Hmm. Easy potty training a blessing? Sometimes I wonder....but of course tomorrow morning she'll sleep until 7:15 and make us late for church seeing as how she's our Sunday alarm clock. ;-)