The One Where Skippy Learned to Swear Properly

So today I had to go to Skippy’s speech therapy class so that he and his teacher could teach me how to play a game that they do for therapy. I am trying to have faith in this process…I have to say, it is slow going. But looking back, I can see some improvement.

There was one cringeworthy day last year when I picked Skippy up from speech therapy, and his teacher had the somewhat awkward task of explaining to me that we needed to help Skippy with his swear words. At this point, I should insert this award that Stefeny over at Pike’s Pickles awarded me a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, you know I’ve earned it.


Okay, but let me just say that this one was not my fault. Last year the biggest problem with Skippy’s speech is that he left the last consonant off of every single word. We worked with flashcards for months, until he was able to put the ending consonants on his words. They aren’t usually the right consonants, since he does something called fronting, where all the sounds come off the front, so that sounds like “k,”, “g” and “r” are replaced by “t,” “d” and “w,” respectively. But at least they were there. So on this particular day, Miss Robyn informed us that we needed to work with Skippy, because several times a day, whenever he found something interesting or surprising, she was treated to Skippy’s rendition of cursing, which sounded like, Oh my Go_____! and What the He___?! And yes, for about two weeks, those expressions were an integral part of my barely-four-year-old’s vocabulary.

The speech therapy flash cards themselves provided endless fun for the family. When we started tackling the consonant sounds in the middle of words, there were a few grumbles around the house. The big boys were morally opposed, it seemed, to teaching some of the words his teacher sent home. For instance, they told me that no four-year-old boy needed to properly pronounce the word “nipple” and that particular flashcard frequently found its way into the trash, only to be replaced by the teacher at the next session. I think I’m with them. That could definitely open a whole new can of worms.