Ped

When Addie was 3, she knocked her tooth out.  I was just about to get her pictures taken with all of her little teeth and I was devastated.  I had a hard time looking at her for a few days because I wanted to cry everytime she smiled.  At that point we started noticing that she held her tongue differently to compensate for the hole.  We forgot about it and fast forward 6 years - she has a slight speech impediment due to the way she holds her tongue.

She wasn't thrilled with the prospect of speech therapy and a speech impediment.  I tried my best to give her an amazing mother's pep talk.  At the end, I tried to make a little light of it by telling her when she had conquered her speech impediment we could call her "Ped" and it would only be funny because she had overcome it.  Kind of like how Ryan calls Halle "Mig" and it's only funny because it turned out that she wasn't a midget after all.  

Well, it all worked quite well and she has no problem with her speech therapy now.  Quite the opposite actually since I can't even count how many times I've heard her say 

 "Did you know I have a speech impediment?"

It makes me proud of her for adjusting her attitude and moving forward, working hard at her speech homework.  And it makes me smile when I hear her say, "did you know I have a speech impediment?" which she even made sure to prominently include in her V-day card to Jeff.