Speech Therapy

I take Sloan to speech therapy on Thursdays to work on a minor dysfluency problem. That’s fancy talk for stuttering. The boy can sometimes bump painfully through his sentences. Anyway, nearly every Thursday, Tia and I sit in the little library of the preschool while we wait for Sloan to finish. It’s an interesting experience, I must say. When we first get there, it is usually blissfully quiet, but that does not last long as the children are let out of school about half way through Sloan’s lesson. When that happens, the library fills up with noisy, rambunctious children and their parents. There are two groups of moms that have been especially interesting to observe. The first I like to refer to as the Harried Mom’s Club. This group is made up of three mom’s and a grandma who come in, plop themselves down in the little miniature chairs, their knees up at their chests, and gossip for a half an hour while their children wreak havoc on the joint. The head honcho of the group is particularly amusing. She usually comes in with her youngest tucked under her arm, and yelling at her oldest to stop running or else. Or else what she’s never said, though I think both her son and I would be interested to hear her actually finish that sentence. Once she’s assumed her position around the table, she shows very little interest in what her children are doing behind her and rarely acknowledges them unless they happen to get in her direct line of sight (something that’s hard to do since she usually has her back to the room. If, however, she does happen to notice her children, she just opens her naturally beady eyes so wide that they almost swallow her face in what I’m assuming is her “stop it now or else” look. She then makes some kind of threat in a form of a question: “Do you want to leave right now and go take a nap with no lunch?” What she doesn’t know is that her child essentially laughs at her as soon as she turns back around. Needless to say, her children are the worst kids in the area. This last week, I had to physically pick up her youngest and remove him from my side as he was constantly trying to pick Landon up out of the car seat.

The grandma of the group is a hoot. Her favorite phrase in “Cut it out,” which she yells constantly at her grandson, who, incidentally, never cuts it out.

Then there is the soccer mom. This is the lady who comes in with four children under about the age of five and spends most of her time dolling out snacks to keep them happy, which only starts fights as every kid in the library then wants their snacks. It’s a wonder she doesn’t feel a hole burning in the back of her head as the rest of us glare at her for sending our children into a frenzy over snacks that they can’t have.

Finally, there is the follower. This is the woman who actually attempts to keep her child in line but always ends up fighting a losing battle as her son gets riled up by the other hooligans. Poor woman usually gives up about 5 minutes in realizing that she’s not going to win.

The second group I like to call the West County Whities. These are the ladies that have oodles of money and wear it. One of them honestly has such big implants that it’s hard not to stare at her bulging chest. Their hair is piled high on their head and their kids come in dressed in pristine smocked dresses. They are adorable, but bless their hearts, they are hardly allowed to breath for fear of messing up those fancy outfits. These women sit next to each other talking animatedly, their huge diamond rings blinding the rest of us. Their topics range from the latest spa treatment to the plot of Desperate Housewives. I know this because they talk really loud as if they want to make sure the rest of us know that they have money. We get it ladies, we really do.

Then there are the middle grounders like me who take great delight in observing these stereotypes in action. We have a special bond built through silent headshakes and sympathetic smiles.

It’s a unique group of people, all meshed together in a little area. I find myself fighting off laughter a lot of the time, and sheer annoyance the rest of the time. You gotta love speech therapy!