How being an SLP saved my parenting butt today.

I have been working as an SLP for the past 3 and a half years. In those years I have used fractions of what I learned in school and most of what I do has been acquired over the last few years by trial and error. However, since being a parent I have begun to apply more of my schooling to my child than any one of my clients. Today was one of those days and it really saved me from having a really, really crabby baby.

Today I went to visit an old collage friend, who recently had a baby. Since I still feel as though I am a new mom and I still feel it would be so helpful to have someone who was recently in my shoes to answer all my questions, I wanted to be that person for someone else. So I packed up the little man, picked up lunch and headed over to give adult interaction to a new mommy. While we were there Elijah had lunch, a nap and was ready for his afternoon bottle. That's when I realized we were going to have a problem. In the container that we had Elijah's formula there was some oatmeal left over from sometime previously. Well Oatmeal makes things thicker, no matter how much liquid you add to it. After Elijah sat and sucked on the bottle for about 15 minutes with nothing coming out I knew the nipple was to small for the thickness of the liquid. Well I was in big trouble. I didn't have more formula, and I didn't have bigger nipples for the bottle so I had to make a choice. Do I pack up the kid and race home to get new formula with no oatmeal in it, or do I have him drink out of an open cup.

**DUN DU DA** SLP to the rescue! I took some of Keri's engineering abilities, and made my Subway cup into a nosie cup with a nice pair of scissors. That's when my SLP instincts took over. I poured in the formula on ounce at a time, gave moderate level support to his lower lip, and my little boy drank 6 or 7 ounces out of an open cup. Overall he probably only lost about .5 oz due to me getting carried a way and dumping it all down his face.

I feel so proud, one as a mom and two as an SLP that taught another child how to drink from an open cup. I rock!