What kinds of considerations? should families be thinking about when they're expecting a child and thinking about how the car seats are going to fit in their car?

Yes.

So when you are expecting your first child, more than likely there is a car seat that will work well with your vehicle.

You know, you can always put a car seat maybe behind the passenger seat if you're tight on space.

But looking at your vehicle's limitations and trying to select a car seat to work with them.

Because if you don't have it in the budget for a new car, it's a lot easier to purchase a new car seat.

But if you do have the budget for a new car and that's what you're looking at, think about what your family could look like for the duration of time you're going to own or lease that vehicle.

What's your recommendation for how you set up your car and what should you do in terms of car seats and safety for these other children?

Do you mind sharing a little bit about how maybe, you know, your role as a mom has also shifted, like, how you run your practice?

Absolutely.

He is actually the reason I even got in the field to begin with.

So when my son was diagnosed, he was four months old, and he was the first deaf person I had ever met, and I actually [laughs] went to school for journalism.

Uh, so I was like, "Okay, I need to pivot," or I need to...

Actually, I was like, "I need to pause.

I need to figure out [laughs] what I'm doing with my life." And then he started working with an SLP when he was about six months old, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, you get paid to play with kids.

I usually end with this question, which is, you know, for people who've been listening to this podcast, right, they've been listening for many episodes or possibly even many years, but they haven't moved forward with their private practice because, you know, they're nervous, because their kids are little, because X, Y, and Z reason, what advice would you have for them?

But what are some other ideas and, or things that you all do in your home that maybe other families could say, "Oh yeah, we can absolutely incorporate that into our routine or our strategies or, you know, our family goals," things like that?

Yeah.

So there's a couple of things that, um, kind of popped into mind as you were asking that.

So one thing, um, one of the first things that we do is we have, um, dinner together every night at the table.

No technology is allowed.

Um, so and it's for conversations, and we talk about something that went well.

We talk about maybe a problem that we have, and maybe it's-- we can say, like, "Ooh, I just want you to listen," or, "Can you help me s-resolve this problem?" Whatever it might be.

Do you have tips or strategies for kids in that age who are gonna be doing this for the first time, that maybe they turned in an assignment, they know that they did, and the teacher says that they didn't, or whatever it is, how they can broach those conversations with an adult that is a little bit scarier than talking to mom about?

I think Sam has a lot more experience on it than I do even, but...

I think you said it beautifully, and I think, you know, specifically that quote that's in the front of our office, that mom had been volunteering for us and raising money for our organization and doing all of these wonderful things, and we kept saying, "Thank you.

Thank you so much for doing all this." And she said, "No, you don't understand.

Donation saved me." She said, you know, "My son saved lives through organ donation," like Nicole said, "but organ donation saved me." Without her son becoming a donor, she said, "I would have never been able to make sense of what happened to him," 'cause he died in a very senseless and violent way, and she said, "I would have never been able to make sense of what happened and why.

Organ donation saved me." And that's why it's what we see every day when we walk in because, like Nicole said, we are here to help those recipients that otherwise don't have a chance at a future.

You know, their last chance for treatment is a transplant.

But beyond that, those donor families are walking into a situation they were not expecting to walk into.

Maybe you wanna talk about some of the great things you guys do there, Sam.