Our Story . . .
What’s our story? Steph and I have known each other for over a decade. I worked as a Speech-Language Pathologist in an elementary school in the Chicago suburbs and was 2 weeks away from having my first baby. Stephanie had been hired to take my place while I was on maternity leave. She was young and fresh out of grad school, and I was skeptical because I had zero say in who would be my replacement. But, as anyone that has met Stephanie knows, you can’t not like her! We hit it off instantly… in fact, we both say we are speech soul mates because we always find each other to lean on in the world of speech therapy. Anyway, fast forward… Stephanie covered my maternity leave and ended up getting hired by the school district. When I came back from my maternity leave, we were both SO EXCITED to learn that we would work together! Hands down, the year I got to work with Steph was my favorite year ever! Sadly (for me), Stephanie moved to Texas for her boyfriend’s (now husband) work, and our time working together came to an end. We swore up and down that “one day,” we would team up again, something that we never stopped talking about!
We stayed connected through the years to follow… I had another child, and Stephanie got married. Then, as luck would have it, we both ended up being pregnant at the same time. I was expecting my third child, and Stephanie was expecting her first. Once again, we had a reason to team up…. our sweet babies! At this point, we both had decided to be stay-at-home moms. Stephanie had two more babies, and each of us being home with our three kids had us constantly talking about what we wanted to do next. Could we work together? Did we have the time? Were we nuts to even think about it? Then it hit us! We both found that we talked to friends and their friends and anyone else about how to help their little ones develop communication skills, especially in those early years. Since we were also supporting our own littles’ speech and language development, it was easy and natural for us to talk about what worked for us, what was normal, and what others could expect. Fast forward to now… both of our lives have aligned just enough that we decided it was time to start Tiny Talkers! So, here we are, ready to bring you our knowledge and experience so that you can feel good about supporting your little one’s communication and help them grow!
Becky Chamberlain, Speech-Language Pathologist
Stephanie Tuthill, Speech-Language Pathologist
