liza bean
I love children's literature. I spent a good half hour reading all of Amia's book today (on top of another good twenty minutes reading a few to her, the girl's into books now!) My favorite by far is called "Moo, Baa, LaLaLa". Can't remember the author's name at the moment but the following are some of the lines: "A cow says moo. A sheep says baa. Three singing pigs say lalala. What's that you say? No, that's not right. Pigs say OINK all day and night." Or something like that. I'm about ready to head out to Pages for All Ages to start building my future children's home library. My goodness, the damage I could do to my bank account. Thank you public libraries. I will pay my 10 cent fine, I promise!
Because this morning I looked at my "students" (for the class I am TAing) as good, thoughtful people and NOT as scary meanies who will say prickly things about me and laugh when I make verbal mistakes.
Because this morning I felt confident, despite the past 30 hours spent this week feeling like I wanted to stuff my OWN head in Mr. Potato Head's rear.
Because my nose has temporarily stopped running (thank you DayQuil!) after yesterday's 6 hour marathon. Seriously, why are the tissue manufacturers of tissue the texture of sandpaper still in business?
Because three strangers complimented me on my sweater. Three.
Because I just finished eating a nummy salad of chick peas, olive oil and baby spinach leaves. (Take that you over-worked, too little rested body oh mine! No more reheated pizza for you. I mean it.)
Because it is sunny!
Well, back to the clinic..Have a great day!
I spent a good six hours at the actual hospital today, shadowing the speech language pathologist as she evaluated both acute and rehab patients. Needless to say, it was quite a different experience from working with children. The majority were individuals who needed a swallowing evaluation -the only life/death responsibility of an SLP. I don't know if I could ever handle that. If you put someone on a diet of solid food or liquids and his/her swallowing mechanism can't handle it, then that patient could end up choking or eventually come down with pnemonia (due to liquid or food penetrating the lungs). It was also interesting to be more exposed to the hospital atmosphere. In particular, after spending an hour in the ICU, I am ever so grateful that my biggest source of anxiety at the moment is whether or not I'll be able to handle the caseload next week, and NOT a sick child or husband recovering from a bad auto accident.
During my first week with the SLP, she had a chunks of time during the day free due to cancellations from bad weather. This week was quite the opposite. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were each 10 hours straight of working with clients (minus 15 minutes for lunch). Thursday I got a break and spent the morning reading up on her kiddies' files as next week I take over half her caseload. Some things I will probably find myself saying, ALOT: "Use your snake sound.." "Is it a tider or a spider?" "It's his noisy brother" "Use your words" "My turn! Okay, your turn!" "Do you want to be the teacher or the student?" "Oh no, I lost! You're so good at this game!" "Good job!" "Good try!" "Good" "That was better"...among others. So to the parents of any children I may come across in the next few days/weeks/etc., I apologize ahead of time if I revert to some of the cueing that is becoming a happy habit: "You want to tolor or you want to color (as I point to the back of my throat, 'cause your tongue has to go back to make the "k" sound)?"...
I almost wish I had a videotape of myself attempting to be a speech language pathologist. "Uh, yeah, good job putting your tongue behind your teeth.." "Oh, yeah, there..you swallowed...and..there...am I right?"
And the highlight of my day (written dooce style):
Toot, audibly, so that the every adult in the room has immense difficulty ignoring the fact that you, little one, just farted. Then announce, "Sorry, I honked".
Our computer is up and running after a long bout of an infection known as a virus. No worries- our medicine consisted of erasing everything and reinstallling everything. Our current diet includes a steady intake of firewall, Norton anti-virus, and avoidance of downloading. I need to be in bed in exactly 30 minutes so, yet again, this will be a brief post. My day consisted of 10 hours of speech, 'Liza making a fool of herself', language, and then more 'Liza making a fool of herself'. I wish I could write about the people I meet and the experiences I have with the most interesting of children but I feel this strong sense that even if my stories were anonymous (sp.?) I would be breaking some mysterious code of confidentiality. It's pretty hyped in the hospital world so my sometimes overzealous obedience to laws has made me a bit paranoid. I can say that my lack of confidence, something I was able to slightly rise above the last few months of the fall semester, has roared its ugly head again. As to be expected. This Liza-girl does not do well with change in routine but I will prevail! A mental forecast of this here's brain does predict a certain thing called determination, along with forgiveness of self.