Time to Get Movin...

Good morning :), How are things? We’re doing pretty good ... Saturday and all. It’s already almost 8 am. We’ll be expecting our granddaughter in about an hour or so, so there won’t be too much writing. She’s expected to be here all day ... It will be my longest time spent with her. Her folks just closed on a new house yesterday, so they’ve got some work to be doing today hehe. Sure is exciting. Think about it ... 4 years old and a brand new house! Well, maybe it will be a little scary at first, but it will help for her to see all her things about her. Better to be at Grandma’s today where we know where the chicken fingers and french fries are! YAYYY Abbe!

Hmm, little out of sorts ... just finished picking up the living room. Maybe we’ll get to vacuuming too? Well, maybe after a while. Something very nice happened last night. Our friend came over and helped us with the dishes ... Pshwoo. It was getting pretty desparate. Might have taken us 3-4 hours of being in pain ... surely not very motivating. We tend to let them stack up for that same reason. I know goofy thing to do ... it’s just what happens.

This morning sometime between now and 10 am, we’re supposed to get our next order of groceries ... just in the nick of time ... need to keep all the little people happy! Kinda hope Abby comes first. I want her to see all the excitement of when the groceries come in and there is so much food to sort out. It takes me 2-3 times to put it away, but if it weren’t for the back, I’d be giggling myself silly. Oh dear, we’re slipping out around our edges this morning ... hmm.

We had a chance to talk this morning through the IM’s and for a while now, we’ve been messin with the Paper Tiger. Put in another set of books. It is just such a nifty neato system. AND, just to read the chapter titles is causing my heart to sing. It’s like with the Easter Bunny - all kinds of surprises. "Hmm, I didn’t remember he wrote about that," or, "Wow! I have a book that talks about that!??" My books have fallen out of order so there is some variety, but pretty much we’ve been in psychology and philosophy so far.

Now, when I enter information into the program, I am thinking of Jacob. It is a brand new thing that he’s taking a real interest in reading. He gave me his first reading list. It is from his father. God Bless the man! This was one of his very, very best qualities ... he liked to read things that I was interested in. Many times, he could read over my head. I sure do hope that Jacob learns to read more. It would be pretty nifty to have a conversation about metaphysics with one of your sons. Yahoo!!!

I feel absolutely enchanted by the idea that one day he might like a copy of our library. It’s good for learned reading. Maybe not so many fantasy novels ... Hmm, wonder if he’d be interested in Herman Hesse?? V?? That be enough of a fantasy? Hehe

Ok, ok ... stop playin...

We had a pretty good day yesterday. We started off late, but made up time on the expressway. We went to physical therapy, then to work, met up with yucky DSP stuff (well, maybe not all so good), went to the Administration meeting, the staff meeting, and our Thinking Group meeting. Yup, you could guess it, we were pretty well, meeing’d out!

The problem with the DSP was that after her first two days learning from me, she decided that it was unnecessary for her to track her objectives. She said, "Well, I didn’t do it with the other two DSP’s groups, so I’m not going to do it here either. Not even, an "I don’t think ..." a blatent, "nope, I’m not going to do that!" I was sooooo angry, but I didn’t say anything directly, but boy if you don’t think it affected my mind, you would be like way wrong. She equated what I was trying to teach her was PhD stuff. Shoot, all I asked was that she keep track of numbers. Well, maybe I went overboard a little ... I had to check out if she was capable of averaging. But, Damn ... went right over her poor confused brain. Least that’s what she was telling me. We’re just talking dividing! I want an average of how many successes the clients had divided by the amount of times he tried. Was just furious.

By the time we got to the staff meeting I was pretty calm again, but she brought up learning too much already ... that made me reactive all over again. So, I gave a two minute out loud in front of the boss/staff lecture of how we work to improve by teaching the newest staff the best and newest methods, not just what the older staff know. And, how it was downright unethical to decide you don’t have anything to learn after your first days, two days. Not even a week of learning, just first days! She seems set on communicating, "If I haven’t learned it already, its’ not worth knowing." She definitely got off on my wrong foot.

I’m afraid for her that after saying that, I needed a 15 minute break to calm down, but when I got back to her room??? We were allbusiness and not meaning to be necessarily easy. We started taking notes right off. I wanted to see what she thought herself so capable of doing. "What, it’s 8:45 and you haven’t selected a lesson yet??? Scribble, scribble... She had tried to tell me 15 minutes earlier that she’d just think up something off the top of her head. To that we responded without mercy, "What is your objective? What do you want them to learn?" She couldn’t figure that out and at the time, we were not in any mood to smooth the ground for her. She not only didn’t want to record what they were to learn, she had nothing to teach them! While thinking ... she knew it all! Brrrrrr.....

Scribble, scribble ... took ½ hour of ½ hour ... ahem ... 100% to set up first lesson, but before completing one question ... time was up. Hmm, looks unorganized to me ... Hmpf!

Anyway ... soon after, we were due for the Administration meeting. Fortunately, Sr.’s been liking me again, and took a few minutes to talk to me about the DSP before the other two team members got to the office. She empathized with me ... I think she could tell me, we were pretty upset. But, then her conclusion was that we were going to have to spoon feed the DSPs ... always the same thing spoon feed, let the "challenges of thinking" drip as an IV bottle into their skinny arms. DAMN ... Hate this stuff. Sometimes it is easy to forget that these people who are "teachers" are barely capable of writing paragraphs. And, READ??? Man, might as well as them to do physics.

Ok, ok ... not going to go overboard here. The new DSP was gone to other training on Wednesday and Thursday, so she missed out on her first staff training with me and the other DSPs. I tried something challenging and I think they were getting something out of it. The more brassy of the group complain about professionalism, so we taught a "professional lesson." It was on "Issues of Developmental Action with people who are developmentally disabled." I had studied the readings of a specific current book on the subject ... just one chapter. Then I broke it down to a four page outline leaving in comments and definitions. I gave them that copy, then I went over each new number on the outline story’s or examples that would help them understand the concepts.

They froze up the first few minutes, but then one at a time, they started adding their own examples to check out there understanding ... It was like, "Yes! Payday!" We didn’t finish the work, butI had told them we would go slow ... one line at a time. We left off at a point where they were asking into the next statement. I was real excited about that. I’d pressed their thinking. And, no one was complaining, although our job coach/housekeeper (8th grade education) dozed off, BUT she is taking heavy doses of prescribed medicines for her cold and is not sleeping at night. We let her slide. Felt bad for her ... it was her birthday and she felt so unwell that she cancelled the birthday party that night, that we’d arranged with staff the week before. The other nice thing was that I’m never sure who is going to be out, but the part that did come out ... Kate, she’s our best one for explaining things ... she knew all the answers to their questions and concerns. YAYYY!

There was some good things that happened with the Administration meeting. Top of the line was that I was complimented for the new Paper Tiger program and CARF. Sister realized its value enough that she’s insisting on covering the cost of the program and is considering getting copies for herself and the other members of the Administration team. YAYYY!!! She also allowed conversation on the new Essential Resources. That was very cool.

It seemed the whole meeting like that ... I was in sync with what was on her mind. I think in general the other QMRP looks downright silly. She argues an interrupts the whole meeting. Sr. reigned her in three times after QMRP kept tripping on her tongue. And, I have this mean, competitive thing inside me that can’t wait to get to these novel times and the other Q say, "Well, I didn’t know about that." Our mind is saying to itself, "Your too slow, catch up and keep up!" Instead of just listening to the new information, she is like the DSPs sometimes ... will work to bring me down. Usually, when that happens, it’s because I’m too easy to get frustrated with their inability to think clearly or positively. They HATE change, where I thrive on it. They center themselves on "good enough" and I am always looking for "better." "Sigh"

Thinking Group went pretty well. There was just one errant report of kissing. The male client who started it just lost his girl friend. She’d also been at the center, but the parents of the girl were pretty upset that he wouldn’t stop calling her and putting ideas of marriage and elopement into her head. SO, now he is after another girl. That’s going to be a pretty frustrating situation. I clued Sr. into it with notes onthe meeting. She is going to want handling that one directly, beside the guy is on the other Q’s caseload. As far as my client ... she was looking very confused. She’s not on a level to want a boyfriend.

Otherwise, the meeting went smoothly. I decided to start a new course. The author Zigler (late 60's) had described 6 personality facets of people with mental retardation. I had known in and out the Thinking Group had worked on many different portions of this, but it’s never been organized and studied directly. Zigler said:

So, during the Thinking Group, we worked on issues of IV.1 "over dependence." That was pretty cool and a good thing for the group to talk about. Their attitude was interesting too, because they weren’t real "put out" by the fact that they were dependent. We teased on the parts though of over-dependency. We looked at things like shopping, eating out, leaving the room, using telephones, reaching high places (standing on step stools), cooking, etc. We also talked of overdependency on television. I asked them if they were for the rest of their life going to be listening to TV every night? Is this your life goal? They were kind of surprised by that thought. Then in rebuttle, as a group, they said well, "We listen to music more." Then one of the individuals was able to state that when she goes into her own room, she can relax, dance, exercise or find peace listening to the radio. Hehe, well yes this is one of our top thinkers, but we made sure to tell her that was fantastic thinking ... because she’d found a way to interact with the music, where with tv it is pretty normal to become passive.

I wasn’t arguing that the group should start driving the car, cross the block, become dizzy on top a ladder, or start broiling their own steaks, I did question having your mother waking you up instead of getting up on your own with an alarm clock, and having your mother remind you to brush your teeth. I emphasized that they should be making choices of clothing, food, and hobbies. It seemed as if they were getting it which was pretty exciting. We have a long, long way to go.

Where Zigler and the others lead up to is that for certain things the individuals need support, but it is disabling for staff and parents to do work for them that they can do on their own, just because it’s easier. Even with the lowest level clients they should be able to pick out what kind of jelly they are going to eat or activities that make them happy. Choices should be presented to them. I think this is the way that you validate their experience as an individual in this world, even if it is more convenient to reach for the strawberry jelly. All means possible should be given to support identities and sense of uniqueness.

Anyway soapboxing again ... get off that. It does thrill me when they look forward to the Thinking Group. We try to ask hard questions, not difficult, but requiring valid thought. They seem to enjoy it and it just makes sense!

So, that was pretty much my day ... we did as mentioned earlier make it to PT. That was good. We added 40 seconds to our treadmill and learned new stretching exercises. YAYYY!!!

I’m not sure what all will happen with the day today. It is quarter after 9 am by now. I’m thinking that my son and his bride are sleeping in heheh. He said they were "powerpacking" last night. Pretty big deal moving. I’m thinking just a little time left though ... think we’re going back to Paper Tigering the books. YaHOOO Saturday!!!