The mounting suspense...

I'll be home in 12 days!

The last time I was home, the air smelled like thick stinky smoke because of drought fires. I'm looking forward to the old familiar Florida smells. I always love the first deep breath when leaving the airport. I live by my sense of smell. I'll be home for 9 days. The only plans we have set in stone so far are my sister's wedding on the 29th and spending time at the beach on Christmas Day. It was a family tradition until we moved away. We'd get up early and open our presents and eat breakfast, then we'd all load up in the family van and drive out to the beach and take a walk. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm also really looking forward to seeing my best friend, Tara, and her new baby, Jonas. She's emailed me pictures and he is GORGEOUS y'all. I'm also going to see my good friend, Rachael, and her little boy. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be staying at Rae's mom's house for a few days while I'm there. There are so many people and places to see, I hope I can fit it all in while I'm there!

In the meantime... I'm going to be up to my eyelashes in paper work. It's not quite as stressful as finals week, but it's a lot of work. I have to do one "progress note" for each child I work with, every time I interact with one of them for more than 15 minutes. I have 8 kids right now and I spent about 8+ hours with them exclusively last week. And I still have to catch on about 4 hours from the week before. Each note contains a narrative of our activity including their behavior and interactions, what my role was, and which of their predetermined goals were met as a result of our activity. Then I have to paste it into a separate database, print it, sign it, and file it. On the flip side, last week was extremely fun. Our "group" for the day on Wednesday was focusing on the skills of teamwork, problem solving, and communication. We baked cookies and set up an artificial Christmas tree. The cookies were easy, but I made the kids figure the tree out on their own. It's one of those trees that you have to assemble a branch at a time, one level at a time. They had to start over a few times, but they figured it out. I was so proud of them. They worked so hard and worked so well together. Then the kids served the cookies to a group of carolers who came to sing to them on Thursday night. I also got to go with them to see the Nutcracker Ballet on Friday night. They LOVED it. I LOVED it. For now, I'm sticking with this job. Even though I need more hours and more money. I love it too much to walk away. And I don't think it's time yet.