Today at a work Christmas party I got a picture of all of us new moms (that were there) and a mommy-to-be (of twins):

I feel blessed to have coworkers that I consider my friends but can also share being a new mom with. I look forward to many future play dates and possible long term friendships for E.

I love about my job and working with 2 year olds:

1. Wet kisses on my cheek (hopefully not my lips)
2. Hugs around my legs
3. Parents’ smiling at something I helped their child do (like say a new word)
4. Watching a child learn a new skill
5. Passing off goals after working with a child for 6 short months
6. Buying new toys (especially at Lakeshore)
7. Playing with new toys
8. Hanging out with my coworkers
9. Singing fun songs like “The Wheels on the Bus”
10. I learn something new all the time!

• I have another sinus infection. I saw a couple of kids last week who were sick. As soon as I started feeling sick I took Airborne (yuck), vitamins (I should take them daily – I know…I know) and Zicam. The “cold” went away fast but it turned into a sinus infection. Why does it always turn into a sinus infection for me? Grrr. My nose is bright red, I can’t breathe and I feel like I’ve been punched in the face. Hopefully I will start feeling better soon.

• Next week is the big file audit we’ve all been waiting for at work. Everyone is stressed out. I do not look forward to going into the office because I am afraid of what’s waiting on my desk. So far it hasn’t been too bad for me. I’ve even learned a few things – always a good thing when you’re new. I will be glad when this file audit is over. Hopefully all my files will check out just fine. I am also looking forward to the office returning to “normal”.

• The weather here is terrible! Yesterday we had a blizzard in the middle of the day and we are expecting more snow starting tonight and ending tomorrow afternoon. I think there is even more coming later this week. It is not fun driving around in it all day. Most of the main roads are okay, it’s the neighborhoods that are the worst. So far I have only gotten stuck once and it wasn’t really that bad. I’m thinking my next car should have four-wheel drive.

• A lot of kids are entering our program all at once. We had our weekly team meeting today (where we hand out kids) and the team leader kept saying “come on guys. We all have huge caseloads. Somebody’s got to take this kid”. It was a sad meeting. We all left overwhelmed and not liking our jobs very much. Too many kids to see and not enough time and don’t forget all the paperwork!

I love my job.

I am quickly learning the joys of working a full-time job (plus a PRN job) and keeping up with the housework, checking my email and RSS feeds (a very important task) and just plain relaxing. It’s almost as hard as school was. Just kidding!

I think once I get settled into my job at the school district, things will get much easier. However, I am a little nervous for the articulation class I will be teaching every Wednesday. The goal of the class is to teach 2 1/2 year olds how to pronounce certain speech sounds correctly (e.g. “k”, “g”, “m” and “n” to name a few). I will have two separate classes with eight kids in each and one of their parents will attend the class with them (since I will mostly be teaching the parents how to help their kids talk correctly). Sounds like fun huh? I will have to let you know how it goes. It will definitely be a challenge to come up with activities associated with the certain sounds but luckily I have an aide that will be helping me.

Last week I started working at a local hospital that is attempting to become paperless. Almost everything is done on the computer and soon there will be no paper charts for patients. This is hard for me to imagine but I’m sure they will find a way to do it. All I have to say is that they better have a huge IT department to support such a feat.

During the hospital’s mandatory orientation they mentioned (more than once) that they have won awards for being so technologically advanced. However, they never mentioned how to log on to their computer systems or how to access your personal information online. Nothing! So, I spent the next 4 days trying to log on to all the applications I needed access to. It was quite a pain and I think I ended up calling the IT support desk close to a dozen times. When I finally found my personal information online I noticed that my social security number was wrong. So, I made a few more phone calls and was told it would be taken care of. I was glad to hear that it would be taken care of and thought everything was good. However, I got a call today saying that they had to change my log-on information and that everything should stay the same.

Well, they were wrong and I am in an even bigger mess than before. I have made close to a dozen more calls to IT today and I still need more help. I wish I could just put them on hold instead of calling them back over and over. Anyway. When I called about my email address not working (after I tested it a couple of times) the IT person said “it looks like there are two Janene Days in the system”. Ahh!! I had to explain to him the whole mess and he said he would let the correct department know. I sure hope everything gets straightened out before I work again. What a pain!

Just as a side note – all the IT people I have talked to have been very nice and helpful. I just feel sorry for the mess they are trying to fix for me.

Awhile ago I mentioned that I was looking for a job so I thought I would update everyone on where I will be working. I actually ended up accepting two jobs – a full-time job and a PRN job (PRN is latin for “as needed”).

My full-time job is with a local school district in the early intervention department. I will be traveling to people’s homes to provide speech therapy to kids ages birth to 3. I start next week so I will have to keep you posted on what it’s like. I spent 10 weeks with a different early intervention department so I kind of know what to expect but every school district is different.

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Yesterday was a very busy day doing newborn hearing screenings for the two different hospitals I work for. I finished the first hospital and when I got to the second hospital there were a lot of babies that needed to be screened “right away”. The nurses kept asking me “have you screened so-and-so?” or “did so-and-so pass the hearing screening?”. In the three (or four?) years I’ve been doing newborn hearing screenings, I have never had so many nurses come after me about so many babies. It made for a very stressful morning (since I like to keep everyone happy).

I think the babies knew I was in a hurry because they were very fussy! I usually finish around 10:30, which is nice since there is an 11:00 church service at my church, however, yesterday at 10:30 I still had 4 babies left AND I got a phone call from the first hospital asking me to come back and retest a baby before they discharged. I told the nurse I could probably be there around 11:00 and she said that would be great. When I finished screening all the fussy babies, doing the billing and charting it was 11:00. So instead of calling the hospital to tell them I was on my way I just decided to “hurry”.

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Today was a crazy day with the babies! (In case you don’t know I am a speech aide at a local hospital and part of my job description is to help with newborn hearing screenings.) When I tell someone that I work with babies their usual response is “what a fun job” (or something along those lines). Well…I would just like to say that some days it’s not fun at all and can be very stressful!

The test we do is very sensitive to noise so if a baby is screaming, crying, fussing, snorting, or moving it takes longer to get them to pass. Lately it seems like every baby I try to test does not understand this. I will bring a perfectly quiet baby into the room and they will start crying or moving before I even touch them.

The other day I got a baby from the mom’s room and the dad said “this is the most peaceful he’s been today” and I thought “good I have been waiting for a cooperative baby.” And sure enough, the minute I wheeled him into the screening room he started crying and threw up (luckily not all over me) and was inconsolable. After several minutes of trying to calm the baby down I finally asked the dad to take him back to mom. The next couple babies I tried to test were the same way (except none of them threw up). I’m starting to wonder if I’m sending a bad vibe to the babies??