The Fluharty-2

I am literally up to my eyeballs in Fluharty-2 protocols.

The county decided that it would be mandatory for all speech teachers to screen all the kindergartners at their schools for possible speech and language problems. Lucky for my mentor, this means that she can carry out our normal, busy schedule without major interruption while I sit at a tiny desk on the kindergarten wing pulling five year olds out of class all day long. I am not really complaining about skipping out on therapy because I am getting some serious hours (98 kindergartners x 20 minutes a piece!) and I love meeting all the kids. But this is some seriously tedious work.

The first couple of kids were really fun. I enjoy giving tests and really love scoring them and figuring out all the normative data (I think this is the math geek in me). But after ten speech and language screenings, I could quote the protocol from memory. I feel like I will be saying, "Look at this page and tell me what you see" and "Put the yellow block between the white block and the blue block" in my sleep tonight....

Here are some hilarious things that the kids said during testing:

• Man, I'm doing awesome!
• I am so good at this.
• We brush our teeth because if we don't we will get sugar bugs.
• You a good speet teeter because you pitty. (Kid after my own heart... who is also going to be referred for articulation therapy, haha.)
• (The question prior to this answer was "How do you know if your shoes are on the wrong feet.) That's easy. Red is right and black is left. (To which I asked, are your feet different colors, and homeboy lifts his feet up into the air above the desk and says...) See? The red spiderweb means it goes on my right foot. I NEVER get it wrong. (Thank goodness for Spiderman sneakers.)

Seriously?

Seriously.

What a day, what a day...

Note: to any of you reading this (that includes you, Dad), I would rather this not get back to my mother, okay? No need to worry her over something that resolved itself in no time at all.

I woke up this morning with some serious stomach issues. Whatever, right? I'll drink a Carnation Instant Breakfast and get on with my day. Little did I know that the "rich milk chocolate" taste of the Carnation Instant Breakfast was the result of my little stomach problem.

Ten minutes later...

Dizziness? Is this normal with stomach problems? It was like the whole room was shaking and I couldn't make it stop. You know how sometimes when you close your eyes you get this kind of shaking sensation? Well, mine didn't stop when I opened my eyes. One call to the UrgentMD people (where I calmly explained that I felt nauseous and dizzy and that I assuredly was NOT pregnant) and I get a little "over-the-phone" diagnosis of dehydration and maybe a tinge of food poisoning. They asked me what I had eaten over the last 24 hours and I said, "About 4 glasses of Carnation Instant Breakfast. Then they told me to check the label on my milk. Oops.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I drink about a gallon and a half of milk by myself every week. It is seriously a staple in my diet. So I never have to worry about milk expiring (or even checking the date on the carton) because I always drink it well before it goes sour. Well, I went home for Labor Day and my half empty gallon just say in the fridge all weekend. Actually, it sat there a couple of days past its date...

Anyway, I think the reason that I didn't notice that it tasted weird was because I kept mixing the Instant Breakfast powder with it. So, I was drinking slightly spoiled milk for about 2 days. The folks at the doctor's office said to drink plenty of liquids and to come in if I got started to throw up--which, thankfully, never happened.

So I got to feeling much better (after calling in sick at work and taking the day to rest and drink lots and lots of water and Gatorade) and then, all of the sudden, game time sneaks up on me. For anyone who watched the Georgia Tech/Clemson game, you have to know that I was one gigantic ball of nerves up until a minute before the end. I think I almost threw up just from the nerves. But, miraculously, we pulled off the win by getting a field goal with a minute to go.

Seriously?

Seriously.

When Life Hands You... Slaps in the Face

We all knew this day was coming--the day when I discovered that my perfect little students were, in fact, not perfect. Gasp! Shocking, I know.

This day got started on the right foot. I was early to school, actually found both shoes that I was looking for (one of the nuisances in my life has been finding the match to the shoe that I want to wear to work on any given day), and I ate a super healthy breakfast (part of a little pre-Christmas weight loss plan). So when I show up to my first therapy session of the day, I am all smiles.

This particular student has misbehaved several times during therapy in the past few weeks, but this morning, he donned a big grin and seemed to be in a good mood. "Seemed" is the operative word here. Ten minutes into therapy he has not only poked me in the stomach (hard!) but also SLAPPED me in the face (equally as hard). So I have a nice little bruise in the corner of my eye from where his fingernails made contact with my ocular bone.

The rest of the day really didn't improve from there. I'm taking the night off to rest, renew my mind (and try and convince myself that tomorrow will be better), and get psyched for the return of "So You Think You Can Dance" and the premiere of "Glee!"

Seriously?

Seriously.

Labor Day Fun

How did I spend my Labor Day?

I slept until almost noon. This rare occurrence was greatly cherished this morning as I did not have anything special to do until after lunch. It is amazing how much you take "sleeping in" for granted during college. This used to be a weekly thing for me. Now, I am lucky to sleep in once a month. Needless to say, it was wonderful.

For lunch, my mom grilled bratwursts on the grill. They were fantastic! Even Mattie got to sample a piece of the action since Mom let me cut up one of them for her. I covered it in ketchup and mustard and put it in her dog bowl as a little Labor Day treat. I wish I had taken a picture of the yellow and red stains it left on her face!

After lunch, we went to go visit one of my old neighbors in the nursing home. She didn't know we were coming so it was nice to surprise her. She was hospitalized a few weeks ago for a broken hip (I think) and she had a stroke while in surgery. She is doing a lot better than expected and even recognized my brother and me and said our names!

Then, on a whim, I decided to create a Fantasy Football league in lieu of the upcoming NFL season. I don't really know anything about the NFL at all, but I think I will win the whole thing.

Seriously?

Seriously. :)

My Little "Shawties"

I already posted this on my facebook status, so I apologize for the repeat. But for those of you who may have missed it (or who want the whole story), here is what happened yesterday that still has me (literally) laughing out loud.

One of my favorite parts of my week is my Tuesday/Thursday afternoon group of first graders. There are four of them and they all have me completely wrapped around their fingers because I think they all hung the moon and are the sweetest 'lil things on the planet. So they tend to get away with a lot and in turn, we also do a whole 'lotta laughing. (I hope they are enjoying it as much as I am).

Anyway, yesterday, we were working on grouping things into categories. For instance, I would say to one of them, "Name five colors" or "Name four types of birds." We had gone through a couple of rounds of this and just before I gave them all their stickers for the day, I decided to ask the last little guy another question. "Name three songs." He just sort of sat there and looked at me (I'm sure he was thinking of his sticker and getting back to his class instead of answering my seemingly dumb question).

Finally, after some thought (and some pleading from his peers), he looked right at me and said, "Happy Birthday, uh.... the Hannah Montana Song, and... uh... Boom Boom Pow."

I just about lost it.

How the heck does a six-year-old know the words to that song? Of course, the other children couldn't possibly know what he was talking about, right? Wrong. They all busted into laughter and started singing, "Shawty got that boom-boom-pow" and I didn't even try to pretend to be an adult. I (naturally) started singing along with them and we all got a good laugh before I had to get them somewhat calm and walk them back to the first grade hall.

Seriously?

Seriously.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

One of the things I am quickly learning about my job is to expect the unexpected. I am done trying to assume that my therapy sessions with students are going to go a certain way only to be completely dumbfounded when something else happens.

I usually have a daily list of funnies that have happened throughout the course of the day, but I am going to choose to forego that little tradition today in lieu of what one of my Pre-K'ers said to me that kept me laughing all day long. (Actually, I'm pretty sure I just giggled to myself again just thinking about it.)

This particular student is four years old and comes in for speech from his preschool twice a week to receive services. He is sooooo stinkin' cute: dark brown hair, tiny for his age, huge brown eyes, and a smile that belongs on the silver screen. He doesn't have any /s/, /f/, or /r/ sounds and this particular day, we were working on /r/ because that's what another boy in the group was working on that day. (And even though he is too young to be working on /r/, frankly, it was easier to just compile one word list for the session.)

Anyway, we had been drilling /r/ words for twenty minutes and he had been doing really well at over-exaggerating the /r/ sound at the beginning of his words and saying it correctly. He got totally caught up in all the praise that we were giving him and when he said his last word ("woad"), he realized that he said it incorrectly and proceeded to shout out,

"CWAP! I SAID IT WONG!"

Bahahahahahaha. I didn't laugh at him in the moment because he was so upset, but bless his little heart.... I busted out the second he left and laughed about it for the rest of the day.

Seriously?

Seriously.