Long time, no blog

I haven't blogged with much substance recently for a few reasons.

1. Molly has been a bit trying lately, behavior wise, and we haven't done much in the way of Molly school for that reason. Not academically anyway. We've spent most of our time for the last week or two trying to get her to behave like a polite young lady rather than an angsty teen in a three year old's body.

We can tell she's having some mental, emotional growth lately, but it's whacking out the way she acts, both good and bad. The things she's saying, the faces she's making and the voices she's using are making it apparent that her mind is growing and expanding. More than once a day she says or does something that makes me go "huh, who ARE you?" She's not saying anything profound or anything, it's just...I don't know, I can't describe it. It's likes she's turning into a big kid, rather than being a little kid. Weird.

Hopefully when this mental leap is over, we can get back to business.

It's funny, when they are babies, the mental and physical leaps are much more observable and measurable. Anymore they are more subtle and harder to define.

2. I've been on a TV kick. We got our Netflix for Wii CD (DVD, I dunno) and I've been watching Bones, starting at the beginning of the series. I'm almost done with season one. I've also been on a Survivor kick and I've been watching past seasons on youtube. I watched all of season 2, in the Australian Outback, and about half of season 4, in the Marquesas. I stopped half way b/c Boston Rob was gone, and I knew who won. Then I decided to watch a more recent season that we didn't see after Cor's parents moved. So now I'm about started the third episode of Season 18 in Tocantins.

This is what I do. I get on kicks where I am obsessively interested in something for a while, and then as quick as it started, it's over.

I'm really thinking I might want to go on Survivor. That is if I can lose like 80 lbs...that might be a losing battle. I don't know that I would be able to make it very long in the mental game, with all of the people lying and turning on one another, but if I could get in shape I think I could deal with the food and crappy living conditions.

Anyway, that is neither here nor there, HAHA.

We've been watching Sid the Science Kid on DVD from the Library. Molly has learned a lot. Particularly about "reversible change" like ice turning to water turning to ice, turning to water...you get the picture. She also learned about decay and decomposition from the episode titled "Mushy Banana." I like shows that are both entertaining AND educational and she LOVES this show.



3. I've gotten a job as a speech pathologist...weird. I mean, yeah, I've got a master's degree and that's kind of what I was SUPPOSED to do, but up until this point I've been playing it by ear. I've just been "going with the Godly flow" (name that movie!) and been saying that if I'm meant to work then a great job needs to fall in my lap, because I'm not going out looking. If it falls in my lap and works out then that's where I'm meant to be.

So far that looks like what is happening. My good friend from grad school, Brandi is long time friends with another girl who is an SLP, Megan. I've met Megan a few times when Brandi has had get togethers. She started her own private practice and she contracts with the Mustang public schools. They (her and her husband) just started the practice and he is a psychologist. So they are kind of doing a one stop shop kind of deal. They eventually want to get a PT and an OT and then they would have all of the major therapy areas covered.

I will be the first therapist working with them. This summer I'm going to work just a little in their clinic, seeing just a handful of clients, basically just getting back in practice since I haven't done therapy in over a year. Then at the end of the summer I'm going to contract through her in a public school somewhere.

This is how contracting works. The school districts have job fairs during spring and summer to fill all of their open spots for all positions, including speech paths. All of those people they hire work directly for the district, and they have very few part time positions, if any. Working for the districts, speech paths make little more than teachers, considering we have a master's and most teachers have a bachelors, this is crappy.

Megan will go to the district in late July and will work out a contract position for me (and herself). We will work for ourselves, er, well, I'll work for her technically. They pay us considerably more because they have to have enough speech paths. I'll be working three days a week, about 20-24 hours, and I'll make over 3/4 of what Cor makes working full time. It's a nice setup.

I don't plan on ever working full time, I think three days is my max. I want to have enough time to spend considerable time at home with Molly.

Me working seriously messes up her school plans for this fall though. She's already enrolled in a public school for afternoon pre-k five days a week, but if I'm working three full days a week that's not going to work. I can't imagine any day care is going to both take her to school and pick her up, especially only three days a week. Most daycares like full time kids.

So now we are thinking we are going to send her back to King's Gate for pre-k where she's been this year. They also do afternoon pre-k five days a week, but they do before and after school care as well. I feel okay about that because it's very small and we know the staff already. She will be comfortable there because it's familiar. I think it'll take a few weeks for her to be used to being out of the house so much, but it will be okay...I hope.

The plan is for me to do this while Molly is in pre-k and kindergarten and then by the time she is done with that I will have my CCC (certificate of clinical competency, I will have that after I complete the equivalent of a residency) and I can hopefully homeschool her and work from home seeing a few clients and make enough money to help us keep in whatever place we are by then.

We really need to move into a bigger place...with a garage *sigh* We can make it and eventually be there on just Cor's income, but it will take much longer and be much more difficult so I'm glad to be able to help out.

Okay that was my rambling for the night, yikes.