Abby just had her State meet this past weekend. She finally got her qualifying score at the meet two weekends ago to qualify her to go to State. She was so excited! She was really getting bummed that she hadn't met the score needed to qualify (which you have to get the score only once out of the whole season's meets to qualify), but I reminded her that this is her first year competing, and a lot of the other girls on the team, some whom have been competing for years, didn't qualify for State either. She is really hard on herself. But at the last meet before State, (where she got 3rd place on vault! woo hoo!) she got it!!! So, went off to Appleton on Sunday for her meet. Oma and Opa drove 3 hours to come meet me there to see her. They have been in Texas over the past 2 months escaping winter here, and keeping Grandma and Grandpa company down there. So, first time they've seen Isabel and Abby since Christmas. Isabel had her walking skills and 6 teeth to show off to Oma and Opa. She's getting to be such a big girl. Her vocabulary is "ohhhhhh", puppy, mummum, dada, and her favorite- "HHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIII"!!!! She says a long winded hi when you walk into her room to get her out of the crib, when you open the van door to get her out of her car seat, when someone new walks into the room... she's a friendly little one. Been into everything- her new favorite thing to do is scale the furniture! She's a monkey!
Well, big update to share about work. I have been training on 3rd shift at an assisted living facility to begin working weekends every Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Needless to say, I HATE it! Not just the lack of sleep, but the work environment itself. The residents all need a very high level of care, and the staff absolutely do not know the correct ways to handle them. They do not use gait belts, do not use the EZ stand available to them, do not do catheter care correctly, etc... they lift the residents under the arms, which is a huge "never do" to prevent injury to the residents frail arms and shoulders. I am extremely concerned and uncomfortable with everything I have been seeing during training. I talked with the manager, who I used to work with in the past, and now she is administrator there, and shared all of my concerns about what I had been witnessing, and she said she had no idea, and that she was glad I was there to set the right example on how things should be done. Yeah right! These girls don't want to be told by a new person how to do things or that the way they are doing it is wrong! They are really set in there ways and looked at me like I was crazy when I'd ask why aren't you using a gait belt, etc... they act like it's no big deal. The manager brought some of the things up that I mentioned in our staff meeting, and when I went in the next time to work, they pretty much had the attitude that what she didn't see wouldn't hurt her- that they had no intention of doing what they were told to do and would not be using gait belts, even though they were told at the staff meeting that they will have to sign a gait belt policy that gait belts will be used at all times, and you will be written up if they are not used. That didn't sink in. So, I don't know what to do. I'm miserable.
Anyhow, I'm home with Isabel and the kids all week, then work fri, sat, sun 3rd shift, and try to get some sleep off and on during the day. It hasn't been working out very well. I have been feeling sick from being so overtired.
Anyway, hope all is well with everyone else. Will try to keep updating more often.
