I can’t believe I got sick again.

            By now I’m sure you’ve noticed that I catch stomach bugs very easily.  That is actually true of my whole family – two years, ago, we all had Norrovirus, and ended up just giving it to each other again and again for almost two months.  So, I got sick again, and had to miss Thursday.  And right before Spring Break too!

            Ugh.

            All of this keeps making trouble for my time management.  Although I always make up for the work that I have missed, it does make the stress a little heightened on the days that I do it.  I don’t suppose there really is any way to stop myself from getting sick, aside from the obvious – good hygiene and diet, lots of rest, etc. – but it is still rather frustrating.

            On the other hand, it seems as if the twin girl is doing very well – she entered the castle-fort in the motor room today without requiring me to come with her, although she did glare suspiciously at another student when he tried to follow, and marched right back out to where I was.  I went in with her, but I was very glad that I was able to see her changing limits.  One of the specialists complimented me on my handling of the various situations that arise around this one girl – I suppose this can fall under job-specific skills, although it has been a much more gradual process that many other skills that I have written about in the past.

            I also learned today that we are going to have another student entering the class after Spring Break – another Indian boy, and by the sound of his name, his parents are from Central India, most likely Western.  Because of this, I might be able to understand some of what he says, and figure out some of his speech patterns (as these are very indicative of thought processes, and it is VERY beneficial to know what is going through the kid’s head).  Then again, he might be raised with a language I have never heard before, or he might even speak only English, or have very little language at all.  If I am able to interpret some of what he says, however, I will be able to play my part in teamwork, so that the specialists can pick up on these patterns, as they most definitely would know better what to do than I.

            Lastly, we’ve got some problem-solving to do.  One of the kids is very open and social – however, in a class full of parallel-players, his advances mostly frighten the other children, and he cannot read their body language and chases after them when they run away.  We think that creating a “social group” (or a class of sorts full of kids meant specifically to expand their social skills) might help him understand the other children’s boundaries, but we don’t have enough kids to work with who we think will thrive in a social group to form one.

            So, for this week:  my short term goals are to help figure out how to deal with the sociable child’s enthusiasm that so sadly goes unreciprocated by the other students and to keep up my work with the twin girl.  My long-term goals, again, are to make a permanent difference in these kids’ lives in what ways I can.