Word World

Autism is such a strange disease because no one knows for sure what causes it and no two children diagnosed with it are the same. There is also this whole spectrum to consider and a child can be considered high or low on the spectrum. We are pretty lucky. When Chase was diagnosed he was considered low on the spectrum because he is severely language delayed but had few of the other tendencies seen with autism. It could have been worse.

He does have a few other symptoms other than language delay. One of those is finding something he likes and becoming semi-obsessed with it. Luckily for us, the obsession changes every few months. His first one I can remember was Cars. He watched it over and over. We ended up buying 2 DVDs because he wore the first one out. I didn't think you could wear out a DVD but you can. He has every "Cars" character car there is:

That lasted a while. Then we moved on to Thomas. He has every train and DVD there is. He even learned how to pull it up on the Internet and watch it on You Tube all by himself.  

Then he moved on to Toy Story. I was excited when he started in on this one because I really like this movie.

And now we have moved on to Word World. Some of you may not have heard of Word World. It is a a show on PBS.

Chase LOVES this show. He watches it as soon as he gets up in the morning and as soon as he gets home from school. All the way home from school he says, "I want to watch Word World. I want to watch Word World. I want to watch Word World." The show basically teaches children how to spell because they put the words together and the words come alive. For a child that is language delayed he has started speaking A LOT because of this show. He wants to know what every thing says and how it is spelled. Chase doesn't just ask, he orders you to spell it like a drill sergeant. "Spell pizza!!!" and keeps it up till you spell it. He also has started spelling things constantly on paper, so much so that we have had to buy more copy paper:

I find these all over the house. I used to not even be able to get him to color, now I can't keep up with all the paper everywhere. He also mimics the characters and knows their lines. Chase shouts it out at random, "You broke my letter L!" Kind of catches you off guard sometimes. There is this one scene where Duck is vacuuming and is singing this song, "I don't need a mop, I don't need a broom, all I need is you vacuuuuuuuuuuum!" Here is Chase reenacting the scene:

I can't tell you how excited I am about this show and how grateful I am that he is learning so much. Hopefully he will stick with this show a while.

Who said television wasn't good for your kids?! 



People You Work With

Do you ever just stop and think about how much time you spend with the people at work? I was thinking about it tonight and I was a little startled to realize I spend just as much time with them as I do my family. Think about it. You spend 40 hours a week talking to, eating with, and making decisions with these people. You may go home and spend a good 3 to 4 hours with your family before you go to bed but basically the majority of your waking hours is with coworkers.

I think I deserve a little more sympathy because I work in a hospital nursery. The nursery is a locked unit and I work 12 hour shifts, so that is basically 12 hours in a locked room with a couple of other people.  I don’t get to pick who I work with so I am at the mercy of management as to who I spend those 12 hours with.

Lately tensions at work have been running high. Why? I’ll tell you. In a hospital, there is something called “low census.” This means that if there are not enough patients then they can tell staff to stay home. Hospitals are businesses and the hospital I work at is a very good hospital. In order for the doors to stay open they have to be smart with the budget. So if there aren’t enough patients to care for then some of the staff needs to stay home. This has been happening a lot and we have to take turns taking “low census”. As a result, my coworkers and I are losing money and nobody likes to lose money.

I usually just work 6 days a paycheck (72 hours every two weeks) but I requested to add a seventh day (84 hours) on a regular basis. Almost everyone in the nursery works 7 days a paycheck, so I requested to be 7 days too. This way I can get my regular paycheck even if I get low census. Many coworkers feel this is unfair and that it takes away even more from their schedules. They may be right but at what point does your relationship with your coworkers trump your way of life? If they were presented with the same dilemma, what would they do? On my list of priorities, these people are at the top of my list:

So what do you do when the people you spend the majority of your time with are unhappy? I can’t help but think that I need to be invested in these people as if they are family. Granted, I am not going to sacrifice my livelihood so they can be happy but I do need to care. If my family was unhappy, I would talk and fight it out. We would get to the bottom of it, find some common ground, and move on. So I explained my actions and pray they have the character to understand where I am coming from. I am going to continue to smile, go beyond my duties to help them with theirs, and try to get along with everyone because I like the hospital I work at. I love what I do, like my boss, and at the end of the day I like my coworkers.

I am sure everyone in the workforce has the same sort of problem. There is something to be said for trying to keep the peace. Nobody wants to live a life where the people they spend most of their time with are unhappy. It is easy to write off people that you work with but I don’t think it is good for your well-being. Yes, times are tough but I try to remember better times, a time when we had great conversations and laughed about crazy stuff.

Try to find the best in people because giving up on the people you spend most of your time with doesn’t seem smart. It is like my Granny quotes, “This too shall pass.”