First Meetings

I had my first two meetings with kids I'll be working with. Monday I called to set up times for the two boys I was supposed to see Tuesday. Setting up the one was easy. The other one I couldn't get ahold of the Mom until Tuesday morning. She said she would be gone until about 6pm. I was meeting the first between 4 and 4:30 so that would have worked fine.

In the meantime I called and arranged pickup for the boy I was supposed to work with today.

The first little guy was a joy. A little 5-year-old. Not shy at all, and friendly. We wentand walked around Meijer for a while before letting him ride one of those rocking horse rides. It only cost a penny. After that we stopped at Wendy's before I took him home. He was very well-behaved. Standard issue 5-year-old, so there were some reminders not to run off or get into things he shouldn't be messing with. A couple times he tested limits, and once he told me "no." All it took to redirect him was to give him the look. He responded well to that look that says "arguing is not an option."

After that, I tried again to get ahold of the mom of the second client (whose brother I am also supposed to work with). No answer. So I went ahead and tried to find the house with the Mapquest directions while trying again to reach the mom. The street I was supposed to turn on was marked badly so I passed it twice in the dark and rain before finding it. When I got to the house it was dark. Still hadn't heard from the mom.

Today I picked up the 12-year old. It soon became apparent that we will get along well. We have a lot of common interests. I got there late and had to make an extra stop. On top of that, we got a little lost on the way to his meeting I was taking him to so we didn't have time to go do anything else.

So I still haven't heard back from the other boys' mom. I'm not going to chase her by phone anymore as I really don't want to go through the same wild goose chase trying to meet up with them tomorrow. I'll probably try to call ONCE tomorrow, but if I don't reach her I'm not pushing it. My boss can deal with it as it sounds like it's an ongoing issue.

So things are going good so far. I look forward to working with these two and eventually meeting the other two (reportedly they're more difficult.)