I love Special Care babies! I wanna be a SCU OT!

I took a bite of Thanksgiving today. It was a pumpkin spice truffle from Godiva and it was good!

I volunteered at a local pediatric hospital today, in the Special Care Unit as always. I stayed with the same baby (one I’ve been with multiple times), the entire time. She was in a great mood and I spent an entire hour doing a mini version of OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY WITH HER!!!!!!!!!!

It was amazing! I loved it. I kind of think I want to work with this population (Special Care babies) when I graduate!

We worked on sitting balance (pretty much all Special Care babies are delayed), reaching (unilaterally and bilaterally), and visual tracking. It was all in the context of normal play, so I wasn’t torturing her or anything – we were both enjoying it and it was very basic/safe. A nurse came over to check something and was like “Sorry to interrupt your therapy” and I was like haha! I’m a volunteer! Woot.

Also, this brings to mind a story from a few days ago. We were doing a lab on the HOME assessment. Me, Brooke, and Allison are lab partners. We went downstairs to visit a toddler daycare room. The babies were all sitting quietly on the rug, playing with blocks. The three of us got permission, then sat down cross-legged in the corner. The babies started zooming toward us in a massive pack. I’m kind of quiet but I smile a lot, so babies like to sit in my lap. Allison was being silly and the babies were all clustering around her, except for the two babies who were sitting in my lap. The babies were sooo excited with the attention, they started getting overly hyper. We decided we should leave since we had gotten the information we needed. I got up, and one of the little boys who had been in my lap reached his hand out to me and said tearfully, Mama? It broke my heart. So we turned to go, and that same little boy walked two steps, tripped, and hit his head on a chair. Augh!!!!!!!!

He was fine, but still!!

Ok, the end.

Nov 05, 2007 | Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none