Friday follow-up and some fun

First of all, thanks for the good thoughts and well wishes regarding the aide interviews, parent-teacher conferences and my infernal migraine. I survived the day on Wednesday and by yesterday afternoon, the headache was gone, whew. There were two clear favorites among the four candidates, a third candidate who would probably be fine as well, and a fourth that would've been a great choice had the position been "hostess or bartender at Hooters" instead of "aide to work with a five year old kindergartner" ....... Let's just say that the skirt was in the "micro-mini" realm and the top was in the "revealingly tight and low cut/unbuttoned" realm and the hair, make-up and nails all in the "large and heavy" realm and that it was very difficult to get beyond the appearance and presentation to picture the candidate actually, you know, down on the floor in the OT/PT room doing yoga or deep pressure with Kiddo. Hoo boy.

Anyhow, there were definitive top choices, and the process is underway to get one all vetted and hired, and there is a slim chance that things could move quickly enough for her to start on Monday (she said she'd be available to start then, at any rate, so it's all a matter of the hiring process moving forward). Failing that, we're supposedly to have the same substitute who was hired for last week (yes, another new person to Kiddo, I've lost track of how many folks this has been now since September to work with her...) but that person no-show/no-called on Wednesday, so not sure what the story is there. Just one more reason to hope that the permanent aide can be in place for Monday.

I felt very good about the top two candidates and so am hopeful that things will go well if everything works out with the rest of the hiring process. A cautiously optimistic WOO-HOO for that!! (Also, the parent-teacher conference went very well, and Kiddo's excellent work even at the kindergarten level made Hubby and I quite proud of her, so woo-hoo for that too. She's a little smarty-pants, our kid!)

It's funny, the dressed-for-Hooters candidate totally gave me flashbacks to my pre-SAH mom days job. See, I worked in "vocational rehabilitation" for individuals with disabilities. That's a fancy, official sounding way of saying my department helped folks with disabilities (of any sort) find and keep jobs in the community. One of our main programs was a "supported employment program" which involved job development and job coaching. Part of the SEP was a weekly "job club" in which we taught various resume creation, interviewing and other job-related skills to the program participants in a group setting. We had a few program participants with rather interesting ideas about interview-appropriate clothing, and more than once I arrived to pick up a client to take him/her to an interview and had to request that he/she go back into their home and change into something more appropriate before going to the interview. For that one candidate in the "I'm going clubbing right after this interview" ensemble, I would totally have recommended a clothing change, I can assure you.

On a completely different note, I've been tagged in meme land. The fantabulous Vickie issued a photo challenge, in which I should go to the fourth photo folder on my computer and then post the fourth picture therein. Here 'tis:



This picture was taken on June 20, 2003, the weekend after Kiddo was released from the NICU and home with us. She was almost one month old (so this is still before her actual due date) and she was about 4 pounds, 10 ounces. (To give you an idea of how not-very-big she was, the onesie she is wearing is a "newborn" sized onesie and you'll note it is a wee bit large for her! We had a heck of a time finding preemie-sized clothing at the time - there were just a few places that had preemie sizes for reasonable cost. I was so happy when she was finally large enough to fit in newborn sizes so she didn't look like a baby David Byrne...



Oh HECK, we just lost power for the briefest of moments and yet it was enough to lose about 500 words of this blog post! ARGH! And now, of course, I'm out of time and must get on with my day, so I'll be back later to do the rest in another post. Perhaps it was the universe's way of saying "Ahem, Heather, your post is getting too dang long already!" ...... Before I go, though, please don't forget there is still ONE MORE DAY to enter my very first giveaway for a terrific CD that we have been enjoying (in between rounds of Christmas music) here quite a lot! Click here to enter and good luck!