Guess how many dolls I made this week??? Did you answer zero? Then you would be correct. Guess how many times I took out the doll stuff to work on it? Did you say zero again? It's like you know me! So yeah, this week I didn't work on dolls at all. Not even one time. On Monday I picked Elecktra up and brought her to do her laundry, while I was out doing my laundry. We had laundry races to see who could get theirs in the fastest. I won with my incredibly unfair advantage of having done thousands of loads of laundry. But it was silly and fun. We did some other errands, I pointed out the cost of meat and Elecktra almost passed out in the grocery store (not really, but food shopping is scary and sickening), and that was most of Monday. Tuesday I am sure I did something after school. I know it wasn't doll work.
Oh wait, back up. Monday night I finished the online portion of my restraint training. It was somewhere around 3 hours of videos and quizzes (stuff about Massachusetts restraint laws, some stuff that should be common sense but apparently isn't, and so on) and then Tuesday I had day one of my training. Wow, was that ever physical stuff! 6 hours, most of it getting down on the floor, up from to floor, going step by step through the restraints, then switching with our partners so they could do the same to us. So yeah, weird stuff. But I know how to safely restrain someone if it is absolutely necessary. I can do it without hurting them or myself. I know what it feels like (it's actually secure and pretty comfortable, at least when you are not already really calm). We asked tons of questions about different scenarios. So now we also have a much better idea on when physical restraint might be necessary. And what to do if we have to do it.
I don't ever want to have to do it. The second day was only 3 hours, but at least half of it, or maybe more like 2/3 of it, was physical stuff again. More practice with our partners so we could have a refresher, and we were tested on all the holds. And actually, that was happening during the practice, so it was not super scary, super formal testing. Just the instructor walking around making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. I can't say that I wanted to go to the training, but it was informative, and now I know more of what to do if a student gets very upset and is dangerous to themselves or others. Having the knowledge is good.
The very next day there was a kid in the cafeteria who was incredibly mad at one of the cafeteria workers and came in screaming and swearing at them. All I did was step in front of my student and watch the upset kid. I was not the only one in there, not even the only one in there who had just been to training, but it was good to know that I knew what to do if things escalated. Though really, I didn't need an almost real-life test the very next day! Other than that Thursday was uneventful. It was an unusual day and all the adults in the room got to talk a bit more than usual (one of the students was out and we are all very efficient, so it worked). Today started with only one student in the class, one very very late bus, and I volunteered to go work in focus. I worked with one of the students I knew peripherally from the summer program and then the student I worked with in the summer. Hands down, I prefer IAP. Though I was really happy to be of help and lighten the load a bit in that class. They have a lot of students and not enough staff. Which is a fairly common theme.
So that was pretty much my week. I think it was Thursday when I came home that I really did seriously consider working on dolls. And then I watched Encanto instead. I am pretty sure I must have done something at some point other than just that (the movie isn't THAT long) but I have no idea what it was. Today, of course, Travis and I went out for coffee and to visit our friend in her shop. We also have a whole lot of Halloween stuff coming up and I am pretty excited.
While I did not get any doll work done this week, partially because I just did not feel like it, I did get in my latest batch of custom stickers from Moo. I was running sort of low on the last bunch and decided I needed some new designs. I still don't really know if people even like the stickers, but it is super common these days for artists and businesses to send stickers with an order. And it makes me happy to do it. Plus I get to share some of my performance photos that way, which is also fun for me. Oh! I remember what else I did yesterday. I got all the packages for the miniatures club all packed up, weighed, and one step closer to ready to ship. I usually end up waiting until the last minute and then I don't ship them until super late in the month. Well, I haven't shipped them yet, likely will wait until sometime next week, but I got a nice head start on that job. And I am pretty pleased about it. Next week I will likely be able to talk myself into work on dolls again. And I will have a bit more to report on them then. Not a lot of it will be interesting, I am working on a batch of hunt seat dolls, but some dolls are better than no dolls.
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