Middle O' June

I gots some catching up to do! I'm probably going to be back dating some posts, for the boys' birthdays, Bo's baptism, etc---so if you see random stuff popping up, pay no mind to my beautiful procrastination/cram session. It's how I do.

Last night we were at some friend's house watching a movie in their backyard with their new projector. It was really fun. As I was sitting there snuggled up with J, Avee, and Danyo every other minute, I was thinking what a wonderful weekend we'd had. I love to get things accomplished, but I REALLY love to relax and unwind, and this weekend was a perfect combination of both. Another friend threw an amazing pirate party for two of her kids at our house. Probably one of the most creative and fun parties I've ever been to. Heh, I didn't even have to go to it, she brought it to me. So, out of that party we got a delish lunch, I got a cleaned up yard, and the house was in great shape. Yeehaw! All our work was done by 10am. Beautiful.

This morning Bo started a "Kids University". He's going to a magnets class and an H2o class. He was so cute this morning. He was so tired from our late movie night, but so excited to start his program, there was a very long pause between anything I said and any response he gave. At one point he even said, "Hang on, I need to let those words go through my head a little longer before I can answer." I had noticed that all of his thrusters weren't firing yet, but to hear him describe it was particularly enjoyable for me.

I am halfway through a really hectic month. I'm taking a 3 credit class and three 1 credit classes, all in the month of June. The one credit classes I don't have to buy texts or take any tests, but they are all day, for two full days. I think school has abolished my social life. Sometimes that makes me sad. Mostly I just want to hunker down and get through this. I'm learning so much great stuff, I don't want to miss the experience for too much hunkering down. :)

Lately, just in the past week I've felt disenchanted with the "counseling industry". I always do stuff like this, and then I get over it. In one of my classes there are two students who are doing continuing ed credits, they've already graduated the program and are counselors in nearby schools. And they are totally rude and condescending to other students and disrespectful to the teacher (she's a bit of a flibberty-gibbit, I'll admit), and all in all, just really embarrassing representatives of the profession. In my humble opinion.

Yesterday in my ethics class I, and another girl who started the program with me in January, had to do some role-playing scenarios. Everyone else in the class is either done with the program or quite close to done. Pretending to be a counselor, facing an ethical issue doesn't phase them a bit. It terrified us. My classmate did a really good job with a fake scenario of a client asking to borrow money. In my opinion, a client that isn't clear on that boundary would actually need to be spoken to pretty directly, which she did. She was kind and direct. I thought she did an excellent job. And truly, neither of us know a thing about how to conduct a session, what approaches should be taken, how to word things "properly", etc. I watched two girls in front of me basically ripping her up one side and down the other for her not saying, "oh sweetie, I'm sorry money is tight, I understand things are hard, I empathize with you, but..." She simply said, "I'm sorry, I'm not able to help you, I have a code of ethics as a counselor that I have to adhere to and...." First of all, IT'S FAKE and second of all---how is being all judgmental and catty to a peer any more professional or educated? It made me sad. I made a very deliberate comment about how I felt a more direct response was necessary with a client that unclear on client/counselor boundaries. I hope they burned in shame at my indirect condemnation.

Heh. Just kidding.

I shouldn't be surprised though. The one making all the faces of horror during my friend's scenario, was the same girl who thought a 13 year old boy engaging in random sexual acts with older men had a right to privacy and his parents didn't need to know. Another classmate referred to his behavior as Russian roulette and she told him that was "a little overly-dramatic". Um, remind me never to send my child to you, crazy-every-body-is-equal girl! Whoops? Am I being judgmental? My bad....

June 29th is my final, J's birthday, our anniversary, and the day we head out of town for our family vacation. It's really the first one we've ever taken, in 9 years. Two years ago I drove to Utah with the kids, without J. We were gone for over two weeks and during that time, J got 1 of 2 reactions from people when they heard I'd taken the kids and gone to Utah without him. One was, "Oh wow, are things okay?" and the other was, "Dude! How did you score THAT!?" Mostly other men asked the latter.

Maybe I'll go work on my backdated posts now. It's now 6 am Tuesday morning and I suspect I have the house and solitude all to myself for at least another hour.