On Great Weeks.

When [it] was good, [it] was very good indeed
And when [it] was bad, [it] was horrid.

(Adapted from "There Was a Little Girl" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

"It" = my job. This week was really, really great. There are lots of reasons why. Maybe if I list them I can have another week just like this one sometime.

1// I decided to embrace my night schedule instead of feel sad about it. Right now, I'm working primarily with non stay-at-home parents (translation: if I want to be doing in-home therapy with them, I have to sacrifice my evening hours). This week, I just embraced it. I enjoyed my non-working daytime hours more. I also spread out my appointments more so I wasn't running frantically to and from appointments and I was actually able to take advantage of the opportunity to stretch out my appointments with clients.

2// I got a new family on my caseload, and I adore them. They are Cubans, and they are straight out of my dreams. We are working through a traumatic event, and tweaking some parenting stuff, but all the basic love/support/cohesiveness stuff is there already. And we have a blast together. Yesterday they made me FLAN! Best work surprise, ever. They may be the biggest reason I am feeling so much better about work this week.

[source]

3// I did fun stuff with my clients. Sometimes I get into such a rut of just talking with them. Talking, and making behavior plans, and following up. This week, I played football with a 7 year old and then we sat on the grass and talked. This week, I went into a high school (I felt like such an imposter!), attended a meeting, went to class with a special-needs client, made connections with teachers and school officials, and helped her create a system for identifying her emotions at the beginning of each class period and then using a plan to address the negative ones (we are working to decrease her occasional blow-ups). This week, I played the "thimble game" with one family and I played Jenga with two families. This week, I was assertive with one of my somewhat-flaky clients and I agreed to follow up with her daily about whether she was following through on her parenting goals.

I want to remember to have weeks like this more often, because it is awesome.