A Day at Sunny Glen Part I

Do you think that we have dropped off the face of the earth? Almost, not quite! I've had busy times in my life but this tops them all. If we survive the summer, fall should be a breeze. As in any new job, there's lots of orientation and we still are working on state regs but, I think we might have checked them all off last night when we did an online course about "consenters/assent policies". Only our government could come up with a 45 minute program to tell you that children have a right to understand their medical treatment. Enough political commentary.

How about a day in the life of Ray and Nancy:

7:30 Time to greet the day. Make some coffee. Start pulling out cereal, bowls, cutting up fruit, making toast. If my early bird girl should not be up, I empty the d/w (we run it twice during the day - no paper plates). One of our girls likes to get up early so I told her if she would like to empty the d/w that could be one of our chores. The next morning I hear dishes rattling at 6:15. Quickly, I sent her back to bed till 7:30.
Officially, the girls can sleep till 8:00 - 8:30 and breakfast is not scheduled till 8:30 - 9:00. Now all but my teens (3) and one of my younger girls will be sitting at the counter by 8:00. I've tried in vain to convince the teens that this is a pretty generous schedule. The general population would love to sleep till 8:30. That I'm enjoying staying in bed till 7:30. Some things we just can't appreciate till we no longer have them.

8:00 -9:00 We serve breakfast and lunch at the counter. Our kitchen is large with the double counter down one side. Six girls can sit at the counter
and we can work in front of them. I find this gives me control of what they are eating and keeps down waste. Two things I quickly confiscated were the sugar bowl and the salt shaker...they were salting potato chips, well, maybe they had not gone that far...but salt on carrots?? They ask occasionally for salt, but seem to have accepted this.
I work on the chore list for the day. This summer I've decided to rotate assignments daily so all can participate in every job. After breakfast, rooms cleaned, bathrooms cleaned, teeth brushed, they start household chores. Their favorite chore is meal prep. They love to be in the kitchen with Ray actually participating in fixing their food and isn't it amazing how much more willing they are to try new foods if they have assisted in the preparation. We underestimate what children can do. I've demonstrated all the household tasks and they do an excellent job when they want to. Actually, our best bed maker is my youngest.
While, breakfast is progressing, Ray is working on the menu for the day. Starting whatever needs prepping. If it is Monday or Thursday, we are putting together our grocery list. That is one of the greatest fringes of this job, that I don't have to go into a grocery store!!!!!! Unless, you count our commissary which is the size of a 2 -3 car garage. I actually enjoy going down there. That's where we pick up our groceries. They are all bagged with our name on them. The frozen things are in the walk-in freezer and the refrigerator items are in the walk-in cooler. The commissary has our staples: flours, sugars, canned goods, boxed items, bacon, eggs, cheeses, toiletries, cleaning supplies, paper products, etc. Our grocery list is produce, meat, breads, dairy and misc. odd items.
I check daily schedules. The first week we were here with the girls there were 13 appointments on our calendar. This did not count 3 days of VBS for the younger children and 5 days of church work camp for the teens. I did right well, I only missed two of them. One was on campus and they called me to send the child and the other I had taken the children off campus and we missed it. These appointments are doctors, dentists, vision care, counseling, tutoring, and family visits. Ray and I do not have to do all the transporting. There are a couple of people on campus whose job descriptions are gopher who help out in this. Also, the houseparents do some hook-ups. The good news is that the office gives us our schedules for the week with the designated drivers, so we don't have to spend time working on it.
Got the grocery list done. Checked the schedule. No one has to be ready for anything until 10:00 so, I will start a load of laundry. We have 2 mammoth washers and dryers. The girls all have laundry hampers, so I do one girl at a time. Figuring whose clothes are whose could be a full time detective job. We have a lot of, "she's got on my shorts." Why do you have on her shorts? "She gave them to me." Why are you telling me that she has on your shorts if you gave them to her? "I only loaned them, I want them back." One of the rules we were told to enforce was no swapping clothes. My thoughts were what harm could that be? HA! NO SWAPPING CLOTHES, NO BORROWING CLOTHES, NO GIVING CLOTHES AWAY WITHOUT GOING THROUGH ME!!!!
Laundry's started. I will walk up to the office to take the grocery list and my bills that need to go out. We have a mail basket there where we pick up our incoming mail and accounting misc. Now I will walk to the Learning Center to our other mail drop. This has to do with schedules and clinical/academic info about the girls. Back to the house.
Shoo the laggers away from the counter. Some would love to sit and eat all day long. Check to see that everyone is engaged in taking care of their rooms, dressing, teeth brushing, etc.

Now I've sat too long. We don't have anything too pressing this morning and we are experiencing our first rain since we came. So it is overcast and none of the girls are stirring at 8:00...most unusual. I need to pull on some clothes and get in motion. Think I will let sleeping girls stay down for a bit.

More to come. Please continue to pray for us and our work here. Pray for our girls Sandra, Amber, Alexis, Vanessa, Pearl, Jewell, Trinity, Anika, and Aisha. Yes, that's 9 - we have an extra for 3 weeks. They have more struggles and challenges and baggage in their young lives then most of us will have in our entire lifespan. Love to all of you. N