Busy week

Okay blogging is addicting and it is a way to sometimes just just say what you want to say. This last week was pretty hectic. I can say that this semester has been 100% harder then last semester...I am still doing well and enjoying it but it is crazy busy! I was at a school for clinicals this week and I thought it was pretty much going to be a waste of time. When I thought of peds clinicals I was thinking Phoenix Children's Hospital, not an "inner-city" elementary school. But I was very surprised at how much I learned this week and also about myself...I CAN handle throw up being one of them. The children that I dealt with were very much in the lower class and poverty. Most of them had only one parent, or the grandparents were raising them. They didn't get showers very often, nor did they get routine vision, dental, or medical care. It was very sad to see because most of these children have no chance at a meaningful life. It's not their fault, it is the parents. I started realizing how important it is for children to have a loving mother and father and what a huge difference that makes in how a child grows up into an adult. There were some kids with what we view as a "normal" family, but they were definitely the minority. I could tell a huge difference in the way the home life defined these kids. The were shy, would not look you in the eye, and actually very easily agitated. They smelled bad because they were not taken care of. Surprisingly, the smell didn't bother me cause I felt so bad for these kids. I don't really remember having a headache as an elementary school kid but we saw headache after headache. It really made me look at my life and how lucky....and spoiled...I was to have the childhood I did. Every kid deserves a fair chance but for some reason it seems society and changed what they view as acceptable and normal. Single parent families are definitely so common that it has become normal. Too bad it is at the expense of children who have no control over their lives when they are so young.