I heart my clients (most of the time)

The best thing about working with kids is the unpredictability of what they will say and when they will say it. They don't have that social etiquette filter yet, and just say what they think. No two days with a client are the same because of this.

I have a client who I have been seeing for over a year. She turned 6 over the summer. We've been through quite a bit together and next week will be my last week seeing her, so I am cherishing time with her. I pick her up from her house and take her to the DCFS office to meet every week. Now, although she is six, she is delayed in speech and functions more at a 4 or 5 year old level. So over the last few months she has really come into her verbal reasoning skills, which has made her so much easier and more fun to work with.

Today, we had gotten out of the car and were walking toward the door of the office. She was telling me about something that had happened at home, when all of a sudden two motorcycles went roaring by. I could just barely hear her say, "I can't hear you. Can you hear me?" I said, "No" which I think she saw me mouth. Just as the motorcycles went by she said really loudly (kind of like in the moment in a crowd of people when everyone seems to go silent at the same time and you are left saying something really loudly because of it) "Can you hear me now?!" I laughed and said yes and than she continued with her story as if we weren't interrupted.

Than as we were getting back into the car, she asked if I had music in my car (I generally turn the radio off when clients are in the car so that they are more likely to talk). I said I had a radio and she asked if we could turn it on and I said no, but she could sing a song if she wanted to. There was a slight pause and than she said, "No, I can only sing in blue cars!" My car, amazingly enough, is not blue.

And when I told her that next week will be our last week to meet, she said with a really sad voice, "But I will miss you." Much better than when she used to scream "I hate you!" when I would go to see her at school at the beginning of last school year. :)