Potty Time!

I have had quite a few emails and questions concerning me starting up my own business so I thought I would give you the quick version of what I have been up to. As many of you know I am a Licensed Educational Psychologist. I work 2 days a week as a school psychologist in the public schools but with my license I have the ability to open my own private practice. While developing my website and literature for marketing I was given a contact from a good friend of a child advocate attorney. I scheduled a meeting with her and had no idea what to expect. After talking with her about what she does and the needs the court systems has for someone with my skills, we came up with this Educational Custody Evaluation. It basically is an educationally based eval that focuses on a dispute or question that affects minors involved in custody situations. For example, if one parent wants their kid to go to the school by their house and the other doesn't think the kid can handle the change, I would come in and evaluate the situation and then make recommendations to the courts. It expands to one parent thinking the other parent is not keeping up with their responsibilities (not having kid do homework or late to school or just being flaky) and subsequently the student is doing poorly in school. I would either be hired by one party and do the eval to bolster their case or I would be ordered by the judge to do the eval to help the judge rule on the case. That is a very quickly explanation but basically that is the eval.

So, I have been meeting with the child advocate attorney and I developed these awesome trifolds and marketing literature and this past Tuesday night I met with a bunch of attorneys to market my eval. They all were very receptive and liked my product. The next morning (Wednesday) I met with one of the judges at the court in our city and she too was very receptive and loved my product. I plan to do a lot more marketing and thought it would take a while till I got my first call but all of a sudden on Friday morning I got a call from an attorney who had just been in front of the judge (the one I had spoke with) and the judge had ordered the attorneys to have my eval done. They gave the attorneys my trifold and now I have my first case.

I am totally excited about this whole thing and I am mostly thrilled that there seems to be a need that I am filling within the courts. Anyway, this first eval will be difficult because I am forging a totally new path but I am motivated and have literally worked all weekend long on creating my parent and teacher questionnaires (specific to this eval. I have my school district ones but these have to be totally different) and release of confidential info. Literally my whole weekend has been spent doing this but I am really excited so I have no problem spending all this time on this. Anyway, for all you who were interested, there it was. For you who were not, sorry for the long post-- :)

OK, I know these pictures are a little bit questionable but if you are wondering what Miss Mia is up to these days, here is what she loves to do-- sit on the potty. She strips the whole bottom half of her outfit off and takes off her own diaper and then literally climbs up onto the potty. She absolutely REFUSES to let you help her in anyway and she must do everything from climbing up to wiping to flushing all by herself. Holy Cow Little Miss Independent!! Anyway, I know these pictures might be in poor taste but they are so what Mia is up to right now. This was Mia after she woke up this morning-- note the crazy bed hair!!

And the climb begins

Positioning herself just so

And she is on

Smiles for the crazy mommy taking pictures of her daughter on the toilet

Needing some TP

And the dismount

It really is quite funny to watch her do this. By the way, while on the potty, she does nothing. She does not pee or poo she just sits there and then wipes. I think of it as training time but she totally does not do anything-- totally funny!!

Sorry to be kind of absent this week. I have been really busy with work and I have been not only a bad blogger but a really bad blogger friend. I am so sorry I have not been on all of your blogs much but work has been really demanding. Usually I work 2 days a week and I ended up working almost everyday last week. Another psychologist in our district is out on medical leave right now so we other psychs are having to pick up the slack and then my business is really getting going. I met with a judge this week and a bunch of attorneys and my evaluation seems to really be a needed product but also most of them were very excited about the possibility of using me. Anyway, I met with the judge this past Wednesday and on Friday I got a call from an attorney who said the judge ordered their client to have one of my evaluations done! My first client!!!! I am just so excited!! I have a lot of work to do but I am just thrilled that what I have spent so much time working on and creating really based on a leap of faith is needed, useful and that people will use me. I am thrilled! So, I need to go so I can start working on getting all my ducks in a row.

Have a great weekend!!