We have a new girl at the hospital. I'd heard some interesting things about her past before I even met her. Apprently her mother had been whoring her out to her friends and her father now has custody. For the past year she's been taking some kind of medication that doesn't even have anything to do with her handicap.

She's MR, through and through. They say she's autistic, but I'd always associated autistics with being overly obsessed with one thing. From what I could tell, she's a walking vegetable. One only has to look her in the face to see that the hampster's dead but the wheel's still spinning. Her eyes are absolutely vacant, never focused on anything, maybe nothing. Despite this, she somehow manages to walk and eat her food. Lucky for her, the kids walk in a line when being escorted anywhere. She wont walk at all without some one next to her showing her where to go. I first noticed her chewing on her finger nervously. I was concerned that she was a biter, as most self destructive MR's are, but when I took a closer look, she had calluses on both her pointer fingers from the chewing. really odd.

We took all the kids out to the playscape and the swings. She walked over to the merry-go-round and sat down. I thought nothing of her until I saw her lean down a few minutes later and pick up a finch of sand and put it in her mouth. lol.....I didn't do anything at first, because...well..maybe she'd never seen sand before? What's wrong with a little taste test. I saw her get a bigger pinch and put it in her mouth. I jumped up and went over to her and tried to explain not to eat sand. She didn't even look up at me as I was talking to her. She reached down again to grab a pinch more. I grabbed her hand and walked her over to the swing set and swung with her for awhile to kinda distract her. After a minute or so, I got off to go inside to set up for showers.

Thirty minutes later when I came back, there was sand and drool ALL around her mouth. :X lol At that point, I was actually thankful that she was retarded, because the other kids were talking about her and she never knew the difference.

It was looking to be a pretty chill day, other than the sand eating and constantly telling the kids what to do and what not to do. It was time for night meds. Most of the kids are just starting antidepressants. If you know anything about these drugs, it's that they fuck with your serotonin, which in turn makes you kinda..hyper at times. They usually receive meds, right before they go to bed, that kinda help them sleep. So this is a VERY important part of the day. Sleepy pills and then shut the fuck up.

All the kids are lined up, taking their meds, and then getting in another line. This other line just happens to be right along the break room wall that's nothing but windows. This kid Marty gets his meds and then comes and get in line. He puts both his hands on the windows and starts banging his head on the window, softly at first. There's absolutely no talking while they're getting meds, so banging your head on the window = like shitting on your mom's face when she's asleep. Another staff tells him to "Stop it." and "Act your age." I tell Marty to stop too and he doesn't. I approached him and grabbed both his wrists. He immediately turns around, looking very angry, and says "Stop touching me." The kid's 11 and he's pissed me off....so no. lol I let go of him ask him if he's going to stop. He replies by putting his hands back on the window and banging his head again. I grabbed both his arms and put him in a personal resrtaint (holding his right arm to his left side and vise versa...like a straight jacket) and take him back to the unit. He's kicking like hell..lol I put him in the quiet room and he slammed his arms against the plexiglass over and over, screaming the whole time. The nurse came and gave him a shot. I could hear him sobbing minutes later after the nurse left. When he emerged 45 minutes later, he groggily apologized to me and went straight to bed.