I'm convinced that the people I work with on a regular basis should have no stock in childcare, be it normal children or the mentally retarded or insane. There's only so many people that work on my shift and the three that I normally work with are three fat black women. They're all loud, they all have quick tongues, and they don't take shit from anybody, leave it alone that these are children they're snapping at all day. Sometimes they seriously make the situation worse than it has to be. The children should be easy to control, but with them being loud and foul mouthed, the children see that they have free reign to do what they want sometimes. Today felt like one of those days.

I was put on a 1:1 with the naked kid. This kid has been at the hospital way too long, but he's still fucking there. Everyday I'm greeted with his shiny fat face and that distant yet precise look in his eyes. The first thing he does is ask me if he can have candy. Apparently each of the 10 kids on the unit had Halloween bags in the nurse's station, decorated by them and precariously but safely resting on the highest shelf in the room. All the kids lined up and we took them to the rec area. There's a big ass tv that they can watch cartoons on, a couple pool tables, a PS2, shit like that. My kid starts playing on the Ps2, so I'm given the chance to boss the other kids around while the game consol babysitter takes hold. Elmo and some other kids were all playing pool. Elmo is so fucking argumentative with everybody that he has made no friends, ever. The kid's just out right miserable with life. He constantly smells like piss. No soap can save him. Since he pisses his peers off alot, they make fun of his name. We looked in the chart for his middle name, thinking we could call him by that, but he hasn't one.

His mother named him Elmo and then gave him no middle name.

Let's just...rest on that one for a second.



*sigh* ok. So they're playing pool and fighting. Then one of my coworkers, who has no patience for anything, pisses him off by saying he can't play anymore because he's arguing too much. Now...he was arguing too much over stupid little shit...but..surely a compromise could be made?....Because....we started walking in on him when we saw that he was getting out of control..and he fucking took off running..lol down the hallway. I was fucking hauling ass after him, keys jingling, paperwork flying off my clipboard. It was in the rec area too ;x so a lot of visitin parents saw the whole ordeal. Tres chic, darling. He can't really..go anywhere...the whole place is locked down. So I find him in a corner by the teenage girl's unit. We have to drag him around the corner and down the hall. It was.....an experience to say the least.

All the dayrooms have big furniture. It's easy to wipe down, hard to pick up, very bulky, very heavy. When we have a bunch of patients, sometimes there aren't enough chairs for staff, so people take chairs out of the nurse's station. That particular situation happened today. After getting Elmo back to the unit, he immediately ran from us again and pick up the chair and threw it. We took him into the quiet room and he screamed and banged up against the window a few times. *sigh* really old, that sound. We finally talked him down and calmed him without any meds and took him back to the rec area. While in the quiet room, he told us that he hates himself and he hates his name. He never knew his mother, he was taken away by CPS when he was only a few months old. Anytime anyone tells him no to anything he flips out. Really strange kid. There's restraint 1.

Once back in the rec area. I sat and watched my 1:1 again. This time he was playing pool and he asked me to be his partner. Another kid we have there, I'll call him Scott, is another one who can't handle "no." Scott looks like satan when he gets mad. His entire face contorts into the most miserable expression a child could make. He just looks like he's about to snap at any second. The miraculous thing about it though is that he can hold it for a long time, sometimes 30 minutes depending. Lately, I've noticed that he's been twisting his hair on the back of his head. He does it for awhile, twisting it all around in a big knot. He's been told over and over now for the past couple days not to do it. When we catch him doing it, we tell him to take the knot out. The spot now is very brittle and dry. It's very visible that he's...doing this. lol I told him that if he didn't stop doing it that we could get a doctor's order to shave his head. He got so mad.....*devil face*

So we're playing pool and he wants to play too. I tell him to move away from the table, so people can shoot and stuff. The kid was in the fucking way, man. He keeps telling me "I just want to watch." He ends up grabbing a ball as it's rolling across the table. Twice. I was kicking major ten year old mentally ill children here and this little fucking kept just..pissing me off. And because I was pissing HIM off, he started twisiting his hair....lol So..he, like Elmo, had to be taken back to the unit to the quiet room. There's restraint 2.

Dinner was awesome today. Since it's halloween, some of the staff that weren't scheduled came in today and brought a grill. They cooked hotdogs and hamburgers, chilli and fries for the whole center. I ate 3 hotdogs throughout the shift. ;X *fat*

We took the kids back to the unit and we watched Ghost Busters 2. *rolls eyes* we did showers and everything...Then it was..around betime when Tod flipped out. Tod's the one that made the imaginary roommate out of his pillow and pillowcase. The bitches I work with love Tod. They shower affection all over this kid because he's so cute and just..says some of the most funny outlandish shit. I don't know wtf happened tonight, but one of the girl's was pissed off by Tod and sent him to his room. I'd just put my 1:1 to bed and was sitting by his door waiting for him to go to sleep when I saw Tod pop his head out of his door and call one of the staff a bitch. He was saying it over and over again, overly pronouncing the 'tch' sound like a true child first trying out of the word. They took Tod to the quiet room and I could hear him screaming. Bitch this bitch that. Tod is 7. They told him that they were getting him a shot and he started crying and screaming. "I don't want a shot. I don't want a shot." I could see him through the crack of the open quiet room, on the floor on his knees, face red and the perfect shape of despair; broken. Tod is in CPs custody. Tod's home right now is the hospital.

Right around this time is when my 1:1 started being a jackass. *rolls eyes* He's so dramatic. As soon as Tod started his fit, I guess he decided he wanted a little attention. I think he seriously gets off on being restrained. He's on 1:1 for sexual activity and assualt. He starts breathing all heavy and humping his bed. I ask him to stop for the sake of...oh..i dunno..humoring myself really. Nothing I can say can stop him really. It takes physical force. He's humpgin his stuffed animal= a big dog. He starts doing the "yeah baby yeah baby" and breathing all heavy and shit. So gross. Myself and a female staff picked him up and took him to the other quiet room. He beats on the door window for awhile. The doctor orders him a shot and we have to hold him down. I'm laying on his legs, so he wont kick too much, my face 5 inches from his fat ass as the nurse pulls down his shorts and gives him the shot. He's screaming the whole time.

Just as all that was ending, in walks VHS boy. He's been a repeat patient for years now. It was really no surprise to see him back. He walked onto the unit with a very chipper attitude, he was even talking somewhat, repeating things people were saying. A little recap on VHS boy is that he's autistic and obsessed with VHS tapes. He's stolen them from people's homes and when he gets angry, he's very aggressive and assaultive. He doesn't talk much, just pops and buzzes and whiring sounds come out of his mouth. As soon as he got on the unit, he went straight to 'his room' or what was his room before...he was deemed sane enough to leave. It just so happened that it was my 1:1's room now. After VHS boy was directed out of the room, he went to the day area and tried to open the cabinet to get to the tapes. I was yelling for other staff across the way as I saw him make his way over to the unlocked tv cabinet. He's one swift fucker too. They put him in the bathtub and washed him off. He smelled terrible. I read his chart again before I left. This time he's been send to us for trying to burn his house down. He's just turned 9.