WIC Rotation Ending

My short lived WIC rotation is coming to an end. I really enjoyed working with the girls at my site, especially because they allowed me to work as an employee rather than just observe as a student. I had the opportunity to take height and weight on infants, children and pregnant moms, check iron and facilitate nutrition classes. During my three weeks I also made this snazzy bulletin board for one of the lab rooms. The site I was placed at has a lot of Spanish speaking clients, which is why you see English and Spanish titles. Wish I had kept up with my Spanish from the classes I took so long ago... Would have been really beneficial.

So far my time at the meal delivery site has gone fairly smoothly. I mentioned before I was worried about returning, but so far it's been good. We went out to visit clients in their home and this time I was in charge of the assessment. It is a completely different approach from what I am used to in the hospital setting. We try to have a conversation with the client to gather information rather than an "interview" of question: answer, which is much more difficult than I thought. The dietitian I went out with for my first face to face client visits provided me with great tips and tricks and commended me on my Vitamin K/Coumadin drug/nutrient interaction. :) I really enjoyed taking the lead on the visits. The week prior we made phone calls to check up on clients that the dietitians had visited face to face, which only took the first few to get back into the groove of phone calls.

Week two of our six week cooking class also went well. We had a lot more attend this class. (I think the rain/bad weather week 1 convinced some participants to stay home) The stir fry recipe we made was good and I plan on making the sauce at home. The great thing about the recipes we prepare is that they don't require a great amount of ingredients and can be made with typical pantry staples. (No crazy hard to find ingredients such as: chile de arbol, sambar powder, or soy lecithin granules)

On a personal note, in relation to the comment above, I've been trying to make 1 new recipe each week. Many of the cookbooks we received for our wedding have not been put to as much use as I had originally intended, so I'm really trying to bring them out this year. Some of the cookbooks have some crazy ingredients that I have never heard of or would even know where to begin looking for. I also don't have the time/energy to make a recipe that calls for 20+ ingredients. Some of the winners include: Lemon Chicken (Barefoot Contessa), Honey-Balsamic Sweet Potatoes (Williams Sonoma),  Island (Jerk) Chicken and Pineapple (Sandra Lee) and Crock Pot Chicken Pot Pie (Real Simple Magazine). Andy's really enjoying being my taste tester!


~Brittani

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." ~Proverbs 16:3

Getting Into the Swing of Things

Our second week back, we spent quite a lot of time with the TCU Career Services on Cover Letter, Resume and Interviewing tips, tricks and techniques. The career advisor for the Science and Engineering school is awesome and she provided us with a lot of helpful information. It makes me nervous though for applying to jobs, going through the interview process and the waiting game to hear if you got it or not. I really don't want to think about it!


This is how I'm going to feel while on the job hunt

I have a mock interview scheduled with them next week, in which we will be interviewing with our career advisor, while being videotaped, and then we have to review it and write up a summary of how we think it went. (I really don't like watching myself on film, awkward...)

My small group is coordinating the luncheon at the end of the semester to thank all of our current and previous preceptors for giving us the opportunity to work with them. I think we were all very excited to hear that we would be directing that. Planning on going with an island/carribean/rainforest theme. (Jerk chicken, grilled pineapple, possible bananas foster) Still a lot of time until this takes place, so more details later.
 

Jerk Chicken and Pineapple, yum yum!

Started at WIC this week. I haven't decided yet if this rotation makes me excited to have kids or want to push them off until later. The babies are really cute, but when you have several of them crying in a large room with no audio absorbing material... OMG!! I've seen some not even a week old come in with their mom. We even had a young mom come into the clinic who didn't know she was pregnant until she was in the delivery room. She stated she went into the hospital on Saturday for foot issues and next thing she knew she was in the delivery room delivering a child. I could not imagine... Makes me think of that show "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant" and that I thought all the individuals were just embellishing, but apparently it really does happen.

I did have the opportunity to sit in with the Breastfeeding Counselor and listen to her discuss the importance and benefits of breastfeeding. Being an advocate myself I really enjoyed hearing more about it.

A good website with more info for anyone interested here: www.breastmilkcounts.com

This rotation also provided a good chunk of reading homework to look through; all about pregnancy, breastfeeding, infant and child nutrition and feeding tips and tricks. There's a DVD in there too. So after only one week I'm set and much more knowledgeable about having a kid myself. (However, that's still a few years off, no Junior Castles running around yet, still have to see how the pet test goes first!)

As I have said before, this first part of the semester we are all over Fort Worth. In addition to the sites discussed above, the six week cooking class session started this past week and we have a great group of participants and the food we prepared was really good! Our first cooking class was a hit: Veggie Quesadillas, yum :) We did run over the allotted time a little bit, but we were just having too much fun.

The days are going by way too fast and I feel this semester is going to fly by! With all the discussions on graduation and the RD exam, I have already begun to have nightmares about not completing my requirements, failing the exam or not knowing any of the answers to the questions. I really hope they don't last.
~Brittani

"Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him." ~Psalm 127:3