Psychology Assignment 2

So it has been one week since we've started training the cat to give her some more exercise. It's been going well! I started with blowing a whistle, shaking a treat bag and rewarding her when she gets to the top with two kitty treats (not sure if I mentioned the amount before).

After one week, we've cut the bag shaking out. Now we blow the whistle, and reward her with only one treat when she gets to the top. She seemed to be a little confused at first, with the missing sound of the bag, but when we blow the whistle she'll react as planned.

I'm a little amazed at how easy it has been to teach this old cat new tricks. She's got a bit more spring in her step too, and doesn't spend as much time napping under the bed. Hopefully when we keep this up, she'll feel young again (and not look so much like a pudgy raccoon).

Psychology Assignment 1

For the next 7 posts I will be completing an assignment for school. It has to do with psychology in my life and how I perceive it. So please, have patience with me. I will get back to our regular scheduled blogging about random things shortly! Thanks guys!

Classical Conditioning

A quick definition of classical conditioning is: two stimuli are presented together over and over, until the response given to one becomes associated with the other.

We have two cats, Goblin and Tootsie, both are pretty good cats, but Gobber's has become a little lazy in her old age (14 years old now). So our task for the next week or two is to see if we can train her to run up and down her kitty climber when we blow a whistle.

She usually runs up and down it a couple times a day, but I want her to get up it 4-5 times a day for some exercise. I'm starting slow, by rewarding her with a treat each time she does it.

The way the sequence will work, she'll be at the climber of her own choice, I'll blow the whistle and shake the treat bag, when she gets to the top she'll get a treat. We'll repeat this for a week and then try it without shaking the treat bag.

I'll update next week!

Semester 2!

So I've now finished the first three weeks of Semester 2. This program has a pretty heavy course load, but I'm finally working at the Hospital so it's sooooooo much nicer!
I have class Mondays from 8am-12pm, an hour break, 1-3pm, an hour break and then 4-5pm (communications, which I loathe, but it's an easy credit and I have no choice lol). Tuesdays I'm off! Wednesdays I've got clinical at the hospital on the dialysis unit from 7am-7pm, it should be pretty interesting! Thursdays I've got class from 8am-12pm, a two hour break then class from 2-5pm. Finally on Friday I've got class from 10-11am a two hour break and then class from 1-5pm. (Classes are a mix of lectures, seminars and labs). It's going to be fun come exam time.... :(
In total I'm taking 8 different classes. The labs are pretty fun, skills lab is great, we get to learn and practice everything before we have to do it on real patients, mandatory pass for tests and exams though, if you flunk one you're out of the program.Mister M is back at school and he is loving it. He has had some issues at his after school program though. There is a little girl (a year or so older than he) who is a bully. She's been calling him chubby, and making up rhymes about him. It's gotten worse with winter because he has a puffy coat to keep warm and she's an obnoxious little brat and uses that as fodder. I finally had enough and went to talk to the program ladies. They had no idea, so they said they would keep an eye on it (back in November). It started up again, but this time Mister M was brave and was able to tell the ladies himself (with some support from mama bear of course). They had a meeting with the brat and Mister M and it seems to have resolved itself. I'm still keeping a close eye on the situation though. I will not tolerate a bully of any sort... especially one who's targeting my kid. D-Man has finally completely accepted his daycare lot in life. He fusses when I drop him off but there are almost no more tears, and he's made some little friends which is super cute too. He's starting to talk more now, and clearly. I was a little surprised by how long it's taken him to start, Mister M was talking at 6 months old (didn't crawl or walk until after 1 though) and D-Man is way more physical. He still babbles a lot, but he's getting real words in there now!
I'm pretty sure I've lost my mind... I went out, and as a spur of the moment surprise bought the boys a drum set and a guitar... it's loud lol. They love it, Mister M is the guitarist and D-Man the drummer, they have quite the little jam sessions!We're moving March 1st!!! (well we get the keys then, but we'll be in Jamaica until the 4th lol). We've found an awesome house to rent! It's got three bedrooms, kitchen, living and dining room. Full bathroom, backyard, deck and GARAGE!!! It's a side split house, so the basement has a small two piece bathroom, storage, laundry room, back entrance and rec room which we are turning into a bachelor apartment for my brother. He'll share the kitchen and shower with us, and I'll share the laundry and storage with him. It's perfect, and the landlords are awesome. The rent is good too considering we get a whole house (and rent in Peterborough is on par with Toronto for some reason) $1280++ a month which I've budgeted to be about $1700 a month (any extras going into the emergency fund). I can't wait to get in and start decorating! The landlords even said they would pay for all the paint and supplies if we do the work which is perfect! The only downside is it's across town from where we are now, putting us out of Mister M's school zone, but since I drive him there and back every day I don't see how him staying there would be a problem.

Christmas 2011

Well it's now December 28 and our Christmas celebrations are now over! The boys had a wonderful time this year!
On Christmas Eve we went out for a fancy dinner with my Dad, brother, sister and her fiancée, my other sister and my Nan (my dad's mom). We went to Element's restaurant in Peterborough. It was really nice. D-Man and I split pork tenderloin stuffed with roasted chestnuts, on a bed of apple coulis with seasonal vegetables. Mister M had some delicious grouper (fish) breaded with panko and miso, served with broad beans and rice. For dessert we had a chocolate mousse cake served with a blackberry sauce... sooooo good! We exchanged gifts there too.Then when we got home the boys got to open our traditional Christmas eve presents, new PJ's and a Christmas book to read together. This year's book was Dr Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas. One of my favourites! The boys loved it too.


Then Christmas morning they got up and opened their stockings. I'm not sure if Mister M really believes in Santa, or just the magic but he was sooooo excited to get what he had asked for. {In our house Santa only fills the stockings, nothing else. They get to ask for 1 smaller thing from him in their letter/e-mail and that's what they will get sitting beside their stocking on the couch. I do this because I don't want my kids to feel bad for not getting an Xbox from Santa when the bully down the street does. I also want them to be grateful for all the love and time their friends and family put into choosing the perfect gift for them.}We then had the entire day to sit around and wait. My sister and her fiancée had Christmas morning at his grandparents, my mom was sleeping (she works nights) and my dad had to work until 4 (turns out he was an hour late too). So we waited until everyone was there before starting gifts.The boys had a great time! D-Man really got the hang of ripping the paper off of the presents! Mister M got pretty much everything he asked for, and then some! They were pretty spoiled!D-Man really didn't understand the whole Christmas thing yet, but Mister M made sure to thank everyone for their gifts and hug them when he was excited!

Collages

So every year for my guy's birthdays I make a collage. It features every birthday they've had (or in D-Man's case every 3 months). It's crazy to see how much they've grown while still staying them. I just wanted to share them with you! Enjoy!


They sure don't stay babies for long.

End of Sem 1 and start of Xmas!

Semester 1 is finally over! It was brutal, class from 8-3 Monday, Tuesday, class from 8-4 Wednesday and placement Thursday and Friday from 6am-2pm. And of course final exams were all pretty much on the same day lol. I don't think I did too bad, I went into everything already passing the course, so that's not the issue. But I want Dean's list, which means I need an 80% average, which is my usual lowest mark, but now with the two kids and the stress from my family being stupid and useless it's been harder to study. We'll see next week!
The boys and I have been getting ready for Christmas, still have some outside decorating to do later today, but since this global warming thing keeps happening, there' no snow!!! Since I live in central Ontario we usually have some by now, but I'm not complaining. If there is no snow all year that would be perfect for me!D-Man has been really good with the tree, he had some grabs at it while we were decorating, but since then hasn't touched it. I'm really impressed since he's pretty evil and usually does the opposite of whatever you ask him to do (which bodes well for the teenage years). Mister M has picked out our decorating colours this year, we usually do red and gold but he has decided that they aren't' christmassy enough so this year it's red and green, with a splash of gold.I'm sending the boys to daycare all next week so that I have some time to get the presents wrapped, clean the house, do my baking and try to get over this brutal cold that I managed to fight off until school was over, but is now attempting to kill me.I don't have my full schedule for next semester, but from what I can see it's pretty dumb, huge breaks in between classes, staying until 5pm most days, two days of placement at a hospital, I'm hoping for the one in town but my luck I'll be sent to the one 45 minutes away. We shall see I suppose.I'm going to be posting a bit more this week, tons of news to catch up on!

Halloween, School and Placement

Well my attempts to blog more during reading week were a bust. On the plus side, I almost got caught up with laundry and sorting out old clothes that don't fit, I scraped wallpaper and painted a bathroom, and I did my assignments, homework and studied. So it's not that bad.I took the boys out for Halloween trick-or-treating this year, they both had a ton of fun! I even dressed up too. Mister M was a scary vampire, D-Man was froda... Yoda with a 'fro, and I was a witch. They got tons of candy!I've been back at school for two weeks now, and started my new placement. I'm at a long term care facility, and so far so good. I'm on the locked ward where all the dementia patients are, and I like being able to help them, but it's so unbelievably sad. I want to cry everyday when I leave. They're scared, confused, want to go home, don't know who they are or even when they are. I talked to one little lady who was telling me all about how she needs to find her keys so she can go home and take care of her mother, who's been dead for 20+ years. Another is scared of everyone in uniform and begs to be allowed to leave. Some are really sweet though, tell you they love you and give hugs and kisses. Some are crabby and hit and slap, fight you when they don't like what you're doing. It's just sad. I think dementia is the absolute worst disease you can get. When you get that old, everyone you know is either gone or going and all you have left are your memories, and they're stolen from you along with your freedom and your mobility. It's the absolute definition of unfair.
Mister M will be 6 years old soon! I've got all his presents ready, his party booked and his birthday dinners scheduled. He's one spoiled big boy that's for sure!
I've got tons of assignments and tests coming up so I'm not expecting to be able to get on to blog all that much, I'm going to try though, so hopefully I'll have a few more before the end of the month!