ECP1001: Final Day.

On Wednesday I finally completed my last day of the practicum. I am so relieved to have had all my paperwork done and completed it as I can then finally move up to concentrate on the second professional experience, ECP1002.

I came in at 8.30am this morning. When I came in, I told the director that I wanted to work with the infants in the nursery room. Which I did. The reason I wanted to it is because I would not have any opportunity to do so when I start with the second professional experience. Freed from paperwork, it allowed me the opportunity to actually explore working with the babies.

Today, I did not change any nappies. Somehow, I was feeling more lethargic today. I do not know the reason for it though, but I just was. There were about six babies today: Kieran,Lorrain, Phoenix, Isaac, Rohan, Emmi, Louis. Today is the first time I actually had all of them crying at the same time. I was such a shock that I did not know what to do or how to handle them!

Today, I fed the babies. The meal was a mixture made of powdered cereal (mashed fruit of some sort, milk &parsley).After a while, I was able to gauge whether the infants had enough to eat, as they would use their hands to push it away, or they will move their face away.

I also fed two of the babies with their milk bottles. One was a 4 month old baby, and the other almost a year old.
I even burped the 4 month old baby. It was most exciting for me, as it was my first time burping a baby, and you could hear the "gurgle" of the sound from the baby when it burped! It sounded really cute! I was actually rather afraid to feed it as it looked rather delicate, and I did not dare to hold it as I thought I might accidentally drop it or hurt it in some way!

One of the older babies was breastfed. One of the staff would inform the the mother to come in, and the mother would come in during a break in her work time to come in to feed the baby. I was most surprised, as the mother was most elegantly dressed and very elegantly coloured hair. Anyone would be surprised if she told a stranger that she actually breastfed her children, as she didn't look it.

Today my lunch was rice with soya sauce chicken and some vege. Isn't it strange that bringing strange things that invoke the beginnings of strange conversational topics? Renni (who is Pakistani) asked me how I cooked my rice, and this led to a conversation on brown rice by one of the other staff, and how healthy it is.

Another thing that I discussed with another TAFE student on pract, was about hair dyes and the UnderWater World. It was interesting as he told me that the TAFE had a hair academy (which I should have figured out sooner, that if TAFE have hair academies, they obviously would have students doing student services and charging low rates for that as well!)