The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. –William James

I'm pretty fascinated by infants. One day working with them is never the same as the next; we are all continually learning together. Happy infants emanate pure joy which, of course, everyone loves and appreciates. But I'm sure you're all also familiar with this feeling: the infant's mouth starts to pucker, eyes go squinty, and all of a sudden she's crying. Oh no! What's wrong? What do we do?? Hearing an infant cry triggers a physiological fear response in adults by activating the amygdala, the same region of the brain that is triggered by car alarms and sirens. It is stressful, especially when it happens in the middle of the night or when you also have a two-year-old running around or when two or three infants are doing it at once.

So what thoughts can we choose that will help us mitigate this stress? Personally my response to crying starts with observation and logic: Am I seeing any clear signs of basic needs (food, sleep, diaper change, pain)? I also rely on my knowledge of the infant's daily schedule and how their day has gone so far, in addition to emotional attunement: maybe the child hasn't completely recovered from a scary fall 20 minutes ago, or she is feeling insecure about something in her immediate surroundings. As I am considering these things, I am also empathetically acknowledging the child's cries verbally, with eye contact, and with physical comfort if appropriate. Sometimes that is all it takes to help her feel better. But if not, I choose the path of action that seems most likely to solve the problem– never with 100% certainty that it will work, I'll add!– and follow it. And the funny thing about infants is that there's not really a "ding, ding, ding, you got it right!" response; we never know exactly which aspect of our care helped solve the problem, or if it was something the child would have worked out on her own anyway. But day after day I observe and reflect on what works for each infant's wellbeing, making adjustments based on my familiarity with each individual infant as well as child development in general. This process helps me stay calm and proactive in meeting everyone's needs; it never seems to help any situation when I become stressed myself.

I also believe that our goal in responding to infant crying shouldn't always be to stop it. Crying is their most nuanced form of communication, and of course when it's an expression of a need we should meet that need as quickly as possible. But sometimes infants cry because they are frustrated or surprised or insecure about something, and giving them time to experience and express a moderate amount of those emotions is healthy and even necessary for growth. When was the last time you learned something completely new and didn't feel frustrated or confused along the way? Learning to experience and work through uncertainty is a key piece of resilience and emotional self-regulation, and learning to do it early in life is much easier than learning later. So my response in these situations is to physically move closer to the infant, talk to her about what is happening, listen carefully to the cry and reassure her that I'm there if she needs help, and provide that help if it becomes necessary either for her or for me. Because even when it does seem necessary for a little bit, it's never easy to listen to an infant cry.

Thanks for reading!
Megan

News and Reminders
We will be closed this Friday, April 6 for in-service.

Thank you for sending your children to school well-equipped for the weather; waterproof gear is key this time of year. Polarn O. Pyret rain mittens are an effective, affordable option.

Kitchen Update
Fresh fruits and veggies served this week included beautiful orange peppers, sweet honeydew melon, and juicy blood oranges. Banana pancakes were a big hit mid-week, and on Friday everyone enjoyed cheese quesadillas.

Classroom Updates
Infant I
Just when we thought everyone would be back at school, it turned into another quiet week: we had several days of just four children in our room. We weren't able to get outside quite as much as we would've liked, but the time that we did have was active and adventurous: our oldest child spent one morning roaming the entire back play area, while our younger children became very well acquainted with rain suits and mud. For infants, even water dripping off the roof into a puddle is something to watch closely. During indoor play, several children became really enamored with books. Our largest book, Baby's Busy World, is definitely the favorite right now as they love both looking at the photos of other infants in their daily lives and figuring out how to open and turn pages of a book that's about two thirds the length of their own bodies. Our next-to-be-mobile child made literal forward progress this week, and his mobility radius is rapidly expanding. Another almost-crawling child climbed up the carpeted ramp for the first time! Our little crew is changing fast.

Infant II
This week we have enjoyed spending extra time outside in the warmer temperatures. Now that most of the snow has melted, we've discovered all of our toys that had frozen into the play yard! The shovels have been very popular; the children love digging with them and using them to carry things around. Inside our sensory table featured rocks in soapy water early in the week and kinetic sand later in the week. We have also noticed many new peer interactions as well as mirroring behavior, which is a daily source of joy for the children and for us.

Toddlers
With Carly on vacation for most of the week, the children spent their days with Sadie, Brittany, and Hannah. We don't have a detailed update for you but it's safe to say that their week revolved around snow and mud, which is just the way they like it! Carly will be back later this week.

Preschool I
We've had a very busy week! Our classroom was stocked with some new materials: new rainbow blocks, books about rainbows, and a large bridge structure to extend our ramp study. We've also used the bridge to re-enact "the goat book" or The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We have there toy goats that the children help cross the bridge and a hippo for our "troll." (The hippo's not actually mean, he just pretends to be.) The children also contributed to this week's blog post; here's what they had to say about their week:
M: I love my Woody and I love my Legos.
V: Friends.
MK: I was playing with M last week.
A: Toys!
A: Yesterday I played with G at my house.
C: Yesterday I um, um, um, um... V come to my house and A come to my house.
J: How about me? Yesterday, I was playing in my room.
M: I want to share. Um, I'm thinking... I don't want to.

Preschool II
We began the week exploring ice; breaking it, shoveling it, mixing it with snow and water. One highlight was building a tire/straw freezer to hide it from the sun's melting rays. As the weather turned warmer, the ice melted, our snowman became a puddle, and the puddles led to building runoff rivers with dams, diversions, collection pools, waterfalls and bridges. Early in the week when there was snow and mud the class had the opportunity to choose for themselves to wear their rain gear and play in the mud or to wear only snow gear and to use their self regulation and play only in the snow. With only a few reminders for a few friends we all managed our morning in the back yard sticking with our rain gear/no rain gear choices.
Birds remain an interest for many. We discussed things that birds have in common (they have feathers, lay eggs) but can be as different as chickens, ducks, or owls. We reread Stellaluna and talked about how bats have wings but are not birds. Outside a few friends spent a morning working to build a nest for birds to move into and when it was finished we placed it high up in a tree where it would be safe from foxes–like Mr and Mrs Mallard wanted for their nest in Make Way for Ducklings.
Inside this week there was a car wash theme in the block area. Several friends built their own car wash or gas station and took turns driving our school bus to visit each of the car wash buildings–maybe this is something they have been doing on their home days, as they had great details and elaborate disscusions for how the car washers worked. We have also enjoyed a new collaborative table game with matching trains played like dominos. The class worked together to create their own set of rules for how many cards they each get, but followed the basic rules of Dominos and were very excited when they were able to play all the cards. (Thank you O and family for your donation.)

PreK
The warmer weather made for several wonderful walking trips this week. Monday we headed to the Rec Path with Ryan where we had snack, threw ice chunks off the bridge, and played mitten toss out in the open snow-covered field. Tuesday a small group took a trip to the post office and found a super snowy sliding hill behind the ice rink. On Wednesday, we brought the whole class back for more sliding! Inside play revolved mostly around building rides, ticket booths and refreshment stand for our amusement park. We used chairs and pool noodles for "life size" dramatic play; small blocks and marble tracks for miniature versions. We also enjoyed a few games of Candyland (thank you for sharing). Now that we've had time to explore our ECHO Kit a little, we'll spend next week focusing in on the challenge cards and the idea of using materials to solve problems.