I have been working at one of the CDCs on our base for 5 months now. Those first few weeks were really tough — I didn’t know the kids, I didn’t know my co-workers, my schedule changed frequently, and I was not used to coming home exhausted every day. I’ve been in the same pre-toddler (children 12-24 months) classroom now since the end of October. Since then, we’ve moved to a different classroom, gotten a new lead teacher, and found out we will be turning into a toddler classroom. Lots of changes! But it’s been nice being in one classroom and getting to know the kids and the families.
Our kids are now ranging in age from 18 months to 24 months, and it’s been fun seeing how they grow and change. Going along with that are plenty of side issues though! With growing independence come plenty of toddler scuffles. We deal with pushing, hitting, kicking, yelling, crying, and, of course, 
biting. I think biting was our biggest issue a couple of months ago. The ones being bit became the biters, the biters became the ones being bit… what a fun cycle! And parents don’t like being told that their child is on either side of the biting. We still deal with the occasional bite here and there, but we’ve gotten a lot quicker at preventing them from happening.
With our oldest kids approaching their 2nd birthdays, the new exciting thing was potty training! We have 
two little girls pretty much fully potty-trained, and our oldest little guy is working hard at it. With all the excitement surrounding the only potty in our room, our younger kids have become very interested in the potty, flushing the potty, and the toilet paper. We now have about half of our classroom potty-trained, potty-training, or getting acquainted with the whole process. I see more bodily eliminations in one day than I would care to see in a lifetime.
With our pre-toddlers becoming toddlers, we’ve been seeing our kids get a lot more coordinated, independent, and defiant. It’s getting a lot harder to “mak
e” our kids do things. If they don’t want to eat, we can’t force them. If they don’t want to go potty, we can’t force them. I’m sure realizing you have control over your own body makes you very proud… and very smug when you find out you have power. And those power struggles can be SO FRUSTRATING! I am constantly reminding myself that I can outlast any toddler’s willpower, and that I don’t have to react to anything they say or do. But it’s not easy!
Living in England throws one more obstacle at us: rain and cold. Do you know how frustrating it is when the sun decides to only come out at naptime?
Or when the majority of the kids show up without hats or gloves? So we haven’t gotten to take our kids outside to play nearly as often as we did in the fall, when we would bring them outside twice a day for a good half hour at least. I think our kids are suffering from a bit of cabin fever, and it’s driving us all a little nutty!
This past week seemed REALLY long. It was mostly just the normal everyday ups and downs of working with toddlers, but I’ve also been fighting another cold, so I’ve been sleep-deprived and cranky. Maybe knowing we had a 3-day weekend coming up made the week seem longer too. I couldn’t wait to sleep in, and I have no plans to get out of my pajamas today. 🙂 I’m hoping to get this bug out of my system and go back to work refreshed on Tuesday, because my job is a lot of fun when I’m healthy and well-rested. Thank goodness for long weekends!
As you can see, I found lots and lots (and lots) of things I wanted to do in Cornwall. So I let my Type A personality run wild: I divided everything by color-coded category, gave each item a symbol, and plugged everything on a map of Cornwall, of course. Castles, gardens, great views, and more… I’m still having a hard time narrowing down our options! I’ve tried clustering things together so we could do one “area” per day, but it’s still a lot for the “to do” list.
On An Even Kiel 