And so it begins...

I've been here almost 4 days now, and am just starting to get into the routine of things! The mornings of my first few days here were spent helping kids get ready for the monthly photo shoot. So for a newbie like me, that mostly entailed going down to one of the nurseries and asking the nannies "Kote [insert child's name here]?" which is creole for "where's this kid at?" and then having a squirming kid handed over to me. There's all sorts of little kids here; clingy ones, adorable smiley ones, quiet and somewhat withdrawn ones, occasional sick ones, and tiny newborns! Getting them changed on the balcony (which is like the large play area) was usually no problem at all, if you could stop them squirming and crawling away long enough to change them into their cute photo outfits.

The remaining parts of my days have been spent getting to know "my" 8 kids, which are the ones assigned to me for the next 3 months. Each has different goals, from working on things like motor skills or building up muscle strength, to making sure they get enough cuddle time or come out of their shell a little bit. They vary in age from almost 3 years old to only 6 (or now 7) weeks. The latter's a real sweetie, even though she seems to sleep around 22 hours a day. Her hobbies include napping, drinking from a bottle, kicking sporatically, and having staring contests with me. haha. All my kids are adorable though, each totally unique, with their own funny little quirks and likes and dislikes. It sounds pretty corny but it's true that each of the ~100 kids I've seen has some special little feature you can't help but notice and love. A lot seem petrified of stuffed animals for some reason though; I'm attempting to break down that barrier with the aid the ribbity frog, the big green puppet frog that, you guessed it, ribbits.

With a hundred kids, around 15 nannies and 20 or so staff at the main building, it's been a little hard learning everyone's name, but I'm getting there slowly. I can even step into the big nursery now, and from the throngs of grabbing kids, pick out the one I'm looking for. Not bad.

That's it for now, more to follow soon!!