esterday was the first time I felt completely comfortable in the infant room. It happened when I was reading the group a few stories towareds the end of the day. One of the stories was a book about how animals move their body parts and so the head touching, arms waving, hips wiggling game began. It occurred to me at that point that, while oral comminication is important for infants' speech development, they get so much more out of kinesthetic comminication. In other words, play is a better medium for speaking to infants than speech is! This is something I couldn't grasp in my kindergarten classes and frankly ignored in the toddler rooms I've been in. I can see now that this kind of play based communication can certainly be applied to anyone with less language skills or people who are less willing to use language.

Lunch shifts at the (three story) coop are crazy. I'm basically responsible for getting the food up to the classes (from the basement!) and spending some time in the "big kid's" room (kindergarten) serving and sitting with one of the groups. Then I have to clean up the trays and bowls and things, take it down to the chef and clean up the "mid kid's" room (which is always a disaster after lunch.) The shift is only an hour and a half long but is so busy that I usually do more on that shift than I do during the rest of my day.

I also have my interview with the man with autism today. His name is Matt and I know next to nothing about him or autism. Wish me luck!