Funny Story of the Week

Friday is video game day in my daycare. Last Friday, Kaitlyn, a four-year-old girl in my daycare, was taking her turn at Mario Cart on GameCube. She was frustrating one of the little boys, Jed, because she didn’t really know how to race the carts. She spent her allotted time on the game changing what her cart would look like and who would drive her cart. Sounds like a typical girl to me! Anyway, Jed started yelling at her because she wasn’t playing the game right.

I explained to Jed that it was Kaitlyn’s choice what she did during her turn. I told him he could either sit quietly and watch her play or just walk away.

When I said that, Kaitlyn immediately perked her ears. It’s quite common for me to tell the kids to walk away. So Kaitlyn says “Yeah, just like I told my Mom and Dad when they were fighting. I told them if they didn’t like what the other person says, they should just walk away!”

Can you imagine what those parents thought when they heard their four year old say that while they were fighting in front of her?

Have a good week!
Marcia
DaycareAnswers.com
ToyAnswers.com

The Kids Are Ready To Go Back To School!

And I’m sooooo ready for them to go back.

Every year is the same for me. When school gets out in June, I look forward to the school kids being in my daycare all day, Monday through Friday. I have two of them. It means an increase in my weekly income. And usually, they are kids that grew up in my daycare so they are very familiar with out things work around my house.

Summer break is three months long. The first month is fun and exciting, because these school kids who are not here during normally are now coming all day. There is usually an adjustment period where they have to realize that they can’t come back into the daycare they grew up in and expect to still be the hen that rules the roost. That usually only takes a week or two.

The second month of summer break comes and you’ll start to hear, “I’m bored!” To me, school kids are a lot harder to keep entertained than preschoolers. The school kids I deal with are from kindergarten through about 2nd grade and I’d swear they were all A.D.D. I have a difficult time keeping them entertained because as soon as I get one activity started with them, they want to move on to something else. Preschoolers can get introduced to an activity and stay there for hours exploring all the possibilities.

Then comes the third month of summer break. I’ve done my best to keep everyone entertained, but still, boredom has set in. The kids are arguing with each other all the time. Families are starting to shop for school supplies and new school clothes so an excitement is building. And I’m going crazy! How can I keep these kids from driving everyone in daycare crazy, including me?

The answer: Keep plugging along, one day at a time. Come up with new ideas for activities for them to do. Give them chores around the house to keep them busy. (Chores at someone else’s house is more fun to do than at your own house.) Have the older kids take care of the younger kids. (Gives you a nice, “free” break”) Or anything else that will take up an hour of their time.

I love kids and I love spending quality time with kids or I wouldn’t have been a daycare provider for fifteen years. But every year is the same…whether it be my own or be daycare children, I look forward to when my school-aged children go back to school. There’s nothing wrong with this kind of thinking. It’s just the honest truth. School aged children are harder to take care of than preschoolers!

Have a good week!
Marcia
DaycareAnswers.com
ToyAnswers.com

Daycare in the Summer

Sometimes I love daycare in the summer. Sometimes I hate daycare in the summer. This week was a week when I can love it.

My family and I took a long weekend last weekend to visit family in Milwaukee, WI. I closed daycare Friday, Monday and Tuesday for the road trip. When I re-opened daycare on Wednesday, I had a family of two children on vacation. Another family of two children decided to spend some time with the grandparents. And the other families had summer hours of dropping off late and picking up early. It was great for me! Friday afternoon, I actually had three kids to take care of rather than my normal twelve.

I can’t wait for the day that I don’t have as many bills to pay as I have right now. Then I can have a daycare of three to five children, spoil those kids rotten and still meet my financial responsibilities.

I hope your week was as good as mine!
Take care,
Marcia
DaycareAnswers.com
ToyAnswers.com

Remember Max and Alex?

Do you remember when I introduced you to Max and Alex? I told you to remember those names because they would be the subject of some funny stories. Well, here’s one of those funny stories.

The other day, my daycare kids were playing in the playroom. Max (3) and Alex (3) decided to play baseball…with an invisible bat and ball. I was watching from a distant and it was so funny to see Max pitch the invisible ball and Alex swing his invisible batl.

After a few moments, they switched positions. Alex became the pitcher and Max decided to squat down and become the catcher. It was so cute that I decided to comment on their came. Max turned toward me to see what I was saying and apparently missed the invisible ball because Alex had to walk across the room and pick up the invisible ball himself.

Have a good week!

Marcia
DaycareAnswers.com
ToyAnswers.com

Stressful Times

There are certain things that happen to an in-home daycare that recur so you just need to get used to them. For example, two families dropping out of your daycare at the same time and greatly affecting your income. Having your own children in the house for the summer and throwing a wrench in the schedule you’re used to everyday. Or a transition from kids who are used to your daycare, used to your rules and used to the schedule to the ones who get into everything they’re not supposed to and constantly ask “What are we going to do now?” “Can I have this or that?” “When is lunch” etc., etc.

So this week, I had two of these recurring times hit me at the same time. Let me start by saying I’ve been extremely grateful to be able to say that the poor economy and the large amount of lay-offs in the area haven’t affected my in-home daycare. I know I’m lucky for that. My husband sells radio advertising and his income has been hit hard by these down times and if I could not hold my income at a steady level, we’d be struggling to pay our bills. That being said, I had two of those recurring times hit my daycare at the same time.

So, my stressful times started at the end of the school year. I was looking ahead on my roster to see that I had three kids who would be entering kindergarten in the fall. My plan was to get two kids in for the summer who would replace the majority of those three kids in the fall. Then, one of my families, who has a five year old girl that I expected in daycare for the summer, announced that she would be going to the school daycare that her older brother attended for the summer. Okay, now I have three spots to fill. I filled two of them, although I wasn’t real flattered with the family. I figured they probably wouldn’t stay long, but they would fill a void while I needed it. They were the voids. They were no-shows for daycare. That’s okay. I wasn’t thrilled with the family anyway and something else will come along. Before something else can come along, I get an announcement from another family that they are pulling their daughter from my daycare because her older brother and sister are at home for the summer with a teenage babysitter and that babysitter doesn’t charge as much as I do. Now I’m four kids down and I’m starting to feel a little worried.

So Monday comes. It’s the first week of daycare when school is out on summer break. I have one school-age girl who is used to the daycare, but now she’s here all day. Then I have a school-ager who’s little sister is in my daycare, but he never has been. To tell you the honest truth, it’s much harder to take care of the school-aged children than the little kids. Their attention span is zilch! It is such hard work to keep them entertained all day. They will ask for something they want to play with and after I go to the trouble of getting it out and setting it up, I’ve spent more time than they will playing with it. It drives my crazy and in a half of a week, they have stressed me out!

All I can tell myself and all I can tell you and take a deep breath and keep chugging. Those openings will get filled. And those school-aged kids will either get used to your daycare and your schedule or you only have to endure it for three months and they’ll go back to school!

Good luck to you. And if nothing else, I’ll see you in the insane asylum.

Marcia
DaycareAnswers.com
ToyAnswers.com

Transition Time

It’s going to be a scary new week for me. It’s that time of year when I have to transition from the school year to my summer schedule.

When summer comes, there are always full-time kids that go to part-time, or kids who quit because of different plans and new kids starting. On a regular schedule, a daycare can lose a child or two at a time and you replace them. When you get to summer, it’s a lot of changes all at once and it can be scary.

So tomorrow, I have a school-aged girl who normally attends daycare for 1/2 hour in the morning before school and 1-1/2 hours after school who will now be here all day. This girl has been in my daycare since she was two years old. She’s always struggled getting along with the other children, but she struggles even more now. She has never grasped the concept that she is gone to school every day and the other kids have a daycare schedule and heirarchy that they are used to. She expects to be able to come to daycare and make all the rules and control all of the decisions.

Aside from dealing with Miss Bossy, I also have two brothers starting. One is two years old and one is three years old. It’s always challenging starting new kids, but doubly challenging starting two at a time. They do not now my schedule or my rules. They are scared because they’ve been left in a strange place. And, they have ten unknown children starring at them all day. It takes a lot of attention from me to help these new kids through their transition time.

My kids, age 14 and 16 are home for the summer. At this age, they are now old enough to be of great assistance to me, rather than adding to this stressful time. I pay them to play with the kids, help me with projects, clean up when needed and help me serve lunch. They enjoy earning the money for the summer and I enjoy a little bit of the load off my back.

So, as daycare provider to daycare provider, here is my advice to you. The first couple of weeks after school gets out, when you’re schedule is kind of in an uproar, don’t plan too much in daycare. Don’t plan any activities away from the house. Don’t plan any projects for the kids. Don’t plan on getting any of your normal chores done around the house. It’s a very time-consuming period and you should just concentrate on the new schedule so that you don’t add extra stress to your day.

Good luck to you…And pray for me!

Marcia
DaycareAnswers.com
ToyAnswers.com

Max & Alex

I have to introduce you to Max & Alex. They are both three year olds in my daycare. They are like brothers. Some days they are best friends and some days they are worst enemies. Max and Alex are the topic of a lot of my daycare stories because they are quite the team.

So, Alex’s birthday was in April. For his birthday, he received a Monster Truck movie from his parents. He and Max are both big Monster Truck fans. Of course, Alex brought the movie to daycare to share with Max. Then he brought it again, and again, and again. They wanted to watch the movie every single day.

Then one day Max arrived at daycare and asked Alex, “Did you bring your movie today?” Alex replied that he did not. Max couldn’t believe what he had heard, so he came to me and asked if Alex brought his movie. I copied Alex’s response and said, “No, he did not.” Max was so disappointed.

The next day, Max arrives at daycare and immediately asks Alex, “Did you remember your movie today?” This time Alex’s response was “Yes!” And like a proud father, but in the speech ability of a 3-year-old, Max says “Good job, Alex!”

Have a good week,
Marcia
DaycareAnswers.com
ToyAnswers.com

Mother’s Day!

The majority of daycare providers are also mothers, so Happy Mother’s Day to all of you!

As a daycare provider, I’ve never received a Mother’s Day gift from a family in daycare. But before I became a provider, I had my son in daycare. I remember picking him up on a Friday before Mother’s Day and another mother picking up her children at the same time. The other mother had a Mother’s Day present for the provider. I thought that was the neatest idea and I was jealous I hadn’t thought of it. A lot of times, the daycare provider is spending more time with the children than their own mother, so a gift for this holiday seemed very appropriate.

This week in daycare we made Mother’s Day gifts. The gift was a Mason jar filled with the ingredients to make cookies or brownies. I let the kids decide whether they’d make cookies or brownies with their Mom. We broke the project into individual steps that we did each day so the project actually took all week. The children were able to measure the ingredients into the jar. And they picked from an assortment of fabric squares to cover the top of the jar to make it pretty for mom. They watercolor painted cards and a bag for the gift. The children were pretty proud to take their gift home on Friday to give to Mom on Sunday. I told them as they were leaving to keep it a secret from Mom until Sunday. I will enjoy Monday morning to ask each mother whether their child was a

Kids or Cat?

I consider my cat, Peanut, a working cat. He became a part of our household because our two children wanted a pet in the house. We felt a dog would be too intimidating for new families to start a new daycare, so we opted for a cat. He has not only become a valuable part of our family, but also of my daycare.

Peanut greets children at the door in the morning and makes that transition time so much easier when they have to let their parents go to work. When the children are new and it is extremely hard for them to let their parents walk out the door, I take them by the hand and say “Let’s go find Peanut and pet him”, and they’re okay with that.

So, Tuesday of this week I saw signs that Peanut was not feeling well. I confined him to the mud room so that the children would not bother him and he would not be impatient with the children. By Tuesday night, he was a pretty sick cat. We would take him to the vet Wednesday morning….if he made it through the night Tuesday night.

He did make it through the night, but he was horribly sick Wednesday. He was making messes all over the mud room that I had to constantly clean up while I was taking care of ten children inside the house. Then, one of my four year old little girls decided she didn’t want to be potty trained anymore. Every time I cleaned up a mess the cat made, I then had to clean up a mess this little girl made. You can imagine how quickly I lost patience with both. But, the fact was, the cat had an excuse for making the messes and the little girl didn’t!

I had to work extremely hard at not letting my stress show to my daycare kids and work even harder at not losing patience for the 4-year old little girl. They had nothing to do with my cat being sick and my career as a daycare provider should not be affected by my cat. The fact that my business is run out of my home made this extremely hard.

I think my patience level for the little girl having the accidents that day was probably below par for me, but we both lived through it. She’s back to being trained the way she should be and my cat is back to good health.

It’s these types of experiences that keep the daycare business interesting and differentiates the professionals from the amateurs.

Have a good week!
Marcia

Too Busy to Post

Okay, so I wanted to start this blog because it’s the latest thing to do. As a daycare provider who stays home with children every day, I have to really work at keeping up with the technical aspect of computers. It would be real easy to live in my own little corner of the world while everything passes me by.

At first, I didn’t know what a blog was or why people were reading them. So I started by checking out other people’s blogs. I found it fascinating to read other people’s posts. It actually gave me some adult contact during the day. I can’t always control when I’m going to get a minute or two to take a little break, so reading blogs allowed me this adult contact on my own time.

Then it came time to try my own blog. I figured I could just sign on to my computer and post a quick blog once or twice a week. It could be to share a fun experience or a frustrating day or a funny story. That was my intention….

Now I see from the dates that my second post comes two months after my first post. But I’m going to try again. As any mother and busy daycare provider can understand, so many things come up during the day and prevent you from doing what you have planned. I’m going to give it another try, though. I do want this to work.

So, I’ll make a commitment by ending this post with a promise to add to my blog weekly.

Have a good week!
Marcia
DaycareAnswers.com
ToyAnswers.com