My name is Amber and this is my official first blog! I have been wanting to start one for a while but never found the time. My cousin Natalie introduced me to a blog and I love reading it and here I am.
I quit my job two years ago as a Employee Benefit Specialist and opened my own daycare from my home. I thought 'this is going to be easy, I'll be home all day with my boys and just watch other kids, easy peasey' NOT AT ALL. Welcoming children into my home and making them feel like this is their home away from home was important to me. I have a variety of children in my care. All different personalities sometimes good and sometimes bad. There are times when I am like 'what the hell am I doing'. Working from the home is very hard. I have NEVER worked this hard before, except when I worked in a daycare years ago. I thought this was going to be a piece of cake, really. I was wrong, I am constantly cleaning, cooking wiping noses or butts or breaking up fights.
The toys that get broken and mistreated. I get a lot of 'well my mom lets me', well I am not your mother and these are my rules you need to remember them. I say the same things over and over all day long. I don't get a break during the day because now half of my kids don't nap at all. We do have quite time, they color or watch a movie. They love playdoh...I do not. I work from 7 am to 5:45 Monday thru Friday. I miss those drives home listening to my music with no interruptions. Homework is done when the kids get off the bus and then we have snack time. I think it makes it easier if the parents pick up their kids and don't have to mess with homework. They don't get to spend enough time with their kids as it is, so if I can help a little by helping them with their homework, I will do that.
The kids are so funny. The things they say or do can have me doubled over laughing like a crazy person. They are all different and we don't always see eye to eye bu they are 'my little doodlebugs'. There are times when I would rather had different kids but it would be a different kid but probably same problems so I have had to learn to bend a lot. I am stern, I like things a certain way but with kids you really need to throw that out the window. When doing projects I was finding myself 'helping' more and more and I was basically doing it myself for them. I have had to step back and let them figure it out with my 'guidance'. Since stepping back and looking at what I was doing thing have been going a lot smoother. The kids are showing more creativity and and excited when a fellow daycare friend does something a little different. Giving up just a little control has been wonderful.
Being a daycare provider is not for the faint of heart. I have had walls and furniture colored with marker, the bathroom covered in poop, a few bloody noses from kids jumping into my lap. All in all it's been worth it, even though it did take me a year and a half to figure out a few little things. I look forward to figuring more out as I go, along with being a mother and wife.
:)
