Joyful Noise Day Care

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Oh, a vacation is always a good thing!   Yes, here I am on vacation and still working.   For those who wonder why we need so many days off in a year, or what we do on those days off well, here I am to tell you: we're still hard at work.   There are so many jobs that we just can't do when the children are here, especially in the summer when we're outside so much of the time.   The first day off I just cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the house.   Not that the cleaning is ever done, but I did get some of that sandbox soil into its rightful place and found quite a few of the toys that had gone missing.   We also had a little yard sale to try to supplement our income and find good homes for things that were just taking up a little too much space around here.   This house would be more than sufficient for two people, but when you import twelve extra bodies (albeit very short ones,) we need to try to find every square inch of space that we can to spread out into.   We made some new acquaintances including nice woman who is starting up her own daycare that happened upon us, so our spare porta crib lives on at her house now.

There is still a pile of the neverending paperwork waiting for me on my desk that I hope to tackle yet this evening, and then there's a long list of things I hope to do on the website, but for me this is just as much fun as it is work.   Yet it is still work!   Of course we have some fun things planned too, or what would be the point?   Besides, in such an intimate relationship as we have with the children, we ALL need a break from each other now and then.   Burnout is one of the biggest reasons that child care workers leave the profession; the demands that this job makes on us are huge and we must be aware of them or we're goners.   Over the years I've learned just about where my limits are and try to schedule our breaks accordingly.   I can tell that it's time to step back and take a big breath when I feel like I'm scolding more than laughing, when the children all seem to be on edge, instead of just certain ones, and when I feel like I'm never rested, no matter how much sleep I get.

So, here's to Labor Day!   To all of us who labor, may we know when to rest and when to keep going.   And may we be ever grateful for the honor of toil and the rewards that it brings; like a well-deserved day off!

Even though summer doesn't leave us til the end of next month we are bound forever to the school schedule that tells us Labor Day is the beginning of autumn and we're feeling desperate that we haven't been to the beach enough, haven't sipped enough iced tea in the shade, haven't watched enough baseball....ok, maybe some Tiger fans feel like they've seen too much baseball...

The forecast for this coming week should give us plenty of opportunity to have all those summer pleasures.   Personally, I love feeling a bit chilly and this warm humid weather is my least favorite time of year.   Still, my years in Chicago and Virginia taught me well that those of us in the North have nothing to complain about when it comes to heat and humidity.   If you don't like this weather, remember autumn is just around the corner.   Get out and enjoy our lovely waters now and soak up lots of solar gain for the winter.

Coming up in the daycare is the unsavory business of a rate increase.   It's been two years since the rates have changed here and even then it was more of a rearrangement, taking away my paid vacation time and shifting it to the regular fees to alleviate confusion.   This time the rates will truly go up as we just cannot absorb the rising prices around us any longer without passing it on to the consumer.   However the increase will only be $2 per day for full time and $3 per day for part time.   Hopefully this will be affordable for everyone enrolled.   If not, I try to give you plenty of notice so you can look around for something that will still fit your budget, as these increases will not go into effect until January 1, 2009.

An interesting musical tidbit came across my desk this week for those who like Gavin DeGraw (who I had never heard of before, being terminally not-hip.)   He has a song called Medicate the Kids with some poignant, powerful lyrics posted on YouTube so you can read and listen to them for free.

And if you don't walk the line
You can walk the plank
Your older brother (government)
Wants to control your mind
You're more useful blank

Well the trucks are all unloaded and Collin and Mary are now officially our next-door neighbors and boy are we excited!   Ben and I were gone camping overnight for the weekend but we got back in time for me to help get the last bit out of the truck while he took care of our camping gear so I could feel like I was a little helpful.   Now they go through the unsettling process of settling in to a new place, but at least the view out their windows is familiar.

We're entering the home stretch of out-of-town guests this week with more relatives and my kids that I nannied for coming and going on various days and times.   We feel doubly blessed that people we love so much take the time and effort to come all this way up into the woods to visit us; they're a sight for sore eyes and then our hearts are sore when they have to go home again.   But our daily routines and the peace and order that they bring us get all discombobulated with so much exciting activity and we so appreciate your patience as we do our best to keep the keel even in these wavy summer waters.   I know many of you in the daycare understand because you've told me that you too have more than the normal share of visiting friends and relatives packed into the summmer months.   Relax and enjoy yourselves; all those boring duties will still be there when they're gone, and you'll have some sweet memories to savor while you complete them.

July has been our month for the arrival of out-of-town relatives, so barely enough time to do our laundry and paperwork and grocery shopping in between catching up with how the nieces and nephews are growing and all the news from the world beyond the woods.   One piece of exciting daycare news is that Collin and Mary are going to be moving right next door a week from today!   Once they're all settled in we'll take a day care field trip to see the inside of their new house, since we're already so familiar with the outside of it!   Moving days are always upsetting even if it's a good move, so we're doing all we can to help keep the little ones on an even keel while their toys and books and beds all travel in from Interlochen.   Collin is a little sad that he won't get to ride the bus anymore and some of the regular passengers have been giving him going away presents as they will miss their young friend too.

Another tender bit of daycare news is that yesterday Ben and I attended the wedding of Katy, one of our alumni.   What an honor to be included in that special rite of passage and to remember that spunky little girl who played here with her brother and cousins not so long ago.   Though it was a speedy ceremony, I still found time to drop a tear or two on the grass.

Two good news articles have come across my desk that I want to share with you.   The first, from the Southtown Star, is about a group of parents who were paying attention to what was going on in their school but still got the wool pulled over their eyes by Teen Screen which on the surface seems to be a good thing but when you turn it over, has a slimy underbelly.   As parents, teachers and caregivers we must be ever watchful and brave enough to question authority on behalf of our children.

The second article was a piece on CBS news about the financial ties between the drug companies who make vaccinations and the professionals who assure us that those vaccinations are safe.   There are so many wolves in sheep's clothing out there!

We are truly blessed with a beautiful summer this year and though the temperatures aren't forcing us into the lakes as they have the past couple of years, I hope you're all taking advantage of our sacred northern waters to baptize yourselves thoroughly and often!   We sacrifice in a lot of ways to live here, so we need to take our nose off the grindstone once in awhile to look up and realize why we chose this place to raise our children.   NOW is a great time to do that!

I am officially a year older and happy to be able to be here to celebrate it.   Unlike many other women in my peer group, I have no problems with birthdays.   I think having them is much better than the alternative!

Ben and I are enjoying our summer break by visiting with friends, watching our monarch chrysalis, sitting by the water, catching up with our housework, yard work, paper work and web work.   A few clients asked me where we were going on our days off and seemed a little confused when I answered nowhere.   Though we love the children, caring for them takes up so much of our lives that it's imperative to call a halt to it on a regular basis in order to get our bearings and keep current on all the details of our lives, including rest and good health.   Running this kind of business in your home is quite intrusive, so in order to get a real break we just have to lock the doors now and then.   Nothing personal!   Besides, we live in one of the best summer vacation spots in the world; why would we leave it now?

In tidying up my computer files I ran across a blog entry about Poet's Night Out; the poetry contest that I judge at the library once a year.   Every April we have an informal reading for the past entrants and this first time attendee was moved to review it afterwards.   It was sure fun to read such nice feedback.

This vacation will be all too short to complete all the dreams and goals I have for my website, but keep checking in; I'm working on some new features behind the scenes that may be finished before the end of summer.