Changes and Stages

I was surprised this morning by the change in my almost-4 year old.  It is easy to take note and celebrate the changes that happen so rapidly in young babies.  The first tooth is soon joined by others in rapid succession, and you stop noticing.  The first attempts at crawling are watched with anticipation, and before you know it the little one is flying all over the place on his hands and knees as if he'd been born doing it.  First steps, first words, first sentences, are all easy milestones to notice.

Once those have passed, though, the change is more subtle and harder to notice.  The change between 3 and 4 is subtle, a more fluid motion in the movements, a change of focus from self to those around her, a maturity in the facial expressions.  These things sneak up on me, but when they hit me, they strike me with more wonder than the "firsts".  These are marks of maturity, and give a glimpse into who this little person will become.  Somehow I find that to be so much more astounding, and awe-inspiring.

As they grow, it gets even harder to notice the change.  It is so gradual.  For my 8 year old, it comes in moments of self-possession, or acts of service, or a profound thought.

Those moments still surprise me, and that glimpse into the future is a priceless gift easily overlooked.

Every baby gets teeth, learns to crawl then walk, and eventually speaks.  These later moments are so much more unique and precious.  They are a glimpse into the personality and the person each will become.

Rate Hikes in a Bad Economy

I am seriously considering raising my rates.  I have raised my rates only once since I started this business almost seven years ago.  It is painful to do at the best of times because I know that daycare is a family's largest expense after a mortgage, but it is necessary once in a while.

It is especially difficult to consider when the economy is in such a bad place.  It is difficult to ask more of families who might already be experiencing tightening budgets.  It is not something I consider lightly.

Costs are rising everywhere.  Food, gas, taxes, wages, supplies.  I do my best to save money without compromising the quality of the food I provide, and the activities I offer.  I have finally been able to afford refreshing my art supplies in an effort to provide better learning tools, and add a few new games and toys.  It is long past time to replace all of my puzzles, but that will have to wait.  It's been a couple of years since I celebrated birthdays and holidays for the kids.

I know other facilities build a percentage rate hike into their contract every year to keep up with the cost of living.  I am trying to avoid that.  This is difficult.  I wonder how other in-home daycare providers deal with this, and how often.

CARES Evaluation

It has been a chaotic month.  The new kids have settled in, the school schedules have been worked out, and things are beginning to smooth out once again.

I realized earlier this year that it was high time I updated my website.  There have been a flood of inquiries lately, and some of them have asked about my website.  I haven't updated it since 2006, so that is on my more pressing to do list.

Today I had an evaluation of my program done by the county's research and referral organization.  They do much more than referral service, and one branch of their office is dedicated to being a resource to child care professionals.  One of the many programs they offer is a stipend program to encourage child care providers to increase their education.  As I have been attending child-related classes since soon after I started this business, I have participated in their program every year for the last four years or so.

Three years ago they made it a requirement that anyone participating must have a site evaluation.  There is a set of standards that, I believe, was published by the Department of Education, that the evaluator uses to judge my program.  Each topic has a scale of 1-5, and covers many areas of the program from hygiene to exercise to education.

The evaluation is approximately four hours long and consisted of the evaluator watching the interaction with the children, observing the daily routine, inspecting all of the materials available to the children, and finally interviewing me to answer all the questions that were not obvious from her observation.

This is my third evaluation.  Every year I learn something new that I'm not doing well, and work to find a way to rectify it.  Some of their criteria is absurd and impractical, and I have to accept that I will not meet their requirements and move on.  Some have been areas I know I lack, but can't seem to find the money or the means to improve.  Some have been very good ideas, and areas in which I had no idea I could improve.  All in all I am usually grateful for the advice.

This year I was quite nervous about the whole thing.  I have done so much to improve my facility over the last few years, and it has kind of become routine.  I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but I will know soon just how closely my opinion matches those of the regulators!

When it rains, it pours...

Yesterday I was going to write about finally having to lay off my assistant because my numbers are so low.  All summer I've been hoping to sign new clients to make up for the three I'm losing to school this month, but although I've had a steady stream of interviews, nothing seemed to click.

Then last night I had an interview that went very well.  (Although those can be deceiving, and I never count on anything until the contract has been signed.)  After that an appointment to sign a contract for a girl that will be full-time.  Then, on my way to dinner with my husband, my sister-in-law called me needing daycare for her two kids... starting today.  I guess my helper will be keeping her job after all!

On a side note, my niece is four and my nephew is 19 months.  They have been home with dad for the last year or so, and I was worried about how my nephew would respond.  He didn't seem to mind daddy leaving, but when the next dad came in to drop off, there were tears and that got him started crying.

Immediately his big sister ran over to him, gave him a big hug, and patted him on the back saying "there, there, A, I'm right here.  I'm not going anywhere.  I've got you."   It was the cutest thing, and so grown up sounding!

Swim Lessons

Two weeks of swimming lessons have wrapped up for the summer.

My very first client when I started this business almost seven years ago is a school teacher, so she gets the summer off.  It also just so happens that she worked many summers teaching swimming and being a life guard while she was in college.

For five years or so she's been teaching swim lessons at my home every summer.  Every parent interested can enroll their child in swim lessons that happen during the day while the kids are already here, and that money goes toward paying for daycare for the swim teacher in the fall.  This works especially well for her, since teachers get paid monthly, and at the end of the pay period, so it's a long dry summer for her, and school (and thus daycare) starts before she starts getting paid.

All in all, a win-win for all!

So our 5th year of swim lessons have wrapped up for the summer.  Only a couple kids (hers and mine) have been here for all five years, but everyone this year had been here for at least two years.  It is amazing to see the progress.

This is the first year that we've done the lessons every day for 2 weeks.  In the past, it's been once or twice a week for 6-8 weeks.  I believe the daily lessons have been so much easier on the kids.  For the couple of kids that I had that were afraid of the water, by the third day in the water, they were over that and ready to do anything the teacher asked. It helps tremendously that she is such a good teacher.

I have had several kids who are not in my care, but have heard about the lessons, come just for the lessons.  One of these had taken her child to another teacher previously.  She ended up coming back the following year just because my parent/swim teacher was so much more effective and got so much more out of the kids.  (Her words.)

All I know is that my son has never been to any other swim lessons, and has been swimming for three years now.  This from being scared of the water his first two years and being afraid of getting his face wet!  Now he's a little fish, and can swim freestyle, backstroke, elementary backstroke, and this year they learned the breast-stroke.

For someone who doesn't swim (me) this is all amazing and cool.  And, it makes my pool a partial write-off!  Yay!

Networking

Finally, after many months of planning, and over a year of considering, I finally held the first Folsom/El Dorado Hills family child care provider's networking meeting last night.  It was designed to be a social setting, with wine and snacks, where providers could compare experiences, ideas, and stories.

I sent the invitation through e-mail, which probably isn't the best way to reach providers, but is cheaper and easier than paper mailings.  It is probably still more effective even for those that don't use e-mail often, considering how much mail is junk.  Out of the 50+ e-mail addresses I had, I got 10 yes, and 9 no responses.  Most of the non-responders didn't view the e-vite, so I probably had a bad e-mail address or they may not be doing daycare anymore.

Of the 10 yes responses, 6 actually came.  I'm not sure if that is a good turnout, but I'll try again in October to see if we get a better response.  Some of the no's did express interest, even though they were not available this week, and I plan on following up with phone calls to see how many of the ones that didn't respond are even in business any longer.

I'm hoping to form a group that will bring together the providers in a network that can mentor, share ideas, refer, and otherwise share in what is a solitary profession.  The benefit of bringing together experience and creativity to a field where each provider is generally responsible for learning and doing on her own far outweighs the inconvenience of one more commitment every quarter.  But that's just my opinion.

I guess it remains to be seen if anyone else will agree!

Nothing exciting...

...has been happening for a while.

The theater near me offers free family movies all summer long Tuesday-Thursday.  Wednesday, I took the biggest kids and went to the movies while my assistant stayed with the younger ones.  It was really a costly choice, since I didn't have enough kids even to have my assistant work at all, but I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon she was going to cover me for anyway, so what's a few more hours?

We went to see The Tale of Despereaux.  I hadn't seen the movie but I had seen the previews, and it looked like a cute movie about a mouse.  So I took a 3, 4, and 7 year old.

The movie was decent, although not as much about the mouse as the rats!  Overall, I thought it was more dark than not, and although she seemed ok, I was afraid the 3 year old would have been scared by it.

Other than that, jump house in the garage, water play in the backyard, and yummy veggies from the farmer's market are all that is new for summer!