Childcare Chronicles

We’ve had a couple good weeks of childcare.  The weather here has been fantastic!  Most days I have anywhere from 4-6 kids during the day and a menagerie of before and after school kids adding anywhere from 4-7 more!!  Happily I never have them all at once.  By the time the school kids come some kids that were here during the day are already gone and home with their families.  It’s all working out now and I feel really comfortable with how things are going.

For the most part I have kids that do a pretty good job of napping at the same time….well at least for 45 minutes or so and that’s really what I need to recharge.  Carver is the one that it’s hardest for.  At home if Kalissa has the day off he will regularly sleep a morning and afternoon nap.  Here everyone is too busy and there’s too much action for him so he doesn’t take that morning nap so by 11-ish he’s had it and wants a nap.  On the days he’s here we nap a little bit earlier as the other little ones prefer that too.

Here’s some fun pictures of what we’ve been up to.

All summer I’ve been showing the kids the apples on my tree and telling them that we can’t pick them until fall.  Well the day finally came.  We picked the apples!!!

All of the big kids all got a chance to pick one.

We took turns and it went really well.

Thankfully there were some “up high” for the tall kids and some “down low” for the littler kids.  Here she’s grabbing an “up high” apple.

We also picked ground cherries from the garden.  I didn’t know if the kids would like them or not but they LOVED them.  I was super careful to get only the ripest ones.  As far as gardening goes, I think snap peas and ground cherries are some of the most child friendly foods you can grow.  I think they really reinforce the garden to food concept more than most anything as they can be eaten right in the garden.  The kids have had a good time with the garden and even if I wouldn’t plant a big garden (my shoulder screams when I even mention the word garden) I’d at least plant a small spot and include snap peas and ground cherries for them.

The swing set continues to be a popular place!!

I found a wagon on a garage sale for $30….that’s a little more than I typically spent on garage sales but I was sure I could use it and I have!  The kids do better with it than the stroller unless I have my youngest kiddo at childcare.

This day we took off on a “fall walk”.   It was so fun.  I take so many things in life for granted and those things come back to me when walking with the kids.  Things like the wonder of a squirrel and finding acorns….all of that to kids is wonderful.  Sometime I miss that simplicity to life.  I’m so glad the kids make me take time to be more appreciative of the simple things.

Wednesdays are my full day.  My three three year olds don’t have preschool that day so they all join the regular crowd at my house.  I LOVE those days.  I miss the older kids that I can have two way conversations with.  On the other days my five little ones all speak a few words…you know early language-  Mom, Dad, bye-bye, bottle….together they all say about 30 words and most of them are animal sounds…  It’s a different type of childcare I haven’t done before.  I’ve learned that I have to play music just so there is some type of noise.

We have been exploring puzzles with the oldest two.  I have LOTS of farm and zoo related puzzles.  We’ve been doing them often and reading books working on animal sounds.

We work a REALLY lot of sharing in too….or at least not bullying their way in to get what they want.  It’s a challenge.  I’ve had to buy duplicates of a few toys I already have just to try to keep peace between the little ones.

Outside continues to be our favorite place but on days I have lots of littles it’s hard to get out safely.  We took advantage last week and on Wednesday spent most of the morning outside.  It was bliss!  I’m looking forward to more outside days but they are numbered.  With little ones as the temperatures drop is starts to become impossible to go outside.  We are going to try to make the most of every day we have outside…this has been one of the most beautiful Septembers ever.