Childcare Chronicles

I’m back at childcare and am super happy.  I debated trying to figure out if I really needed some days off, if I have some shorter weeks coming up or if I’ve finally gotten into the groove with this bunch.  I think it’s a bit of a combination of it all.

The two youngest are nine month old and that’s a great age.  Carver and the other little guy are starting to play together and do a great job keeping each other entertained.  The older little girl is even starting to play with the boys.  I love that these guys are playing together.  It makes things so much easier.  The boys are getting towards only one LONG nap every day.  It’s awesome.  On the day I’m writing this, I had two hours with six of the eight kids here sleeping and the oldest two observing quiet time.  AH…that makes my job so much easier.

As awesome as these guys are in the house, it’s hard to take them outside and keep a close eye on everyone.  I don’t go to the park with them all ever anymore.  It’s just too hard and there’s a river next to our park.  It’s just to hard….and not safe with only me supervising.

Carver continues to be a terrible eater.  He can’t quite feed himself and he’s hated baby food.  We just keep struggling.  At one point he’s bound to figure it out…that is if can stay awake through a meal.

When I was thrifting I found these cute little calculator organizers.  A note pad fits on one side and the calculator on the other.  The calculator is really big.  The kids love them and happily there were five of them at the thrift store for 50 cents each.  They’ve been playing school with them.  It’s so cute.  They spent an hour playing school.  Anytime five kids can play anything for an hour without bickering, it’s amazing!  They played with them again after nap time.

We’ve had kids in and out because of swimming and grandma time so I’ve had to entertain the kids a bit.  One of their favorite things to do is “fix my hair”.    I’m pretty patient with it and let them.

This was my “hair do”.  Quite the “do”…right?!  The little girl was sure I was going to the park like this.  Um…I’m really tolerate and pretty patient but nope…not in public.  Somehow, the hair do fell out before we could get to the park.

I did however go to the park with not much of hair do because every product or curl that I had put in it when I got ready in the morning was gone.

I love the more relaxed schedule of summer childcare…and more so even childcare now that I’m not registered.  We don’t have to stay to such a strict schedule.  On the day I’m writing, everything worked out so we could stay out longer than I realized and it was after our regular lunch time before we got in the house.  The kids don’t mind..and I didn’t either.  We were having too much fun to come in.  I don’t regret stopping my registration and honestly I don’t feed the kids any different…just at times that aren’t quite as consistent…..and occasionally we have a cookie for a snack.

I found another great site that had some fun paper plate crafts.  Here are a couple projects we made from there.

The kids don’t do much of the work to “make” these.  Our main goal with is that we are learning to use watercolors…even introducing patterning…dip the brush in the water, in the paint and then paint.  Repeat.    They love taking these home and showing their parents.

The whales are going to get spouts…

Here’s the link to the site.  They have quite a few paper plate projects and I LOVE paper plate projects.  They aren’t expensive to make and often are quite cute.

That’s it for this edition of childcare chronicles.  Starting the end of the month a new little guy will be joining our bunch.  He’s part time like Carver.  Before I know it the oldest two will be off to school and then the middle three off to preschool.  This summer is flying by so fast.