From the Heart of a Childcare Provider

I'm actually writing this while my daycare kids are sleeping. Because I'm waiting for them to wake up. Because I'm bored without them.

I started volunteering at this childcare center the summer that I was 14. All of my friends had jobs because they were older than I was, but with my summer birthday, I could only volunteer. My parents made the gentle suggestion that I find something to do with myself - so I went in expecting to volunteer two mornings a week, 8-noon, and find some other sort of work the following summer when I was old enough... and here I am, six summers later, and I'm still here. (I'm licensed and actually get a paycheck now though, so that's good)

My first day at TDC (probably first several days) I had to have help changing diapers and my coworkers had to instruct me how to make bottles (yeah, like the kind where you just mix powdered formula and water. Difficult, I know.) As the years went on, I worked every day after school my junior and senior years of high school, 3-close. I got into a routine of coming after school each day, tossing in a load of laundry, switching the laundry at 4:45, putting my kids down for their last cat nap of the day a little before five, and doing their dishes from snack before I went home. It was my 'break' between a full day of school and a full evening of homework.

As the weeks went on, I got better at multi-tasking, 'reading' what a child really needed, and overall, really just winging it, because in childcare, that's what you spend 99% of your time doing. All of the training in the world can't necessarily prepare you for your first bloody nose, or a kid who falls off of the top of the slide on the playground, or how to get ranch dressing out of a two year old's ear. (All of those are real life)  In all honesty, some of my favorite memories are the time I fed two very excited 11 month olds jello at the same time, or the time I had to carry two kids by the back of their overalls because the kid in my other hand was bleeding, or playing tag on the capitol grounds during our summer picnics. I love watching them play Duck Duck Goose when they clearly don't get the game so we spend 80% of our time just running in a circle and screaming.

During the summer of 2012 those kids helped me more than I could ever even fully realize - starting with one particular child who allowed me to keep her on my lap and snuggle her for two solid hours when I got the phone call that one of my friends had gone missing, but we weren't in a legal ratio for me to leave. Over the next few weeks as I began to navigate through grief for the first time, there was nothing in the world more healing than snuggling with those kids, or being able to fix the things that ailed them throughout the day. In light of fixing their problems, I may have been the teacher who had to be reminded of things I typically would have known like the back of my hand, and that yes, the kids had to nap in their own beds, they could not sleep on my lap for three hours, no, I could not share my Wendy's frosty with them.

There are a lot of days where I leave work thinking "Wow, I could never do this for the rest of my life." But there's more mornings when I get to work and feel like 12 hours was a really long time to not see them. This morning was my first time at work in over six months, there is absolutely no substitute in the world for hearing "Emmy!" and the pitter patter of feet when someone comes running, or any substitute for "Miss Emily, where have you been? I missed you!" Each time I leave I tell them that there is no growing, milestones, or learning new skills while I'm gone, and each time, they never listen.

Now, seven years after I learned how to change a diaper, I'm pretty confident in my ability to handle blood, ranch dressing in places it shouldn't be, and bodily fluids of all sorts. I also have no problem letting them put paint wherever they want, play with any kind of crafting supplies, and climb on all things that can be climbed on. Sometimes I think that I create more work for myself, but then I see kids I had as tiny babies come to visit and they're in first or second grade, and I remember that it's probably okay to get paint underneath their toenails, or accidentally get glitter and contact paper stuck to the wall.

I don't think I've ever been more thankful for seven years of changing diapers, wiping noses, and icing some bruises here and there - because with that has come seven years of belly laughs, seeing lots of 'milestones', and many children falling asleep on my lap. (Which I would argue, is possibly the best feeling in the world.) I'm thankful for parents who entrust their children with me day in and day out, knowing that I might accidentally teach them how to clothesline when I teach them an innocent game of Red Rover, knowing that their toenails might be green for the next two weeks, but hopefully, knowing that their child is making my day ten times more than I'm making theirs.