Being Honest

As a daycare provider I am licensed for 12 children. At times though it is only legal for me to have 10 kids at one time. Best way to explain it is it goes by the ages of children. It does make a difference how old the kids are in care. Staying within numbers can be a hard thing to figure out when you first become licensed. Well, when I got the call the other day about taking a Foster Care placement my first response was "I only have room for one child in my daycare so I do not think it would work out". The social worker felt I could get it approved to have the extra children. Ok long story short it was approved. That meant with my children, daycare children and foster care children I could have a total of 12 children here. However that meant I was actually over by 2 children though because of their ages. Now I will be honest I felt "Oh I have watched 12 children before I can do this, not a problem". Well, I am going to admit something here. No I could not do it. The ages of children really make a difference. There were 6 kids here that were just 2 and under. They were all in diapers. I was sick, my girls were sick. So after a small meltdown I needed to be honest with the people involved that I couldn't do it. Not always an easy thing to do but it wasn't fair to the children. Not mine or the others I was responsible for. I do feel really bad that I asked for the foster care children to go to another home. But I am also happy that I had the ability to be honest. I feel bad. They were good kids but It was just too many children in my home in the morning when I had no help available. I was offered foster care support group. Ok please tell me how I am supposed to go to a support group at night when I need to care for 6 children?

But now I do need to say something else that is bothering me. Now I am sure I will look like the bad one at Social Services because I asked good kids to be removed from my home. However my thought on this is- there is a reason why daycares have a limit to the number of children we can have at one time. This includes our own children. Not only is it for the safety of the children in care but for the providers sanity. Can you imagine the nice paycheck at the end of the week if you could have a total of 20 kids at one time? Yes, it would be great. But what would those kids have learned? How much attention would they have gotten? So I do agree with daycare licensing when it comes to limiting the number of children we can care for. I am also a bit frustrated that social services would allow me to take a family of 3 as my first placement when I would be going over in my daycare licensing. Having a child here 24 hours a day is much different than having a child here from 8am- 5pm. Those who go home at 5pm don't need me to give them a bath or wash their clothes or do all that other motherly stuff. So its very different. So I am a bit upset that they placed me with a family of 3 for my first placement. But that is just my thought on it. It was an overwelming experience to be honest. I think if I wasn't feeling sick it would have been much easier for me.

On another note: The Dancer missed school on Monday because she was still sick and that is when I took all the girls to the doctor. She went to school Tuesday and Wednesday. Last night she was coughing so bad she almost threw up a few times. So she of course couldn't sleep. So again she missed school today and is sleeping/ coughing now. Rose thankfully did not have school this week until Wednesday. She went because she seemed fine. Well Hubby had to carry her off the bus when she got home because she was sleeping. This morning she seemed ok and at lunch time ate slower than a turtle and told me it was too hard to eat and she couldn't go to school. She is also napping (she only naps when she is sick). Sweet baby girl took her normal morning nap and wouldn't eat any lunch. So she cuddled with me and fell asleep and is sleeping along with the other 2 girls. She is still coughing and has a runny nose. My hubby who has not coughed once, nor have I seen him blow his nose came home early from work today to supposedly help me since I am not feeling well. Yes, you say how kind and thoughtful. Well where is he? He's upstairs sound asleep!