Dear Parents of the Children That I Babysit

Dear Parents,

Tonight you are going out and leaving your children with a childcare worker. It might be a babysitter that you just hired for the first time, or one that you have used forever or maybe you’ll be dropping them off at a childcare facility. Here are some things I want you to know, pro-tips, if you will.

You probably don’t know my name, which is a good place to start. Learn my name. I usually wear a nametag, but when I’m crawling through the bounce house to pull our Little Miss Poopy Pants for a reluctant diaper change, it comes off. I know your name, phone number, kids’ names, food allergies and eating, sleeping and potty schedules. You are leaving the most important thing in your life with me for a few hours, learn something about me. Even if it’s just my name.

On that note, please be nice. Be nice to me. Be nice to the other parents who are trying to do exactly what you are doing and who’s time is every bit as important. Be patient when I slide your credit card and the machine takes f…o…r…e…v…e…r. Be extra nice to your kids. They are either coming or going and their world shifts. Please don’t decide that the front desk of the daycare or the entry hall of your home on your way our to dinner is the best place to discipline your 4 year old.

Follow the rules. If you don’t allow your kid to watch PG movies, or if they have to go sit on the potty every 30 minutes exactly (so much of childcare is about the bathroom, sorry guys) or if you say “No snacks,” I listen to your rules. I want to honor you, as a parent, and provide the best care possible for your child. Please understand that my rules are there for a reason. Sign in and out, don’t come back into the play area for 20 minutes to settle little Mr. Separation Anxiety (he will cry for 2 minutes after you leave. It’s ok, I know you are the one who has a hard time saying goodbye.), understand the pricing before you leave and hand over the money when you pick up your bundle of joy, don’t send extra toys to the daycare, especially expensive “toys,” like phones and iPads, and lastly, please, please, please, do your best to not be late. Some daycares can only have children for a certain number of hours and it could cost them their business to be consistently allowing children to stay late. Camps and babysitters also have a limit! There are open business hours! I understand that sometimes there is an emergency that will prevent you from sticking to your original plan, and know that in those times, your child will continue to receive the best care possible from me, however, don’t stay at that concert 30 minutes later and just think you can pay for that when you get here. Not that you won’t pay, we charge a pretty little late fee.

Notify me of any special needs your kid has. Please. Parents, please. Peanut parents are the best. Parents of a child with a peanut allergy are all over that, Epipens, warning labels, extra notes, and I always appreciate it. If your child has anything that may require an extra amount of attention, please tell me when you drop him/her off! I will still take them! I will still play with them! But I need to know if the little boy who keeps taking his pants off and refusing to put them back on is just being difficult or if he is having a sensory overload and needs some quiet time. This goes for anything from potty training to autism, allergies to heart conditions. I know some parents are concerned about their child being labeled. I won’t label him, but I will be able to understand him and his needs.

The last thing I want you to know is that I love your kids. Childcare workers spend hours weekly chasing kids, changing diapers, making meals, rocking babies, getting spit up on, pooped on, sat on, cried on and loved on. We get glue in our hair, paint all over us, manicures are almost as good of an example of futility as cleaning up the tub of toy kitchen food every day (or, in my opinion, making my bed J.) We know every word of “Cars” (which should have been called either “Racecars” or “Lightning McQueen” since that is what every child I have ever babysat calls it anyways) and have a legitimate opinion on which “My Little Pony” is the best (Team Pinky Pie!) For a few hours a day, your kids tell us their secrets and confide in us about their friend drama or that “Mommy said that if I keep my pee pee in my pants and don’t show it today, then I can have a lego set.” And we love it. Our chosen profession is a perpetual state of child rearing. And you don’t choose that if you don’t love children. So bring them on in to the daycare, sign them up for camps and call me to come babysit so you can run some errands or just have night out. I will welcome you with my Mary Poppins smile and I will enjoy a few hours spent with the most fascinating humans on the planet (0-12 year olds).  I’m a childcare worker and I love my job.

Update: Empty Hands

I have been avoiding you. All the questions and the comments. I just don't really have answers. And so I may have ignored a text, or a Facebook post, and I may have skipped church on Sunday. I'm not mad at you. I love you. I love how much you care about what happens to me. I just don't know what's going to happen to me. But I am learning some things that are maybe, just maybe, a little more important? So here is the update: 

1. Home: 

Status: Uncertain

Details: We are moving. We have moved out of our wonderful little #10 and moved everything into our Nashville house, which we are trying to sell ASAP. We don't know where we will be "living" in the meantime. We will sleep at the Nashville house, most likely, but we don't plan on unpacking and "moving in." We like living on the edge. :-P

2. Job:

Status: Uncertain

Details: I have 2 job interviews tomorrow, one is a a childcare place and the other a hotel, but both would take me away from our fencing business. The money would be a big step towards a house though. On the other hand, I am struggling. I feel like committing to a full time career, means I'm giving up on being a full time mom. I know in my head that that is not true, but it sure feels like resignation to my tender and infertile heart. Speaking of which...

3. Baby:

Status: Uncertain

Details: After 5.5 years, some of which was not trying, not preventing, some of which was dedicated and legit, we have decided to take a long break from trying to conceive. I had a false positive last week and it was pretty devastating. In this sort of thing, false hope can be worse than no hope. I firmly believe our family is meant for more than the two of us, but I don't know when or how we will multiply. TTC is all about timing. You become a slave to time. You count the days in your cycle, you calculate for ovulation, you time your sex life, you time drs appointments and procedures, you time moods and meds and symptoms. You wait two weeks then you test. Then you time 3-5 minutes and wait for the second line. Then you test again. Then you start the whole thing over and time again. TTC'ers may be masters of time management, calculators and stopwatches. But we can't own time itself and for us, right now, the timing isn't right. 

4...  I can't even bullet point this. But here's where my real update is: I have no certainty in this life at all, which is always true, but I'm feeling it very keenly right now, and I tend to be a control freak. I always plan and plan and plan. I have backup plans for the backup plans and everything in my life runs on a very detailed system. I have always believed that if you want something, you fight for it. Impossible odds are never impossible. You hang on to those plans and dreams and you fight with everything you have to make them happen. But right now, with no job, no money, no baby, no plan, I am being taught the very beautiful, but painful lesson of letting go. Not of my dreams, but of my plans for getting there and of the stress of perfection and systems. There just can't be a plan for everything sometimes. 

I hold onto my plans so tightly, like a baby holding onto a fistful of sand. I have looked at God with defiance in my eyes and I have said "You can have this plan, but you will have to pry it from my cold, dead, hands." 

And He gently took my hand and He pried it open. 

There goes the house. 

There goes the baby plan. 

There goes the stable, unexciting, uneventful life. 

There goes all of my security. 

All of my plans. 

And I looked into my empty hand and I felt so overwhelmed. I felt so alone and so drained and so hopeless and scared. And I avoided everyone and I hid in my work and tried to pick up all of the sand, tried to hold onto just one grain of sand! But I couldn't, and then I saw that it was because He was still holding onto my empty hand. He is holding my hand and He is loving me. And today, when I woke up, I told Chris that I am ready to let go. I know it's cliche to talk about holding your plans lightly in your hand, but sometimes just because a truth is hidden in a cliche, doesn't mean it's not still a truth. And sometimes we don't hold plans lightly, we are asked to lose them entirely. I don't believe that God is asking me to lose my dreams and to walk away from my goals. I don't believe we are being called to live homeless lives, but today I feel very much like I have been in the midst of my life, doing my thing and was just called, very deliberately, to drop my nets, stop everything, and follow Him. Wherever He is leading, with no warning, no certainty. 

In the words of Chris' favorite artist, "You take my hand and drag me head first, FEARLESS ." :-) Well I'm not totally fearless, but I am been given a spirit of power, love and a sound mind and I'm working on it.

So that, my dear friends, is my update. Thanks for reading through all of the thoughts and musings, I know that this isn't my best blogging work. 

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we will keep you posted. 

Love.