I don't think it's really set in

So it's been just over a week since the move.

It's been weird not working (I miss the kids), but at the same time I haven't had time to miss it a whole lot with unpacking, sorting, prepping for the garage sale, manning the garage sale and post garage sale etc.

Suffice to say I have been busy.

This also means I haven't really had much downtime to process me.  Figure that can wait till next week when William is in school. He doesn't need to see falling apart me.  He has enough to deal with as it is.

William is registered for school.  I think the hardest adjustment for him is going to be the 15-20 minute walk to and from school.  We are .2km short of him being able to be bused by the school and it would take us longer to take public transit then it would be to walk.

The house is in various states of unpacked/sorted/chaos.  Partly because we had to wait till Jen left for BC and took all her stuff with her and partly because now that Jen has left we can't do much as Mom is working and I don't know where stuff is supposed to go.

William's room is 95% complete.  His toy room is 80% complete mainly because there is spill over from unpacking (wheelie carts that have no home).  My room is 75% unpacked, mainly because I don't know where to put some of the stuff and I don't have a small desk yet for writing/the mini puter.

The front porch/basement are on hold because Mom is teaching all this week and the heavy lifter aka Dad is currently marathon driving across the country with my sister to BC.

The washer, the dishwasher and the ice maker all decided to die the day I moved in.
The ice maker and the washer were at least under warranty.  The dishwasher ended up being a $20 part replacement (thank goodness).  The ice maker has been repaired.  The washer, not so much.  Wednesday if we're lucky, Friday at the latest.  The sensors that tell it to stop filling and to start the next part of the cycle are pooched.

I continue to heal at a record rate.  2cm in the past week.  My nurse is suitably impressed.
I figure the huge lessening of stress has helped a bunch with the healing and that and my nurse lady is just awesome.  She is doing stuff for me that I know is definitely helping.

I miss all of you in Waterloo, and I suspect I will miss you more once I have less things to keep me busy all of the time.

Tomorrow I brave the new to me Orillia transit system (it runs till 1015pm and on Sundays now and there are 5 routes instead of 4!!)* with William so I can go buy him new indoor shoes and out door shoes as his current set are falling apart.



*the Orillia transit when I lived here last only had 4 routes and stopped at 6pm and only ran Monday to Saturday.  Saturday it ran hourly.

Not one of my best ideas

Though I have loved having the extra time with the children I care for, it is not advisable to work right up till your moving day when your job is home child care.

I would be understating things if I didn't say I wasn't crazily stressed on the packing end.

Though at this point I have resigned myself to the fact it isn't going the way I planned.  I can't fix it and for the love of all things shiny and pretty I am going out to dinner with my friends one last time tomorrow night even if I am not finished packing!!!

Reality is starting to sink in.

Tears are going to be shed tomorrow.

I can't believe that moving day is a mere two sleeps away.

I can't believe I am about to be unemployed in one sleep.

I can't believe my "kids" won't be coming here and I won't be here anymore!!!

I remember why I hate moving.

The chaos

and

The Good Byes.

The law, the parents and the provider -responsibility

It is not the law in Ontario that a home day care provider must be licensed.
I can tell you right now almost half of the unlicensed providers don't even know the details of the laws they should be following with regards to health and safety including the fact they can only have up to 5 children under the age of 10 in care.

They don't even have to follow the same Day Nurseries Act break down we licensed providers must follow (Our 5 children must break down as such: 5 children under 5, No more than 4 of 5 children under 4, no more than 3 of those children under 3 and no more than 2 under 2 and 1 under one).

I can walk through my neighbourhood tomorrow and come across some where around 25 home day cares that are not licensed and ALL of them are breaking the law in some way.
The majority of them being over ratio.

So this brings us to the very tragic death of a 2 year old girl in Vaughn in an unlicensed home child care where 20+ children were found in total on the premises as well as several health and safety code violations.

20+ children  of which the ages were of an average of 3 and under.

Complaints were lodged a number of time in the six months leading up to the incident against the home for over crowding and the Ministry of Education did nothing.
Which is wrong.

But as the same time seriously how did the parents not notice something was wrong??

Apparently the woman running the place wouldn't let the parents past the inside of the front door.

Again seriously people that is a HUGE red flag warning sign.  What is she hiding?? Also as a parent myself, I would be wondering WHY can't I go inside? I don't understand what she could have told these parents to convince them that they had no right, because they did.

Yet people still willingly chose to leave their children there.

I don't understand. How can you as a parent not want to see where and what your child is doing in another person's house whom you are not related to?

How could you blindly leave your child without first seeing the conditions they were spending the majority of their day in??

I am a home day care provider and my house is pretty much open to the day care parents, within reason of course. As far as I am concerned, anywhere the kids go, the parents can go too.

Too many times I have overhead conversations at the park/library/grocery store/sitting on the bus that we day care providers are greedy and over charging for the privilege of sticking the children in front of the tv so we can kick back and surf the net while the parents do the real work out in the real world.

Excuse me? I don't think so.
Sadly yes there is a small proportion of home day care providers who sadly do just that, stick the kid in front of the tv and do as they please.
But we can find in any profession people who are terrible at their jobs.
That doesn't mean the rest of us are like that.

What I don't get is how this ignorant subset of parents seem to think their children magically learn about colours, shapes, ABCs, numbers, sharing, feelings, manners, seasons, matching etc etc.
They (the parents) are at work all day and I highly doubt the first thing they do when they get home after work and picking up the kids from day care is sit down and teach any of these concepts to their child at the end of a busy work day with supper needing to be cooked, children fed, bathed and readied for bed, laundry, dishes etc etc etc

Good safe home day care providers provide safe, loving, nurturing homes where children thrive and learn.
This also applies to centres too.

So as tragic and heart wrenching as it is that this two year old died and the parents are suing the government and the home day care provider, they will have to live with the fact that they too are responsible.

Because they willingly ignored what was wrong in front of them and chose to claim they didn't know any better.

I cannot accept the response of "Well I didn't know any better."

Not when we live in the digital age where you can find ALL of the pertinent information about what is legal and not legal child care wise in this province with a few key strokes. Not to mention what to look for in regards to good, quality day care home based or centre based.  You can even call up the County or Region you live in and they will email/mail/direct you to the PDF or web page they ALL have on what to look for as well as lists of people/centres to check out.

If you are going to pay someone to be the care giver for your child, going with the person who charges the least just to save yourself a few dollars is not the best idea.

Especially if they are by far under cutting the average going price per a day.

How are they able to offer it for so little?

What corners are they cutting?

What are you not seeing or being told?

If you as a parent, don't take the time to educate yourself before looking for quality day care, be it home day care or a centre, then you are also to blame when something tragic occurs.

Because this is your child. Your blood. Your pride and joy.  They are worth every effort and time spent researching and seeking out the best day care you can afford to place them into while you are at work. For your piece of mind and for your child to grow and flourish as well.
So if this means you have to eat out less or give up something frivolous in order to get a better provider, than do it.  You won't EVER regret that decision.

This doesn't mean tragedy won't ever happen.  Unfortunately life isn't fair in how it operates so yes bad things can still happen to good people even when they do all the right things.

For now all you can do is educate yourself, know your rights, know your child's rights, know your provider's rights, ask questions and expect transparency when it comes to your child and the care they are receiving whether they are at a centre or in a home day care.

Hopefully the government will get off its ass and do something useful before more children die, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

The End of a Chapter

It's apparent if you are following along this blog that my life has unexpectedly had a hiccup or two lately.

One of those hiccups has led to the upcoming end of my seven years in home child care.

We have begun talking about moving and what that means so that the children aren't totally blindsided.
The 2 and nearly 3 year old don't quite get the concept of moving, but they know that they won't be coming here after we get to the star on the calendar.

Yes, we put a star on moving day, partly because my son wanted to signify the day some how and because I find visuals help immensely with children. They all know they will be going to someone else's house for day care.  I don't think they fully realize that it is for good this time, not like when I have gone away or had my surgery.

The nearly 4 year old, I suspect some of the grief he is causing his Mom at pick ups is related to processing the two massive changes about to come up in his life.  Firstly William and I moving, and we have become quite good friends with his family so see them a lot during non day care hours.  Secondly he starts JK in the fall.
Since his mom works near where I live, even if I had been staying and continuing work, in the fall he would have finished care with me anyway.
The one year old, well thankfully she is an easy going little girl so should make the transition to her new provider easily.

The 2 and almost 3 year olds are going to a provider I adore and am so pleased she could take over and continue what I started.

It's still rough.  They are like extended family, but closer.

William is taking it pretty well.  We have had a lot of transitionary children come and go these past two years.
He has also seen through the pictures some of the kids who were here a long time, but left just as he was born or  a year or two afterwards.
He is sad.  He will miss the current day care crew dearly, but the concept of moving isn't new to him.
He still calls the house on the corner Christof's old house and they haven't lived there in 2.5 years and he talks about how Emily (was in care with me from 21 months till she moved) moved to England and that's coming up on 2 years in October.

I started working on the project I making for kids good bye gifts.

Seven years is a long time and for chunks of that time most of the children I have looked after have been with me 2-3 years.
There are a lot of awesome pictures and memories.
I can't imagine what I am going to be like on the last day of work if I was already bawling as I put the pieces of the project together.

It will be very very weird not working from home.  Next to working at Swiss Chalet through high school and college, home day care is the longest I have ever worked at a single job.
Yes I worked in child care centres for 5 years leading up to working from home, but for 1-2 year stints at each place.

It's the end of a chapter.  The beginning of the new chapter is some what frightening, but also exciting.

The sadness of leaving those behind that I love and cherish will fade, but the memories created will always remain.
Also I will be visiting from time to time and with luck we will be able to see everyone I hope.

It is going to be a very hard two days on the 15th and 16th.
It will likely be harder then the move itself.