As you all know, and if you don’t know, now you do know, Blair and I operate a licensed childcare/preschool in our home as a full-time job.
Many, many, many, many, many, many people have said to me:
I just don’t know HOW you do it!
Once again, I am here to advise you with another in my oh-so-helpful series of How-To’s:
How to Operate a Daycare In Your Home
1. Have no other marketable skills.
2. Be desperate for money and/or get laid off from several 9-5 jobs due to deteriorating economy.
3. Be in possession of the following:
*No sense of smell
*Complete disregard for the state of your house.
*Little to no dignity.
4. Be under the impression that caring for children is easy and fun.
5. Be a person to whom other people have said one of the following:
*I just couldn’t do what you do
*You are so patient
*Have you lost your mind?
6. Kiss your white clothing good-bye.
7. Buy a set of small black combs with which to comb a variety of unknown matter out of your hair including, but not limited to-boogers, peanut butter, gum, sand and tuna sandwich.
8. Practice saying: “Your child had a good day!” in an enthusiastic and believable voice.
9. Brush up on your interpreting skills. Learn that ’tissoo’ means “choo-choo” which means train. ‘Asses! Asses! Bassoon!’ are the lyrics to a popular children’s song/game, which, being interpreted is: ‘Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!”
10. Stock up on chocolate and become dependent on a caffeinated beverage.
11. Realize your desire to feel taller than everyone!
12. Be prepared to finally put your champion, Olympic-ready diaper changing skills to good use.
13. Become obsessed with laminating.
14. Be a person who enjoys (doesn’t get sick at the sight of) children viciously mutilating innocent lunches.
15. Cease to care in the slightest what anyone thinks about you.
16. Be ready to welcome official agencies into your home whose sole purpose is tell you what you are doing wrong.
17. Have the mindset that if your tax situation isn’t complicated, you’re not doing it right!
18. Have a burning desire to break up fights, learn hostage negotiating skills, and read minds.
19. Learn to tell when “nothing” means nothing, or when it means that everyone is naked and jumping up and down on the couch while watching Frozen and tearing apart a box of Kleenex.
20. Care whether or not people you did not give birth to are meeting developmental milestones.
There you have it! 20 easy to follow steps on your journey to letting go of sanity, reason and good judgment and opening your home to a band of tiny criminals that make prison look like a vacation.
And that, my friends, is how I do it.
