Doug had a brave moment yesterday and decided to take three little boys, ages 3, 2, and 1 along with him to pick up a welder at his cousin's house. I was amazed but certainly wasn't about to argue since that made my afternoon a whole lot quieter. So he loaded them all up and off they went. Two hours later they were back, mission accomplished and everyone happy. Doug said the boys were great and they had a good time.
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Some afternoons Doug picks up two children at their neighborhood bus stop. Yesterday their mother called and said she wanted us to be aware that an older man has been spotted in the neighborhood watching the children get on and off the bus. He doesn't live in the neighborhood and isn't visiting anyone in the neighborhood. He simply shows up not long before the bus comes and leaves soon after the bus does. He doesn't always park in the same place and has been seen in two different vehicles. So everyone is on high alert right now. The police have been notified and are doing extra patrols in the area. The kids no to stay together instead of some running home from the bus stop and others walking slowly. It's sad that kids have to be nervous walking home from the bus stop but at this point there's no help for it. I think most parents will be walking to and from the bus stop with their kids until this is settled.
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I was not happy this morning when the Department of Social Services called this and left a message that they have no record of our childcare license being renewed, so they believe it ran out the end of January. I knew the license had been renewed and I knew we had sent this department a copy of it. And I left them a nice message telling them so. A few hours later I received a call saying yes they did have a copy of the current license and had simply overlooked it . I'm glad they found it but I didn't appreciate the stress of thinking our purchase orders for services provided were going to be denied until they found it.
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Amanda went to do her online school assignments this morning and discovered that someone had put some toys on the keyboard of her laptop and closed the lid on them. The screen on her laptop was destroyed and she was heartbroken. I wasn't sure if the best option would be to try to get the screen fixed or to replace the whole laptop. When Doug came home from work this afternoon he looked at it and decided we would simply replace it. So a new one has been ordered and should be here in a week or so.
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Austin and Amanda have been excited all day and busy packing for a nine day trip with grandparents, aunt and uncles and cousins. They are going to a cabin and it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. I don't know what I am going to do without them for that long but I'm glad they're getting the chance to go. Michael is going to miss them a lot as well. Oh well, I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder as the saying goes. Amanda has two friends here for the night tonight and they decided they want to stay tomorrow night as well even though Amanda is going to be gone. I'm hoping that will help Michael a little with his sister and brother leaving. They went on vacation several months ago as well and Michael had a really hard time with it then.
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Tonight is going to be a late night for me. One of our daycare kids will be here until around midnight because his mother has to work until closing time at Domino's. I'm hoping to use some of that time to study. I finished the class on Creative Learning Environments and now I'm working on Basic Observation and Assessment. I'm enjoying this chance to study at my own pace and have already been able to apply a lot of what I'm learning on a daily basis.
