Childminding Blog by Childminder Leigh Anne Gilmore
When I was asked to write a Childminding Blog, I remember thinking about all the things I do each day and briefly wondered, maybe this would be a good idea to share with the wider childminding community? But then I thought of all the Facebook posts and interactions with all the wonderful childminders I am so fortunate to know and I realised we all have tips and tricks that we use to provide the best care possible to the little ones we mind. So, I began to feel quite unworthy of writing a blog!
With that in mind, I thought, maybe this particular blog should be in the words of our amazing little mindees. As they say, “Out of the mouths of babes…..”
They pre-warn us of mischief:
‘I have a two yr whose favourite saying [at the moment] is ’not yet’…I say, ‘B… eat up your dinner…reply is ‘not yet’. I say, let’s hurry up & go outside.. reply is, ‘not yet’. B has thrown the odd punch at another mindee & has been corrected. The other day, my husband said to B “‘B, are you using gentle hands today… did you hit mindee?” B’s reply…. ‘NOT YET’!‘
They try to get us into trouble:
‘I once dropped a little girl to school and once she saw her teacher she ran up to tell her “My minder is having a sleepover with my daddy tonight.” Obviously, I was staying over to look after kids while mum was away and he worked late!‘
They test our ability to handle public embarrassment:
‘Joining a queue in Tayto Park, and S shouts,
“I hope nobody here is pregnant! Because you can’t get on this ride if you’re pregnant!”
Spotting a TD in front of a school who is running for re-election. “Hey Mom! There’s that guy you like, but you can’t stand his Boss!”
They really like to help us be better childminders:
‘S: I just can’t understand why you won’t let the babies play with the chalk!
Me (looking at the perfect indentation of baby teeth in the jumbo sized green piece of chalk) ….. emmmmmmm’
They take a while to learn about compliments:
‘It was near the end of the day and I only had one mindee left to be collected so I said I’d start throwing a little bit of make up on as I had to go straight to an appointment when I finished. When I had the make up finished he goes, “oh wow Sharon you look like Halloween” – big smiles on his face as if he gave me the biggest compliment.
Me: Do you like my new dress? What do you think?
S: Yeh, I’ve seen worse!
They are great at tidying away their playthings:
Me: Where did you put that slime you had in your hand?
S: I left it in the car
Me: In the car?!?!?
S: Yeh! But don’t worry! I left it in the cup holder!
They make up their own vocabulary:
‘My 5 year old son calls an estate the estasdium. He’s getting the football stadium mixed up with estate. He also calls any area a world. So we live in Rathcoole and he says our world is called Rathcoole. Then one of mindees (let’s call him Joe) lives in Naas. He calls Naas, Joe’s world.
Two-and-a-half year old mindee called a roundabout a “round and round the all about”.‘
Our ceramic ramekins are “ceramicins”.
The Airtastic Play centre is the “Fantastic” Play centre.
I have 3 who go to an Irish school. Instead of saying Muinteor Maura they say….Winter Maura.‘
But they absolutely melt your heart:
‘At the supermarket with my 4 year old mindee and we hear a toddler roaring crying somewhere in the distance:
Me: Someone sounds sad
Mindee (not taking his eyes off the shopping he’s helping me scan): Maybe he’s sad coz he’d like a childminder like you, but he doesn’t have one!
Someone at the register next to me was scanning onions…………‘
Watch out for more funny sayings (or doings!) from our wonderful, amazing kiddos! With many thanks to the childminders who sent in these funny stories.