"My Supports"

If I had to describe factors that are supportive to me within my daily environment, I would have to start with my family.   This may sound funny but my five year old Abigail in many ways helps us to start the day.  She is the first one up and she gets her twelve year old sister up and motivated even before her alarm goes off and she is right there to make sure she gets going every morning.  I can't say that Ashley is all too excited about this but to me Abigail plays a vital role in helping the house to get up and go.  Allyson and Tyler get up a little later and they are both always so quick to give you a hug and make you smile.  It is the best way anyone could start their day. My husband is actually running the childcare with me now and I depend on him a lot to greet really early parents while I am getting our kids ready and running up to the bus stop twice a day before eight am. As well as my family I also have wonderful neighbors whom I see on a daily basis and are just wonderful to my whole family.  They are always there for every birthday, school event, dance competition, cheering competition, family cookout, and also to talk whenever we need them.  There is many times when my children were sick and I needed to get them medicine or a gallon of milk and my husband was almost an hour away at work and they would run to the store or come sit with the children while I ran out.  I don't know what I would do without them.  And then there is my parents who are always there when I need them and without them I would never have had the confidence to leave my career as a chemist and open a childcare.

There are many other supports that get me through the day that are not for emotional support but practical, such as my coffee maker.  With four children and working twelve hour days and school, that cup of coffee is very much needed!  My planner, computer, calculator, and log book are all items I use ever day not just for my house bills, to run a business but to attend school as well.  Other supports would include my vehicle to transport the children back and forth, the bus drivers that transport my children back and forth to school, their teachers, dance teachers, cheering coach, other cheer moms, and of course my childcare moms who without their families and income I would not be able to run a business where I can be with my own family as much as I am.

Now that we run a business together, I could not imagine doing it again without the help of my husband and the emotional support of my family.  Nor could I imagine not having my neighbors, my parents.  My challenge would be for the both of us to finish the programs we are in and extend our business to include a summer Sea Lab program.  Having a business that already exists and the many families we care for, we would need to keep their business and as many of them have refer us to other families who need childcare and in the years to come also remain with us through the expansion if we are lucky.  We would help from the many friends and family who helped us to build our home in 2005 and we would need to be able to plan financially by setting money aside if possible and sticking to our budget with the use of the spreadsheet that was creating in evaluating the profit and loss of the business.We would need direction from our licensor along with required professional development.  And an engineer to design the plans for the addition.  But mainly without the need for childcare, none of this will even be a possibility.