Just because I like children doesn’t mean I want to run a daycare.

I was cured of that many years ago.

We were living in our last house, a small rental not far from my parents. Ellen, our neighbor across the street ran a daycare. Yanni was in school at the time, and I had Xay in preschool two days a week. Our next door neighbors were homeschoolers. I thought they were very strange. Gary, the man, loved yard care so much that he mowed our lawn–unsolicited. Spencer and Tyler, their two little boys, at first seemed at war with Yanni and Xay. Then, when Yanni and Xay patronized their lemonade stand, everything changed. Spencer and Tyler came over every day in the summer asking if the kids could play.

They were really too old for Xay, as Spencer, the youngest, was a few months older than Yanni. When it was just Xay and me on the weekdays, he’d look longingly at the swing-set across the street. There were always a few dirty children playing, too. One day, Xay and I took the plunge and walked across the street.

Ellen was very friendly and invited us to stay. Xay tried his first bologna sandwich, and he liked it! Ellen left me with the children while she went in the house several times. They asked me to push them on the swing, look at their cool pranks, etc., what children always do at the playground. It was way past naptime, almost time to pick Yanni up when we finally pulled ourselves away.

Ellen thanked me and told me to come back anytime.

I don’t remember returning to the playground for a while. I did take Khari and Tchad there that summer that we watched them for a week. My friend Carol and her husband Linwood were particularly excited when I told them I was thinking about running a daycare. They would be our first customers, they informed me. Then, one summer, they went on a cruise for their anniversary and asked us to watch Khari and Tchad. Khari was a year younger than Yanni, and Tchad a year younger than Xay. I had just taken Xay out of diapers for good, and here I had diaper clad Tchad.

Yanni was 6, Khari, 5, Xay 3, and Tchad was 2. Khari was really shy, and never showed much of an interest in anything. I felt like that was how he controlled his surroundings. Tchad was friendly, but pre-verbal, and a thumbsucker. I was terrified that the children would cry and hate it at our house.

Instead, they sucked their thumbs and didn’t say much of anything. At the time, Yanni was not naturally kind to Xay, and her bad attitude rubbed off on Khari. We found ourselves punishing her for her bad attitude about her brother by making her read the Bible, and keeping her inside while everyone else went out to play.

It was extremely stressful. I developed a love of gardening, just to escape the tension in the house!

Eventually, we found ourselves at Ellen’s playground. She had quite a bit of land behind her house, and as it turned out, her husband’s family owned all the land on the tiny dead-end street where they lived. She wanted to train me as her assistant. She really pursued me to work with her.

I resisted. Something about the stress of watching other peoples’ children.

I am a playful person. When I had just the two, I would go to the playground and play with them. We’d swing, slide, play in the sand together. It was great. And I was a magnet for other children. They’d be trying to get me to watch their stunts–instead of watching my own children’s stunts. They’d be trying to get me to push them in the swing, too. I desperately started looking around for other parents. If they were there at all, they were off reading a book or talking.

When Yanni went to school, I would volunteer in the classroom most days. Xay and I would go in and play with the children during center time. Again, I could barely even glimpse Yanni and what she was doing for all the other children crowding me, trying to get my attention. I like playing with all kinds of kids, but it can take away from my own. Yanni was a withdrawn, shy person when she was in school.

I signed her up for girl scouts. Again, I was like the only mother that stuck around for the meeting. Before I knew it, I was cookie mom, then assistant leader. By the time we had started homeschooling, I was in charge of the junior troop–and i never went to one training meeting! Girl Scouts was the same scenario–all the needy girls vying for my attention, while Yanni withered on the vine alone. Quitting was an easy decision.

I won’t even go into my stint as a children’s choir director. More of the same, only my children were younger.

So, when I babysit for other children, it’s let me try to entertain them, let me run around behind them, let me assure their every comfort no matter what. Where did Yanni sleep for the week+ that Katie and Jessie were here? The floor. I’m sorry, Yanni. I have really tried to reform my old ways, and then other people’s children come around, and I get nervous.

I remember the summer that Esteban was born. That was the summer that the Rutherfords decided not to sign their children up for day camp all summer, and instead to have them come over here. I had been wanting to have them the year before, but, come on! I had just had a baby. And after Esteban was born, I could barely walk for a month, and that sciatic nerve pain was piercing for 6 weeks. I needed Yanni and Xay to be at Mani and Joy’s beck and call, but with other children here all the time, they were in play mode 24/7. To say I felt squeezed would be an understatement.

Will I ever learn to say no? I am starting to resent that everyone that sees me wants to call me mommy.

I AM NOT MOTHER TO THE WORLD!!!!1!

So, I’m thinking about making a sign for the front door. It should read something like: Daycare Closed. This is a family, not an institution, and just because we have several children does not mean that we are accepting any more. We are not automatically available for after school care, either. Please phone ahead. We have a life.