THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 23, 1994 TAG: 9408230040
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 238 lines
ARRIVAL
It's 7 a.m. when Samantha Duncan arrives with smiles, pureed apricots and a week's worth of clean wash cloths.
Her father carries all this plus 7-month-old Samantha and delivers the whole lot to Marsha Windell, owner and operator of The Learning Tree Home Day Care center in Chesapeake.
Samantha's the first customer, but eight more will follow in the next two hours. They range in age from 7 months to 4 years, arrive in varying moods and all get a hello hug from the woman they know as Miss Marsha.
For all intents and purposes, Windell is The Learning Tree. She pays the bills and mops the floors. She buys the toys and administers the kisses. She remodels the playroom and sings Itsy Bitsy Spider.
Her child-care operation is homier than a center but more structured than a baby sitter. A state license hangs on the wall, plus a chart that shows where to go in case of fire.
``Jonathan, what did you do this weekend?'' Windell says to 2-year-old Jonathan Cowart, the second to arrive. He clings to his mother, winds his legs around her waist as she tries to set him down.
``Mommy has to go to work,'' his mother says. ``Kiss?''
He turns away, eyes brimming with tears. He's going to make this hard. It is, after all, Monday.
``Jonathan, there's new fish in the tank,'' says Windell, an energetic 44-year-old who spends most of her day kneeling down to kid level. ``Want to go see them?''
He quickly turns, gives Mom a kiss and stops on the way to the tank to finger some sea shells on a bookshelf. Mom leaves, and Windell slips into her role for the next nine hours.
Windell is two years into the home day-care business, a time during which the climate has been none too good. First there's the sporadic story about a provider shaking babies or abusing children. Then, studies like the one Families and Work Institute released in April that said only 9 percent of home day-care providers are doing a good job.
But Windell, who has a degree in political science and 10 years of experience in the auditing field, lets all this wash over her. ``I figure it makes me all the more valuable,'' she says. ``I know I do a good job. I can't be the keeper of the world, only of these children.''
A look inside her day illustrates how a growing number of children spend their day in Hampton Roads, and how providers strive to nurture them on a budget.
MORNING
By 8:15, the last child, 23-month-old Tucker Noia, has arrived as well as Windell's assistant, Tracee Eads.
The pace picks up. Windell and Eads work in tandem, calling back and forth from kitchen to playroom to make sure everything and everyone is covered. Windell pops waffles in the oven, cuts bananas, pours juice for breakfast, as 18-year-old Eads reads stories to the older children in the playroom.
Samantha and 8-month-old Jake Rhodes have been put down for their morning nap after a few hours of playing on the floor.
The day is a whir of changing diapers, drying tears, answering the constant cry of ``Miss Marsha, Miss Marsha,'' and giving hugs at every turn.
``One good thing about this job is you can eat whatever you want because you never gain weight,'' Windell says on yet another trip from the kitchen up to the baby's sleeping room to fetch Samantha, who loudly proclaims she's awake.
Just getting all seven of the older children seated for circle time takes almost as much time as the activity itself. A tussle breaks out between 3-year-old Ashton Kuhn and 3-year-old Matt Claffy.
Windell holds down the flying elbows of both children. ``Do you two have a problem?'' she asks.
``Ashton isn't being nice to me,'' Matt says, his eyes focusing on his shoes.
``How is she not being nice?''
``She won't let me sit by her.''
``You might try telling her, `You're not being nice to me.' Or you could find someone else to sit by.''
Windell turns to Ashton. ``It's not very nice to not let him sit by you. Some day you might want to sit by someone who doesn't want to sit by you. How would that make you feel?''
Ashton sees the light, gives Matt a big hug. Windell's philosophy is to help the kids settle disputes themselves instead of sending them to different corners.
``Good morning to Jonathan, good morning to Jonathan, good morning to Jonathan, we're glad to see you here,'' the children sing.
Windell's home day care stands out from most. It's state licensed, which makes it rare when you consider that 80 percent of the state's 600,000 children in day care attend unlicensed homes and centers. Windell also has an assistant who comes every day. She has a schedule of activities that varies from day to day, bound together by themes like this week's sea shell theme, and next week's camping theme.
The morning passes quickly with storytelling, finger painting, show and tell, and singing Itsy Bitsy Spider with spiders Eads made out of egg cartons and pipe cleaners.
No activity lasts more than 15 minutes because the children usually turn restless by then. ``Down,'' Tucker demands when he's finished with his finger painting.
Twenty-three-month old Jason Stewart wanders over to the door and finger paints a window pane green as Windell washes the other seven sets of hands.
LUNCH, NAP TIME
Windell prepares lunch of chicken nuggets, green beans, applesauce and biscuits while the older children watch a video with Eads. They take turns going to the bathroom to wash their hands, then sit down for lunch. Eads spoons carrots and apricots into Samantha's mouth as Jake patiently waits his turn.
Four-year-old Justin Stewart sits down at the lunch table and bellows, ``Food!''
``What did I hear?'' Windell says. ``Did I hear any nice words in there?''
``I want some food PLEASE,'' he says.
``How come she got three nuggets and I got two?'' Justin asks.
``Because I cut hers up for her,'' Windell says. ``I didn't think you needed that help.
After lunch is nap time, the only break Windell and Eads will have during the day. But first they have to get all the children sleeping at once - no easy feat.
Blond-haired Shannon Martell, who's 17 months, and 23-month-old Tucker have the hardest time going down. They've both had busy weekends and are excited by the presence of a visitor for the day. Both children have only recently been moved from cribs to cots.
Tucker gets up and down, up and down. He looks for his stuffed puppy, looks for his shoes. He goes to the next cot and looks at Jason. Every time Windell lays him down on the cot, he pops right back up.
Meanwhile Shannon cries. Loudly. She doesn't want to sleep. She curls up in a ball on the floor and cries. Wraps her arms around her pillow.
Windell sits between the two children rubbing their backs, cajoling them onto their cots and persuading them that yes, they do need naps, and yes, they will take them. A tape of soothing ocean sounds plays in the background.
Shannon quiets down, then Tucker starts crying. Then he stops, and Shannon starts again. Then they cry jointly for a while. Then one quiets and the other cries.
This continues for an hour - 40 minutes longer than usual - until the only sound is gentle snoring.
Once the children are sleeping, Eads cleans up the playroom and kitchen, and Windell fills out daily reports on each child. ``Parents love these,'' she says, marking whether the kids ate all their lunches. ``They come in and say `Where's his report card?' ''
Windell also has paperwork she needs to fill out for a United States Department of Agriculture food program that gives reimbursements to child-care operators who follow certain guidelines.
What she finishes during the 30-minute window before Jake wakes up is only a fraction of the paperwork that needs to be done. There's also tax papers, state licensing records, activity schedules.
And the toughest part of the job - budgeting. Windell's rates fall somewhere between center prices and most home day-care rates. She provides a more structured program than most home providers, and parents are willing to pay for that.
``I've never had a parent question a rate increase,'' Windell says. But if she has an opening, she could go a month without filling it, so she thinks hard about price increases.
The single woman folds a lot of what she earns back into the operation. She spent last winter converting her garage into a playroom for the children. She's now trying to think of a way to improve her outdoor playground. She wishes she could pay her assistant more, the third she's had in less than two years, but knows her budget won't allow for it.
The low pay of the industry frustrates her. ``I don't think people who work with children should have to self-sacrifice just to give quality care. This is a very costly business,'' she says pointing out cubbies, changing table, cots, bookshelves, toys and a backyard full of playground equipment. ``But I want it to be the best.''
After years of working for auditing firms and in management, she decided to trade in those pressures for a chance to run her own business. She had taken child development classes in college and loved working with children, so child care seemed like a natural choice.
Some day she would like to open a day-care center. ``But not yet,'' she says. ``I'm not ready for the headaches that go along with that.''
AFTERNOON
Shannon is the first of the older children to wake. She toddles over to Windell and gives her a hug, leans up against her and puts her head in Windell's lap.
By 3 p.m., most of the other children are up, too, and everyone moves back to the playroom for a round of songs. Shannon pulls down a container of toy kitchen spoons and forks and scatters them across the floor. After a few minutes, she walks away.
Windell asks her to pick them up. She doesn't and makes her way to some baby dolls instead.
``No, Shannon, you can't play with the baby until you pick up your toys.''
Shannon throws herself on the floor and cries - but still doesn't pick up the toys. Then she tries to go to another part of the room, but Windell reminds her she needs to pick up her toys first. She cries and stretches her arms out to Windell to be picked up.
``Pick up your toys first,'' Windell says. Shannon wails.
Finally, Shannon picks up the toys and sets them on the shelf. Windell hugs her, and Shannon happily picks up a paper pumpkin face to join the other children in singing ``Five Little Pumpkins.''
The day has flown by for Windell, who doesn't have time to eat more than a chicken nugget as she's cleaning up after lunch and drink a few swigs of soda pop between giving hugs and dealing with tantrums.
PICKUP
Tucker's mother arrives for pickup at 3:40. By this time the children are busy cutting out pictures from magazines.
``Mommy! Scissors!'' Tucker says holding up a pair of green-and-white scissors he's been struggling with for 10 minutes.
``I see,'' she says, leaning down to see his work.
During the next hour and a half, the mothers and fathers come one by one, picking up children, daily reports, finger painting pictures.
``Mommy! I cut!'' Jonathan proclaims to his mother as he holds up a picture of Cybill Shepherd.
Eads leaves about 4:30, and Windell gets out a hermit crab to play with Shannon and Matt.
By 5:20, the last parent has come and gone, and Windell is on her own again. ``Hey, I got off early today,'' she says.
Despite the 11-hour days, the nights and weekends planning her activities and filling out paperwork, the low pay of the industry, Windell finds the work rewarding.
`It's fun work, it really is,'' she says. ``I feel good about the children, and how they relate to their friends here.''
And she believes the profession of child care will some day be as appreciated as it should be. ``I think the image is changing somewhat,'' she says. ``That needs to come first. Making sure people see this as a profession. Then the money will get there.'' ILLUSTRATION: JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI/Staff color photos
Day-care worker Tracee Eads teaches Shannon Martell, 17 months, and
Justin Stewart, 4, their ABCs while Jonathan Cowart, 2, left,
plays.
ABOVE: Marshal Windell watches Shannon Martell take a ``time-out''
for unruly behavior.
ABOVE LEFT: Tucker Noia, 23 months, rests during afternoon nap
time.
TOP: Windell receives affectionate hugs from Ashton Kuch, 3, left,
and Matt Claffy, 3.
Photos
JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI/Staff
Matt Claffy, Ashton Kuhn and Justin Stewart finger paint at The
Learning Tree Home Day Care center.
At day's end, Beth Noia watches her son, Tucker, accept help from
day-care provider Marsha Windell.
by CNB