What a year - Here come more changes

I really cannot believe it's been over a year since I've gotten around to writing a new blog post.

A lot has happened.

November of 2014 I started caring for a family of two boys before I was able to get licensed for daycare. Come April of 2015 I finally got my license after eight months of hard work to get the training I needed and my home up to par. Once I was licensed I had three more kiddos join us at Nature Sprouts! It felt so good to have everything come together and start my own business. Though, it hasn't gone the way I had envisioned or hoped.

I knew it would take some adjusting for as all to get used to. Especially for my kids. My oldest did just fine with all of it but over the summer I had a lot of guilt towards my new business because he was spending WAY more time in front of a screen than I would have liked and when he wasn't in front of a screen he was really bored.

My youngest (2 years old at the time and now 3) did just fine at the beginning when I was just caring for two kids but when I became licensed and the others started, he became miserable. He started screaming at everyone over everything and then the screaming escalated to hitting and shoving. He would have really awful days where it was a constant struggle to keep him happy and then he would have some days where things were fine. Not perfect. But fine. I could handle those days. I could not handle the bad days.

I started to realize that my child was becoming unrecognizable during the week. We'd have our fun-loving, goofy little guy on the weekends and then during the week he was swapped out with a very stressed, unpredictable child. I began to miss my own kid when I was in the same house with him all day, every day. To maintain as mellow and quiet of an environment as possible, I plopped him in front of the TV in my room way more often than I would like to admit. I had a no TV daycare. Yet I was allowing my child to watch hours of TV a day just to keep my sanity.

This was not working. This is not how I want my child to go through his childhood. He was miserable, which would make me feel miserable and it started to turn our house and family life upside down. No amount of money was worth this to me.

I have decided to call it quits. Come November 25th (or sooner if the daycare families choose to go elsewhere before then) Nature Sprouts will be no more.

It has been incredibly difficult to accept the fact that my business has failed. Honestly, this is the third (fourth?) thing I've tried to do with my life and again it has not worked out. But, I had to do what was best for my family.

Who knows where life will take us now..