First, which Thermometer?

It’s tough to figure out the most accurate way to take a child’s temperature to see if they have a fever. OK, I have heard how it is best to take infants temperatures, but if you are like me, you cringe at taking your child’s temperature rectally. I never was able to do that with any of my children – I’ll leave that to the professionals.  Then, how do you want others to take your child’s temperature? What if you have a babysitter? Or you leave them at an early learning center like Just Like GRAMMY & POPPOP’s?

During the COVID pandemic, I saw a lot of people using the point-and-shoot method where they used the trigger aimed at your forehead and it was super fast and likely the easiest.  But I have heard that they weren’t and still are not very accurate.

I am taking the point-and-shoot ones that we got for the center home to use and got two new ones to use.  One is a digital thermometer by Vick’s and gives a quick read. The other is one that you can use in the ear by Braun. I’m more comfortable with the recognized brand names when it comes to taking children’s temperatures.  Both are used only with covers on them, which I really like for cleanliness.

Cheat Sheet for Taking Temperatures of Children

Since I was replacing the thermometers, I thought a cheat sheet would be helpful to train our team members. This could come in handy for new team members as they come onboard and it will be placed with the thermometers in our health basket as well. I usually do a search on Google first. If I can save time and use something that exists, most of the time I will. I did not find anything that would work, so I created my own version.

The benefit to creating my own is that I can share it! It might be handy for people to have at home to leave in the cabinet with the thermometers or with a babysitter.  Of course, taking temperatures doesn’t seem that complex or difficult to those who have been down the road as far as I have been, but we all start somewhere!

Enjoy this copy of the Taking Children’s Temperatures Cheat Sheet below and feel free to share with others too!

Download your copy of the Taking Children’s Temperatures Cheat Sheet here.

Seasons change and there is a time for everything. It was a fun ride at my corporate job for many years, but looking back, I realized I missed a lot of important moments. Even the moments that might seem small or go unnoticed to many. That’s why I made a change and you know what? I regret nothing.

Today, as I held my 5-month old grandson in my arms as he slept, his tiny breaths like melodies in my ears, I felt such incredible warmth. with the sounds of his breath like melodies, I felt such warmth. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time in my career, I had supportive leaders that were happy to grant time for family moments. They respected the time off that I had earned and deserved.  But the more recent experience was a constant mental tug-of-war and I couldn’t feel like I was completely present to even hear those precious melodies, always with one eye on my phone in case the current “leader” reached out with some issue or question that absolutely could have waited.

Being Present

Founding and opening Just Like GRAMMY & POPPOP’s was a path that was (and frankly, is!) scary at times. Matt and I both made a good living in the tall, glass building downtown. But money can’t buy the rewarding feeling of being present.

When some health complications arose with Grand5, I could be there without being pulled in a million different directions at work. I was truly present and it felt so good. Each and every day, the hugs that both our 8-year old grandson and 3-year old granddaughter rush to give throughout the day are worth more than the paycheck!

Reflecting back, I truly believe that everything has happened at just the right time. Yeah, I missed a lot of our daughters’ high-school moments when I traveled for work and commuted from PA to WI.  But there is a time for every season. A time to work for someone else and a time to venture out on your own.

For me, every single moment now is worth more than the corporate ladder. There is even a bigger bonus than I had imagined, being able to give our presence to littles while the season is right for them to be in our care.

We get it. We know the struggle. We believe in the power of presence, and we’re here to support you in achieving that for your family.

I’ve heard this quite a bit…. just replace the word “TOMORROW” with a particular day or hey, just in general because quality child care is so hard to find! We have the answer with our Drop-In Care option that allows you to book space when it is available for ages 6 weeks through 12 years. More information on last minute care here. 

But why?

There are many reasons why one might have un-planned needs for childcare.

Some reasons you might have a last minute need….

• Family is coming to town and you need to stock up the fridge and pantry
• Best friends are coming over and you need to do a clean without a mess being left right behind you
• An in-person work meeting was scheduled when you were planning on working from home while LittleOne was napping
• You’ve been curious about how your child would handle being away… but you don’t want to commit to a schedule yet
• It’s time for a self-care day full of spa treats
• You have an ambitious reading goal and need some time to dive into all of the pages
• A test is coming up and you need some study time
• The fairways and greens are calling you
• It’s time for some socialization to be integrated into your child’s day
• School is closed
• You are relocated and not sure where you are going to settle down
• the list goes on and on and on.

We are here for you! Sign up BEFORE you need it so you can be assured when the time is right – you can be at Just Like GRAMMY & POPPOP’s.  Complete your application for enrollment today.

Today’s Lesson about the Childcare Trilemma

Quality

Having a clean and safe environment was one of the highest rated items that families answered in our survey. This isn’t just the building or rooms, it encompasses the toys, the playground equipment, the art supplies, the materials to explore and learn, everything!

Top-Notch quality can’t be forgotten with the food that is served, pest prevention, curriculum/learning materials, books, safe disinfectants, the continuing education of the team, the list goes on. There is not one area here that can be cut back on. We aren’t talking about 24 lb. bright white paper or ignoring sale items, just keeping quality with what is needed is an investment.

Affordability

I don’t think it is a surprise to anyone that some people are expected to pay more than their mortgage payment for their child to be in care while the parent(s) are working! Go back and read that again. Come on! Even if families are able to, and I would imagine most would say they will do whatever they have to in order to provide the best for their child(ren) but should it be this way? No. If you shop around at the various early childhood learning centers, you will find that the prices don’t vary a lot in tuition pricing and it’s important to look at what is included with the costs (learning environment, food, vacation days, multi child discount, etc).

Compensation

Qualified and experienced teachers and team members should be recognized with a fair pay. In Waukesha County, the average hourly wage is $16.50, which is 5% above the national average, according to Indeed.

Kindergarten teachers average pay in the area is about $30/hour.

I thought it would be informative to see what types of jobs you can have to make around $17/hour. Here is what Google result I got:

• Crew member at Wendy’s or McDonald’s
• Delivery driver for Domino’s or Topper’s Pizza
• Oil change team member or car wash crew member at Take 5
• Sales associate at Pet Supplies Plus
• Hotel laundry attendant at Hilton Garden Inn

These are all important jobs and I am grateful for all of them, but the people that lead the care for children from 6 weeks old until the time they enter public school Kindergarten are paid less than $20/hour on average! A child’s most crucial time for brain development occurs before five years old, just let all of that sink in. It’s ridiculous, we need to make this better.

Here is the Trick

The challenge here is to figure out how to improve these three different areas with the least amount of impact to the others. There isn’t one area here that is more important – they are all dependent upon one another. You can’t just throw more money at one without taking from another. We will not bend on quality at Just Like GRAMMY & POPPOP’s, it’s just not what we are willing to do. We want our program to be the one mom groups are talking about because of our excellence in all aspects.

What we are doing

First, we are helping by opening our early learning center, Just Like GRAMMY & POPPOP’s, in Pewaukee. When we were forming our business plan, we kept asking each other why there is such a difficulty in finding care. Why aren’t more people opening centers to help? Once we continued down our path, the question to each other became a statement, “this is why more people don’t this!” It’s been nothing less than a grueling process and full of challenges, but we have kept in mind when we see the smiling faces around us as our reward. The smiles on the children, families, and our team is the reason we have continued to overcome the roadblocks and tread on.

Continually, Matt and I have a lot of foundational beliefs that we share and we both believe in data driven decisions that are in partnership with qualitative feedback. It comes very natural to us both and we believe this is imperative to put within our business. We have already seen a very valuable lesson in how important this is and we haven’t even opened yet! We both felt that one of the items we needed to offer to give great quality was live-camera feeds to parents where they can ‘drop in’ at any time and watch what their child (and the class) was doing. Matt spent time researching and had a few demonstrations just about ready to make a decision when we got the results of a quality survey we did ranking different features of a childcare with our sphere of influence. We had no plans of this informing the decision about the live-view, but it did. The results were that live-views were ranked at the bottom of quality! There were different reasons why this was not something families wanted, but we were shocked and pivoted immediately. We will have cameras for security monitoring, but not live-views. We almost spent money where we thought was what families wanted and we would have gotten it wrong had we not listened.

Gaining the perspectives to help inform decisions of all of the customers (children, families, and team members) is vital. They should be the ones to help define what quality, affordability, and fair compensation means for Just Like GRAMMY & POPPOP’s. Then we continually iterate based on what we hear… it’s just like software development. We hope you will join us as we help to make a difference in the early childhood education trilemma with what ideas you have.

I fell in love with Moo Cards (my favorite is the mini size)  many years ago when I had my technology education company for small businesses.  The quality is unbeatable and I just love the fact that they are different than a standard business card which often ends up in the trash now-a-days.

When Matt asked if we should order business cards for our new child care center I said, “not for me” right away, but in my mind, I knew I wanted to get some Moo Cards in my purse.

I also love taking pictures although I don’t take the time to capture the creativity I used to through the viewfinder of my camera. If you order Moo cards, you can upload your own images or use their designs. I flipped through some images I had captured for most of them.

Take a look at the order I received yesterday…

The ones in the lower, right corner were stock images while the rest I took. While we haven’t finalized our location yet, I decided to just add our logo and website to the backs. They do provide a lot of room for details.

If you see us around, feel free to ask for a couple! We can also send them out – just ask.

This post is purely a share of something I like… no affiliate… no ads… no commissions.  But I’d love to see yours if you choose to create some for fun, for business, for family, whatever!