yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter - Tumblr blog

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

I did a nanny gig for this family who was staying at an air b-n-b but they had to leave the next morning so they had packed up all their kids toys and games and things so I was left with a 3 and 2 year old who had nothing to do

It didn't help that the parents left while they were sleeping so the kids woke up to a stranger just there....

It was fine cause they eneded up playing with closet doors for like an hour

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

I had a teacher I was working with choose to leave out a kids fit today when his mom adked how his day was and after turned to me and said "she didn't need the added stress" and it made me pause because it wasn't just a small thing but him staying up for the entire naptime, kicking his cot, hitting the stuff he was near, and talking back when he was corrected

And I know that teachers know their kids better than me because I'm a temporary hire who spends time in 10 different classrooms but leaving out when they had a fit or something they struggled with always bugs me

Here is the main reason why: I spend up to 8 hours with some of these kids, and sometimes they are there longer than I am, I mean 10-13 hour days. If they are having a problem or a fit or even just trouble with something I try and communicate that to parents because it's important and what if they know something I don't? What if there is something they can do to better support their child? What if it starts happening more and at home?

Also, it's not my kid, but I would want to know. I would want to know if my child threw their shoes, even if they were perfectly fine the rest of the day. It's not bad to want to help the parents, but not telling them things only leaves them in the dark.

I just got really frustrated about that.

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

So I recolored my hair over the weekend, I went from brown hair with blue tips to purple hair with a brown shadow root

I was a little worried that the kids at the preschool would have trouble recognizing me, not because they aren't smart but because I've had a lot of adults struggle with my color changes in the past

So I go in, spend a little time in every room, the 1 year olds and infants recognized me immediately, the older preschoolers were also pretty quick

But the 2 year old room was struggling, I think because my name (Jia) is like 2 other teachers so they always forget which one I am (Gina and Tia) me and the teacher were asking what color my hair was and stuff and then I started asking "who am I? What is my name?"

I got a lot of blank stares, a lot of "what is your name?" Being parroted back to me, the other teacher asked, "hey, what is her name?" And one of the 2 year olds squints her eyes and then lights up

She says "Ms Purple hair"

So from now on I'm Ms Purple Hair

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

I'm in my last 2 weeks of working at the preschool, it was a summer situation but now that the school year has started I'm going back to being a university student soon.

I don't know about anyone else but I'm mildly concerned about going from preschool teacher to university student, like my family is already annoyed with how many times I say "teacher things" but in all honesty everyone needs reminders to make good choices they just don't like being corrected...

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

This weekend we are recoloring my hair which means I need to figure out if I need bleach, what color I want, and what product I want for the color! I can't wait!

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

We celebrated international mud day at the preschool last Friday (June 29th) and man was it messy...

I managed to stay mostly mud free but half the kids decided to just play in the hose so I got decently wet. The worst part is having 16 wet, cold, and muddy 2 year olds waiting to be changed because we only had 2 teachers and were rushing as much as we could.

There was a lot of yelling.

And now all the kids think we can play in mud everyday! All this time of saying "no dirt, no mud" is ruined because we let them play in the mud once!

I wouldn't care if it wasn't for parent complaining about their kids being dirty at the end of the day. Why must your child be clean? They are 2, let them live their life.

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

The other day I had a 1 year old stay late at the preschool, so I had to turn on the 2 hr baby shark compilation.

I will be having nightmares about it for weeks.

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

Yesterday, this 5 year old boy came into class wearing a sparkly ruffled skirt. Each ruffle was a different color, rainbow themed.

I told him I loved it and asked for him to twirling for me, which he excitedly did before telling me about how his mom bought it for him from a thrift store. He was absolutely adorable.

So we move on with our day, I just started getting all the kiddos to go potty and I sent in the kid with the skirt, aka S, and another little boy, we will call him V.

S comes out after washing his hands looking super sad and goes, "miss Jia, V says he doesn't like my skirt."

I was instantly worried and walk into the bathroom to see V washing his hands.

I ask, "Why did you say you didn't like S's skirt?"

V looks at me so seriously and says, "because it has dark blue on it and I don't like dark blue. I like light blue. It should have light blue on it."

I kind of froze. Then I kneeled down and said, "Okay but that doesn't mean we should be mean about S's skirt."

I got him out and took the whole class out for recess and S was a little sad until I went over to him and explained that V just didn't like the color of his skirt. Then he just nodded like it made so much sense and went off to play.

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

The class of 2 and 3 year olds just sat down for their afternoon snack.

The entire room was silent.

We encourage being quiet while eating because it leads to less playing with food.

So everyone is quietly eating.

One little boy turned to another little boy and says, "it is really nice weather today."

I almost burst into laughter. No one else spoke, the other little boy just nodded and went back to eating.

But like, a 2 year old just used the weather as small talk? I think that's hilarious and adorable.

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

I walked into a brand new classroom this morning, I don't know these kids at all. I go "hi I'm miss Jia"

Almost immediately I have a 3 year old run up to me and hugging my legs. He wanted me to go around with him and acted like the sweetest child ever.

I go over to the main teacher and she goes, "that was S, you have to keep an eye on him because he likes to scratch and climb on top of the other kids"

It's 3 hours later and S no longer likes me because I had to physically lift him off another child and wouldn't allow him to mess around in the bathroom.

Guess I'm the bad guy 🤷‍♀️

And just a disclaimer: I am not mean to S, nor do I single him out, teachers warn each other of potential problems before they happen so we can better handle it. S is still a sweet little kid but he makes bad choices and I, despite him wanting me not to, point out that they are bad choices.

This is why I do not have my own children, I have my hands full with other people's.

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

So, some of the kids were surrounding me today and 1 little girl was playing with my hand and she turned it over and was like "when are you getting married?"

So I had to say "I'm not getting married" and all the kids were shocked.

Another little girl looked at me and very seriously said "but you have to get married, you grow up and you get married."

I was like "no.... you grow up and you CAN get married. But I don't want to be married so I'm not going to be"

Then yet another little girl was like "but what about your boyfriend?"

And I believe in honesty with the kids so I said "I don't have a girlfriend or a boyfriend" the kids were outraged because adults always have a boyfriend or girlfriend!

I am just here spreading the single propaganda to the preschoolers...

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

An hour long lunch break: shortest hour in the world

An hour waiting for your shift to end: longest hour in the world

How does this happen?

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

I think there is no greater cure for baby fever than going to babysit for someone, or better yet, go work at a day care.

If you cannot work at a daycare or as a babysitter for legal reasons, maybe don't have kids...

But also, if by the end of the day you still want one, it's not actually baby fever anymore. Baby fever is temporary, it doesn't survive the yelling and screaming and crying.

I personally, love kids, but want none of my own. So I work at a daycare in the summer and as a part time nanny when I'm at uni. I don't know if I ever want my own kids but I am great with them, I love all of them with my whole heart and do my best to give them my all. Now, I get paid to look after them whereas a parent has to pay to have them, plus at the end of the day I can go home to my cats and demand silence.

I just think, if there was any kind of parenting course or certification needed, it would include 1 or 2 days working as a daycare attendant. I am working with a class of pre-schoolers this summer and let me tell you, ages 3-5 is when kids start to learn how to lie. They learn how to manipulate and get what they want. I love them all to bits but man they are little monsters sometimes.

Noone is better at faking tears than a 5 year old on a mission. I promise.

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

Okay so I have colorful hair. I have had colorful hair for years, me and my mom started changing my hair color around 13 years old and then started doing unnatural "fun" colors when I was about 16, so it's been a while....

And I have some tricks to the trade!

Disclaimer: I am not a professional and I am not rich, so these are all budget friendly ways I have learned to keep my color bright and my hair happy. I also refuse to take cold showers to "prolong" the color but if you feel that is best it can be added in to most of my routines.

So this is my natural hair. This was about 2 years of just no coloring, I have (white person) curls and this photo was taken right before a cut so I had no product in to control the frizz! As you can see I am a brunette so bleaching is needed, but this tends to kill your hair and I could honestly explain the science to you if you want but that's for another post.

So this was my hair the morning of a great bleaching.

This was the first sacrifice! I just love this photo so I thought why not add it in, this is gonna be a long post no matter what.

I spent 7 hours in the salon, it was a training salon so the people doing my hair were learning and it saved me some money. I typically do my own hair, but when bleaching or doing a drastic cut I like to have someone else (who can actually see the back of my head) in charge of the process.

My goal color for this particular hair style was a deep emarld teal and I was chopping off a lot of hair.

This was the color we got to, not my goal color but as close as they could get. I cannot stress this enough, every salon straightens my hair despite me telling then over and over I have curly hair. Personally I hate this because my hair already gets enough damage from the bleach and I try to avoid heat. So if you have this same issue, just be firm and say no heat. I always fail because I'm shy.

As you can see I only had about half an inch or less of natural roots showing. This is called a shadow root and I HIGHLY reccomend for anyone who is going to let the roots grow out a bit. If you are down for a salon touch up every few weeks then great, but this makes sure that my root grows out uneven and looks about as natural as brown to green hair can!

Also for reference: that photo was taken on March 11th, 2023.

This was my hair by April 6th, 2023.

That was only 26 days of growth. My hair grows fast.

But also, the color changed!

By May 28th, 2023 I had reached this color.

And since then I have stuck to this sorta bright teal color.

Now again, I have had this hair color for 4 months by the time I am writing this. And to keep hair that bright for 4 months, whole also tweaking the color, is a little difficult.

Most people will suggest recoloring your hair every two weeks with an entire box kit (for me that's about $40 every 2 weeks). I'm not doing that.

I have also seen people use those expensive color shampoo and conditioner sets, I cannot afford those and they come in such small quantities. But they gave me an idea and I made my own version.

My secret is Kiss Aloe Hair color. (This is my name for it not the real name)

I type that exact thing into my Amazon search bar everytime.

And this is the product. Kiss tintation semi-permanant hair color treatment. It's about $6 a bottle and I have not run out of a bottle yet!

I use these to change the color, when I had pink hair I purchased a red bottle and just added red in little by little to keep it vibrant. When I had purple I purchased a navy blue bottle and then used both the blue and the red alternating to see how the color changed.

With my teal hair I have 2 bottles, the cyan and emerald. The cyan is just a really light blue and the emerald looks like a dark teal.

I do try and moisturize my hair, and these colors are not very chemical based, they are kind and easy to use. I typically will mix some in with a hair mask and some conditioner about once a month for a "color boost". This is the equivalent of buying a huge container of overtone for like $30 but instead I only spend about $3 or $5 (depending on brand) every month to just purchase a small hair mask. Mix wise, I change my proportions everytime, now I just go off how bright the color looks. You can add as much or as little as you want.

*hair masks are like a deep conditioning treatment for your hair, and if the mask is too small you can always just mix in some of your typical conditioner.

I will usually leave these in for an entire day, I am a lazy person so I will mix it up and layer my hair in the mask around 10am on a Sunday and then put it in a bun or cap. I will then leave it in as I do laundry, cook, clean, I have ridden a horse with it on before! Then by like 6 or 8pm I take a shower, rinse it out and wash my hair like normal.

I probably only need to keep the mask on for 30 minutes to an hour. So feel free to be better than me, I guess I just really want my hair to suck up the moisture!

For a smaller dose of color to the hair I use the color in my normal showers. This means whenever I have shampoo or conditioner in my hand I add a line or some drops of color in and mix it with my finger. I do this a lot with conditioner, it's how I keep my color so bright without spending a ton of time. It's my own color conditioner if you think about it. I do leave conditioner in for about 5 to 10 minutes every time, color or no color, but again I like my hair moisturized. Also, I have learned that if you shave your legs and wash your face (depending on method and efficency) it eats up the time your conditioner is left in your hair and I can have 20 minutes of allowing my hair to soak up color and moisture on my wash days.

I do want to point out, I still have my blue and red bottles, both purchased about 3 or 2 years ago, and neither has gone bad. I use them on my sisters hair for fun. So these bottles go a long way and since they don't have a ton of chemicals, I trust them to have a pretty long shelf life.

For my blue hair, I have had to use a lot more product than I did with the red or purple (my hair held those colors better) but I have been using the emerald and cyan bottles with my older navy blue bottle for almost 8 months and have not run out of one yet. So in total, for 8 months of color that's like $18-$24 for the bottles of color alone.

I would not use an already opened bottle of box dye or artic fox after 2 years for reference. But these I will.

So that's my secret!

I am always happy to give more hair color advice if needed so feel free to ask!

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

Hi, I'm back (no one asked)

I just interviewed for a temp nanny position, I'm moving in 2 months so I can't get another daycare job but I also need to work... anyways, I love this family.

They adopted 3 little kids about 2 years ago while living in California (they moved since then), their current ages are 6 4 & 2 so when they adopted them they were babies. The oldest has some ptsd from her first family and foster care, but overall the kiddos are so sweet and even on first meeting me all 3 interacted and wanted to say hi. I'm posting this (sort of to keep it as a memory for myself) but also as an appreciation post for adoptive and foster families.

I am a childcare worker and I struggle a lot with little kids for short periods of time so to take on 3 kids that young, knowing how damaged and hurt they are is the biggest commitment. And this couple has done amazing, they obviously have decent pay which helps, but they are so kind with the kiddos. All 3 refer to them as mom and dad, all 3 have just about everything a kid could want. And all 3 kids have quirks. The oldest, like I said before, has some trauma and seeks attention as a way to reassure herself which means pretending something broke so they will help her. I see a lot of families who will play along, which sometimes works, but on a consistent basis I have seen it make the kid more dependant on that avenue for getting attention. So they point out that she took apart the remote to make them notice her, they don't reward it but they don't punish either.

The middle child is the only boy. And he loves dresses and building, which is encouraged and adored. The baby is a sweet little girl who immediately wanted me to pick her up, shocked me a bit. She loves dancing and wanted to just cuddle up to everyone which is normal for a 2 year old. But they do their best to encourage her independence too.

All of this is to say, if you adopted or are fostering or just have some kids with extra challenges, it's okay to discipline and to have boundaries. You are doing amazing, and those kiddos are so lucky to have you.

I may not have my own kids but I helped raise 2 little girls for about 10 years and I see a lot of little kids, I was also the troubled kid once, so while I may not know everything, I can tell when a little kid is loved and happy!

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

Just got a $20 tip 😭 it may not be customary to tip daycare workers but it is so appreciated so thank you! I drive myself crazy for these kids

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

A 6 year old lil boy came in today and just started doing the splits....

This kid was flexible and loved gymnastics

His parents won't let him go to gymnastics though and I'm sad now cause he was adorable (also like a foot taller than any other 6 year old)