Tania Ramos Childminding

01/11/2024

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Monday, Tuesday and Thursday

31/10/2024

I try and share this every year when the days start getting shorter. The same child is standing in the same place in both images, but the difference is that in the top half they are wearing a brightly coloured jacket.

It’s not even that dark in either image either, and so it’s a brilliant message for both pedestrians and their parents / carers and motorists about not only making yourself as visible as possible, but also about being extra vigilant.

24/10/2024

“Our children are children for such a small season of life. Let their laughter ring out, their imaginations soar, their feet stomp in puddles, their hands clap for joy. Too soon they will grow up and out of their youthful exuberance and zest and settle into the life and routine of adulthood”
— L.R. Knost

🎨~ Autumn's Window, Loré Pemberton

29/06/2024

“A four-year-old will be a four-year-old only once. Concentrate on meeting his present needs. Don't foist future academics on him. If he's allowed to truly play now — spontaneous play with room for running, leaping, ka-powing, crying, dancing, painting, spilling and creative problem-solving, then he will be ready for academics later. When children gain social and emotional skills and confidence in the preschool years, academic learning naturally follows."

—Heather Shumake (author and advocate for play based learning)

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17/01/2024

Just love this!

He’s the kid who never listens the first time.

Or the second.

Or even the tenth.

You can pick him up out of the line up in the school hallways.

He’s the one who doesn’t walk in an orderly fashion. He runs or spins or stops in his tracks if something catches his eye.

He has a hard time keeping his hands to himself.

His handwriting and spelling don’t betray his intelligence...you might be fooled into thinking it’s all a struggle if you’re not paying attention.

He’s the one making all the noises with his mouth, only stopping when his siblings finally yell at him.

His heart sometimes breaks a little because he’s not always sure why what he’s doing is so wrong.

His ideas come out in a jumble and you have to slow way down and look in his eyes to listen.

His ideas are just too big and too fast for his head it seems and so they come out in any old order.

But he needs you to hear him.

His energy cannot be contained by walls and he seems to take up so much more space than his size.

He tries every ounce of your patience if you’re trying to get somewhere.

You might send him to put on his boots and he’ll come back with a new LEGO creation.

Time has no meaning when a new plan strikes.

He can understand stories on a level well beyond his years and will floor you with his insights.

He is smart as a whip yet school isn’t always his jam. He’d rather talk about why Sally is giving away 24 of her apples instead of solving the story problems in math.

He loves fiercely and deeply and without reservation.

He will tuck a blanket around you if you look cold and will always share a bite of his cookie.

He can read your emotions on your face and will always know who is lonely on the playground.

He runs to open your car door and will insist on carrying your bag in the house for you.

He loves to climb into your lap and wants to hold your hand as he falls asleep.

His greatest joy is making you laugh from deep in your belly.

His body is eight but his soul is much older.

He is so many things...sometimes the world wants to label him with letters and words and numbers...and sometimes these help us understand him better.

But the letters and words and scores are not what he is. They cannot capture his essence.

There is no data taken anywhere on big hearts, but if there were this kid would be the shining star.

Like all our kids he is just himself. The sum of gifts and struggles all bound together with love.

And my hope for him, and all kids really, is that we can see these clearly. We can look beyond the definitions and categories to what’s shining in their eyes and hiding behind their smiles.

And we can love them just the way they are.

Amy❤️

20/12/2023

19/12/2023

One of the mysteries of life for me is why we have designed school in such a way that it requires children to do so many things which are very hard for them - and which become much easier in adulthood.

We require them to sit still when they are desperate to move. To stay in their seats when they want to crawl under the table. To keep quiet and listen when their body wants to play and shout.

We tell them to walk not run, when every part of their body longs to move fast. We put them into nylon trousers when they’d prefer soft leggings. We make a big deal out of things they can’t do yet, but which almost everyone learns as they grow up. Shapes, colours, telling the time. We teach them to read before they have the desire for themselves, and make them do maths which they find incomprehensibly difficult, but that a few years later will feel so simple as to be trivial. No matter whether you go to school or not.

We’ve designed school so that it’s hard for immature brains and bodies, and then we blame children and parents when they can’t follow the rules. We tell them they aren’t school-ready, or they need to try harder. We point out all the many ways in which they fall short. Too noisy, too active, too impulsive, too….childish.

By the time those children reach adolescence, the urge to roll on the floor or hang off the chair is fading, but the years of being told they have to sit still and listen have taken their toll. They’ve lost the raw energy of childhood, but it’s more than that. They’ve lost their joy in learning, because school wasn’t built for the child they were, any more than it is for the teenager they’ve become.

And then again, it’s them who are blamed. Disruptive, rude, bad attitudes. It would be so much better if they simply did what they were told.

But what we’re telling them to do in school is squashing our children. Children aren’t built to sit still and absorb information. They are built to keep moving and playing. To hang upside down and climb on the roof. To dream and shout and talk all the time.

But when our children tell us so, we’re not listening. We tell them that the problem is them.
Who are the slow learners? Not them.

14/12/2023

Love this x

“I still stutter when the receptionist asks me your date of birth. The day and the month seem to scramble around in my head.

And I've no idea why. Because that date, once a day like any other, is now the only date. It screams out at me from the calendar now. A separator of lifetimes. There is only Before Casey and After Casey.

You've taken to calling me by my actual name lately. "Karen!!" you shout up the stairs, which sounds so funny from you. Your dad goes to correct you, but I wish he wouldn't. I like it. It feels like the before and the after, the old and the new are getting acquainted. Like I can be both.

Because, even three years in, I still feel like I'm playing mum when I ring your nursery school with a forced authority: "Hi. This is Casey's Mum".

And it seems more unfathomable the older you get. Walking past the playground and hearing the murmur of children, knowing that YOU are amongst them. Out there in the world. That one of those little yells belongs to me. A dizzying mix of pride, disbelief and terror.

How am I somebody's mum? But equally, how did I ever not know you?”

Art by:

Words taken from "Warm Like Summer: Little Stories of Early Motherhood".

04/12/2023

❤️🎄 Love this! Haha When a meme matches your theme! 😆🌟