I agree with the others about vacation time. The beauty of being your own boss is that you set your own ground rules. Parents are informed of vacation time and they can either accept it or find someone else. My husband is military and is away often, he gets 5 weeks vacation, so I take those same weeks. Plus I've informed my parents, that there may be some days here and there throughout the year that I'll need to take for either doctor appointments or school field trips with my kids. My days off are unpaid, parents are charged for their holidays unless it falls during the time I'm off. Same motto as the others...If I'm open, I'm paid, if not, then no pay.

For my one and two year olds, they love balls, scooping and pouring, cups and bowls of all sizes. I've bought large pompoms that they love to scoop and pour. They like finger painting, it's messy but I've gotten a lot of great photos of them and parents enjoy them. My kids really like puppet shows and felt board stories...can't get enough of it. Boxes of different sizes...big enough to sit in.

There is nothing wrong with letting them play either...kids learn the most through self exploration. Provide them with different things to do and sit back and enjoy them.

At interview time, I just try to let parents know what kind of parent I am to ensure that we have similar views. For example, I will let children cry things out a little, I do believe in time outs, I'm not organic, I'm not an attachment parent....It's important for both provider and parent to have similar ideas of raising their children...So just inform them of how you do things and ask if it's similar to their way.