The Destiny Of An Unsuccessful Tree

The other day as I sat in the drive thru lane of my favourite hot beverage store, thanking the Java Gods for the oncoming caffeine rush I was about to enjoy I started to do math. Perhaps it was my fidgety state that made me want to calculate how much money I spend on coffee in any given year. I won't share with you what the total calculated as it would only lead to further embarrassment on my part. But what I will share with you was my ongoing thought process of the dollars spent on other items frequently purchased for use in my home.

We can all agree that snot and poop duty are on the list of least desirable job responsibilities for any daycare provider. Wiping snot and poop also come with costs to our health as well. I always shudder at the beginning of Snot Fest. I shudder because I know it will take nothing short of a miracle to wipe snot from the faces of five different kids, all in their individual shades of green, and not contract the illness responsible for the copious amounts of snot production. This fact alone lead me to wonder exactly how many Kleenexes are used over the course of the average daycare provider's career.

If the average daycare provider is anything like me they can not stand to watch a child dip their tongue into the double-barrelled green goo running like a river from a child's nose. Up we get, pulling Kleenex from the box with that familiar 'whoosh' sound to rescue the taste buds of one child's tongue. Over the course of one week during the months of November through April I can annihilate two boxes of Kleenex in a flash. In just those six months alone that is .....count 'em......fifty-two boxes of Kleenex! Add to that number the other fifteen or so boxes used throughout the rest of the year and the average provider purchases sixty-seven boxes or, seventy dollars worth of Kleenex each and every year. Worse yet is the vision of the mountains and mountains of snot encapsulated in all those Kleenex. Boy, I sure am glad I'm not the garbage man.

How about wipes? There are plenty of nasty, poop smeared wipes included in my weekly garbage as well. As a person who has a particular aversion to the energy depleted food remnants of others I am fond of using quite a few wipes at a time. I like to build as much of a barrier between my bare hand and the poop-encrusted butt I intend to wipe. I will often use as many as four wipes in one dirty diaper change. Add that up and before I know it I have used twenty wipes a day - that's one pack of wipes each and every week. Fifty-two packs of wipes and one hundred and fifty dollars later I can call it a stinky year.

They say that "what goes in must come out" and I guess that includes money too. I know that whatever monies I deposit into my bank account always seem to find a way to escape somehow. Over the course of a year I spend around two hundred and twenty dollars on sopping up exactly what "must come out". We won't even mention the amount of toilet paper that is used by a potty training toddler who does not understand that the toilet hole has its own limits as far as its capacity. No, I won't go there today.

If the average daycare provider has a career of only ten years they will spend more than $2200.00 on plush paper products to wipe butts and eradicate snot. I don't know about you but that number makes me nauseous. Not only is that amount a lot of money to spend on a completely disposable commodity but it is also environmentally unfriendly. I guess we could all stop complaining, adopt an environmentally friendly stance and use hankies and washable butt wipes. We would certainly save a lot of money and landfill area. I actually know of a provider who uses terrycloth wipes. I'm happy it's working for her; for me - not so much. I'll just keep forking out money for Kleenex and wipes. And then next time I am sitting in the Starbuck's drive thru I'll not do math.









For concerns, advice or suggestions I welcome your email at judytrickett@yahoo.ca