Hello, Blog. It's Me...Jessica

I haven't posted in so long, blogger has disappeared from my drop down box. Who would have thought it could happen to me?
But this week, I have had a little breather. Our third full time employee started work on Monday and it has helped the load immensely. Of course, that will all be shot to heck as soon as we open our fourth classroom. The master and my father-in-law began work on the remodel today. The question that is posed to us most frequently these days is this: How is the daycare going?
In case you too are wondering, I'll share. I think you can tell by the infrequency of my posts that it is certainly keeping us busy. We have 36 children enrolled and growing constantly now. We had a dry spell for February and March, but are now averaging three new kids a week. I think in short order, we should come very near our licensed capacity of 58. Few centers, even those with long waiting lists, operate at 100% capacity. As I mentioned, we have three full time employees, plus I teach a class and the master does our after-schoolers.
We had a rather costly plumbing issue at the beginning of February. Something that was bound to happen with pairing a busy daycare with an antiquated septic system, but now that our bathrooms have been tied into our anaerobic system, we don't foresee any huge ($$$$) problems. We may need to put in new air conditioning units in the gym. Right now, the one operating system cools fine, but I'm preparing myself for that not being the case in June and July. After that point, (and this is counting chickens) we should begin making money. Quite a bit of money.
Emotionally, I suppose it is going better than expected. I knew I would love the kids, and I do. When I am away from the center, I am very glad for the break, but I'm still able to tell the children honestly that, "I missed you!" when I return. My licensing lady is someone that I don't feel is out to ruin me--or worse--so that is a huge relief. She came for her second of three visits last month and stayed for three hours, because she couldn't find anything wrong. YAY!! My biggest doubts were of how we, as a family, would adjust. The house is 10 times messier, and June Cleaver has left our home and may never return, but otherwise we're o.k. Sometimes it really bothers me, and I'll stay up to midnight organizing the pantry or folding 8 loads of laundry, but most of the time, I'm too tired to care.
But I miss all of you. Hopefully, with more hands on deck, I will be able to post more.