Storm puts day care on the quiet side

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February 3, 2011 - 12:00 AM

Rhodenia Rowe usually has a house full of kids.
Not so the last two days. Far fewer peeps were heard in her big two-story house at 316 S. Washington Ave., where she runs a day care.
That was unusual.
“When there’s a bad storm and school’s out, I have people beating the door down. This time parents got snowed in,” Rowe said in explaining why she had one child Tuesday and three Wednesday. Usually eight little faces greet her a thousand times a day.
The day care had its start soon after her and husband Pat’s first of four daughters, Jessica, was born 24 years ago.
“I thought if I have to take care of one, I might as well take care of several,” Rowe said.
The young family also welcomed the additional income.
Wednesday, when Pat, who works in maintenance at Allen County Hospital, was out of pocket early she shoveled snow a foot deep from the front sidewalk. Rowe also swept more snow off a tarp covering firewood out back so she could feed a wood-burning furnace.
Situated outdoors, the furnace heats water to warm their spacious home.
“My typical day is filled with cooking, cleaning house and caring for children,” she said. “I just love it,” particularly the children.
“I have many from the time they’re babies and until around 8 years old, when parents think they’re old enough to stay at home after school.”
When they do leave, the kids don’t forget her.
“I get a lot of graduation announcements. Just the other day a boy I hadn’t seen in four or five years — he’s a senior in high school — came by,” Rowe recalled fondly. “He said he needed a hug.”
The hugs go both ways: “It makes me feel good when they stop to see how I’m doing.”
She loves the kids, as they do her, and has for more than half of her life — she’s 47 — but there will come a time.
After so long in the business, Rowe said she sometimes thinks of retiring, “but it’s hard to give up my babies. You get attached, and there’s always new ones coming.”
Including some who are second generation enrollees.

SPRING seems far off, with a thick layer of snow everywhere today and the temperature well below zero when the sun rose.
“In warm weather we spend a lot of time outdoors so the kids can burn off energy,” Rowe said.
“In the winter, when we’re indoors for weeks, I plan activities. We don’t have the TV on much, maybe an hour in the morning to kind of get everyone settled down.”
Then, comes crafts and games and other activities.
“You have to keep them busy so they don’t get bored. We also have a time for acrobatics on tumbling mats,” Rowe said.
And there’s the choo-choo.
“We line up and go through the house like a choo-choo train,” she said.
Running a day care is more than being an activities director.
“I’m a doctor when a child has a boo-boo, a cook, a counselor and a maid,” said Rowe. “I’m whatever they need.”

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