I am feeling better now. Thank you all for your postings.
My two kids have been wonderful for all the years i have been minding. They have never minded sharing their toys, mum and home with the mindees. In fact at their birthday parties each year, there were more mindees than school friends, their choice.
My hubby understands that I have to do what I think is the best for our kids, and that is to be home when they come in no matter what their age. (Not knocking working mums here - I would have stayed at work but I had a very bad experience with my oldest in a nursery when he was a baby and that is why I became a childminder) Hubby doesn't like me minding, he isn't keen on the house looking like a nursery, but he understands. He helps with cleaning, cooking and putting up shelves EVERYWHERE. I only mention things once and they are done. I happended to mention I wanted a theatre for the kids, (I meant one of those you buy to stick on the table for the kids to use with finger puppets), when I arrived home he had fixed a rail to the beam in the middle of the front room for me to hang 'theatre curtains' from. The kids love it. The curtains come down at night and the rail isn't noticable. Except at first some of my friends were convinced i was up to something kinky, (hanging from the ceiling etc) when they saw the rail.
My 17 year old's friends all come to our house as a preference, probably because I feed them and sort out their personal problems, and I have minded most of them at one time or another.
My paperwork is well sorted. I only have 4
files, (1) Setting records, which contains things like parent contracts, child records, risk assessments, fire drills, complaints log, Mot on car, parent feedback, permission slips such as medical, pets etc. Anything to do with childminding forms. File no 2 is my 'what its like for a child here, this contains evidence of what I do with the kids - pictures mostly, its a general file made up of the best pictures from individual files, I use this to show ofsted and any potential new parents. File no 3 is Welfare requirements - this has my policies and procedures and evidence of how I meet all the welfare requirements. and last but not least is my personal development file which has my past history of courses attended, my certificates, what courses I need or want to do in the future, my cv etc. The only other thing I have then is the kids individual files, accident book, attendance register and accounts book. I only spend half an hour at night keeping these up to date.
I do love my job, and I do get a lot out of it. I think now and again though I get doubts when I think I would do more with my kids if I wasn't minding. You are right though, my sister has 3 kids the same age as mine and she doesnt work at all and she says she forgets things, doesnt see much of them when they are out with their friends or up in their rooms on their pc's. She's never made a pirate ship in the back garden with 10 kids, or dressed up the local climbing frame with material and had all the kids in the neighboroughood joining in. She's never had the network of friends with loads of kids to take out on trips to the seaside or zoo and her kids come to mine if they want to get messy. As a childminder all these things come with the job, and before any parents write in and say they do all these things with their kids even though they are stay at home mums and not childminders, I know a lot of them probably do, I am just comparing myself personally with my sister, who is a stay-at-home mum and doesn't need to because she has my house to do things in.
I love the freedom - I get to go out when I want, do what I want and meet who I want with the kids during the day. I am not going to replace any that leave in the future though as I think mumtobless is right, although I have always looked after quite a few kids at a time, I feel I could do with less now that mine are older, either working less days or finishing earlier. When mine were little and part of the childminding day it didn't matter how many days or hours i worked, now though I would like to spend more time with mine on their own. I rarely work holidays, most of my mums have jobs where they are home in the holidays so that isn't a problem.
By the way my son's replacement licence is on its way and my younger son's friend is still coming round even though I 'starved' him.