"Ese, don't you know I'm loco?"

Thanks to Jennifer Fink’s amusing blog about how lucky I am not to have boys, I remembered Provider Appreciation Day today, a holiday where we pay tribute to people insane enough to care for multiple children that have little or no genetic connection to them.

Here are two of the three loonies that care for my oldest daughter Madeleine twice each week, with 14 children from their class:

"Everybody say 'you're crazy!'"

Just looking at a picture of 14 toddlers in the same place at the same time makes me start to sweat and feel dizzy.

Yes, these women sing and dance and color and paint and wipe and apply rash cream and do all of those things—all day almost every day—for children that have never seen the inside of their uteruses. Uteri. You know what I mean.

And, adding gasoline to the crazy fire, that little girl on the far right is totally deaf (I know—them’s my chromosomes) so these two ladies voluntarily meet with me two or three times every month, after work for no pay, so they’ll know how to sing and dance and color and paint and wipe and apply rash cream in American Sign Language. Yep, 100% psycho.

These women and the thousands of wack-jobs just like them are powerfully important members of our society. Without them, we couldn’t sit in our cubicles wishing we were at home with the kids. We couldn’t obsessively check our email inboxes for funny forwards and rejection letters from editors.  Without daycare providers, we couldn’t afford daycare providers.

What a weird world.

Seriously, I am eternally indebted to Brett, Michaela, Susan, and the entire team of professionals that care for my daughter. For their unflagging dedication to my daughter and her classmates, for their willingness to be mothers, role models, teachers, big sisters, aunts, grandmas, nurses, psychologists—whatever the little one needs throughout the day. They are my family and I truly adore them.