Tunedinwithcindy

A Merry Little Christmas play date at Lafayette Community Center on Park Point Saturday December 13 from 10-11:30.

Join me for Christmas themed crafts and activities. We will jingle all the way, listen to stories, move through the woods to grandmothers house, explore instruments, sing and dance, and connect together. One time mixed ages class with caregivers. Cost is $10 per child (siblings under 6 months are free with maximum $15 per family).

Register for Kindermusik Mixed-Ages | Kindermusik Move, groove and learn with your child in Kindermusik class! This group class boosts social-emotional, cognitive, whole-body development and more.

Hello and checking in! It took 7 weeks to close out the childcare, declutter, donate, sell, garage sales, daycare sales, donations and more donations, curbsides, junk removal (5 times), many trips to goodwill and savers, to get to this point, cleaning and more cleaning. The house is now for sale. I am teaching Kindermusik and lessons at St. Paul’s episcopal church and ever thankful for the experiences and learning at Concordia and at Lakeview. Mr. Carlson has been very instrumental in this process and we are both thankful for all the families and friends through this whole experience. I miss the daily interactions from the childcare and am grateful I can still see families at Kindermusik and lessons. I hope to do something with my music and educational experience in the future but for now, I am practicing my patience, acceptance of the unknown, and the process.

View Property Details TURNKEY 3-BEDROOM 2-BATH HOME, WITH A BACKYARD OASIS! This beautifully maintained home offers two bedrooms, a full bath, and a spacious kitchen featuring a center island, breakfast bar, and an optional dining area perfect for entertaining. The layout flows seamlessly into a generous dining/secondary...

Daycare closing sale today 8/26/25 3-6:00
1807 Lakeview Drive.

Let’s get outside! Full outdoor play scape!
Music wall, spool with ladder and slide, outdoor meeting area, mud kitchen, rocking horse, ninja lines, log cabin, and more.$400.

These last weeks of our childcare, we have been exploring our neighborhood and creating more lasting memories. We have been enjoying all parts of Tischer creek,building and exploring our big blocks during a thunderstorm, enjoyed “ Lake inferior” feeding the fish, eating choke cherries, and running by the infrared light to keep the deer away to be sprinkled on in 80 degrees, Holy Rosary playground, walks to Congdon Creek Preschool where three of the kids will transition to, The old Washburn Scool playground, learning about static electricity on our slides, building creations, testing out all the toys and materials as Mrs. Cindy packs them away to the sale pile, singing songs, playing instruments, reading stories, being friends, learning daily “we can do hard things” and trying first when we are challenged, arts and crafts, and preparing for new transitions ahead.

We are still going! We are finding ways to stay cool and experience nature and friends!

Lakeview Childcare and music grew from a Kindermusik class. In 2013, I took a leave from the public schools after 25 years as an Early Childhood Special Education teacher to create “Kindermusik plus.” This was a Kindermusik class with preschool programming. The state rule said I could teach 30 sessions a year three hours or less and not need a childcare license. They would also not give me one when I sought it out as my program was three hours and met 30 times a year. I was also teaching 12 Kindermusik classes, doing Kindermusik play dates, and co- running ProBaby,LLP which was promoting our information on the importance of tummy time and getting babies out of equipment and back on the floor and in caregivers arms.

Kindermusik classes and Get ready get set for Kindergarten classes started at Pilgrim Congregational church, to Lakeside Presbyterian, to Eastridge Church, to Concordia Lutheran Church. Each move was made as churches had their own programming and as we were growing, needed to find a home to land. We were met with challenges each time but met them and kept on growing. We became licensed by the state at Concordia Lutheran Church in 2016 to allow children with identified needs, IEPs to be able to be placed in our program and more time for families to have care. We had to have an architect, fire Marshall, and childcare licensor approve us and make appropriate changes. We became Concordia Community Arts Playcare. We were not allowed to have preschool in our name as we were under a family childcare license. At Concordia, I started teaching music lessons, continued teaching Kindermusik classes, and ran the childcare with staff. We kept our doors open during Covid and ran two programs: one for toddlers to preschoolers and one for K-2nd grade. We went through seven different licensor changes and continued on.

In July of 2021, we moved to my home on Lakeview and became Lakeview Childcare and music. We had a new fire Marshall and our licensor set up restrictions of how we needed to run Lakeview with parking, handwashing and cleaning, and were given set guidelines on capacity and made changes to our home and garage based on fire Marshall and licensing mandates as instructed by our licensor. We have been running our program now for four years at Lakeview. We have had a licensor two times to three times a year come out unannounced for relicensing, check ins, and we had an investigation that we were part of from a complaint from a family. We have worked through all of it and continued our care of children.

January 2023 became a new journey for our family as our son had a seizure which required hospitalization and a new way of life. We also had significant staff changes. In October 2023, our son had another seizure and was in a serious car accident. We decided in January of 2024 to retire and close the childcare. We wanted to make sure families had a place to go and find other care. Through this process tried to sell our house and the childcare so it could stay open and families could continue to receive care. We found this was not a viable option so began the journey of finding a teacher who could take over the program, rent and live in the house and eventually buy the house.

This puts us where we are today. We have been in transition as our daughter whom has worked for the childcare since 2018, was in our home as she is moving to the cities. Our son had recently moved out and needed storage for his tools and his transition. We were moving childcare out of upstairs to allow our new teacher to move in with her family, and we were trying to comply with square footage rules and capacity. It was summer and we were tired. We received a surprise visit from a new licensor and then a scheduled visit in which two licensors came and listed a lot of citations to us. The snapshot of Lakeview Childcare and music and years of service was deemed unsafe, messy, and immediate changes needed to be made. Lakeview has had the same set up the whole time and no licensor had expressed any concerns nor asked the questions the new licensors had done. Lakeview made the changes immediately and were evaluated by a new fire Marshall and we made all of the necessary changes. We did make choices with staff and numbers and background checks that made us be out of compliance but I was there the whole time and we provided the care needed. We fixed it all and as this was all happening, it became clear that we needed to evaluate if we should stay open and continue.

Many of the violations are extension chords for lights, eye hooks on top of doors to keep doors closed such as a paint closet in basement or Christmas closet, eye hook to keep closet door open as children could figure out child safe door k**b handle , propane powered sink ( have used whole time we were in garage as we were told to have propane outside of garage) and our licensor told us we needed running water if we were eating or changing diapers in garage. We were using compostable toilets and were making the garage space work for all. Our licensor of the four years at Lakeview has watched me wash my hands in these portable sinks, and no concerns expressed. Much of the concern is “what if?” The assumption that children will lock other children in closets and lock the bathroom door and if a child was in a closet hiding during a fire, a fireman would not think to look in a closet. We are with kids in the bathroom in the music room, during naps, while playing and moving in and out of the house. Kids need to be safe as well as programs. We believe providers need to be watching kids which is why we have adults supervising and caring for kids.

The new licensors told me that the original fire Marshall and licensor have retired and they made a mistake. We were originally told the only way to run the childcare with 14 kids and two adults was to use the garage space as it was the correct square footage. We were told we needed to use the house and could not just use the garage or it would need a separate address. We have complied. We are now being told this was wrong. DHS did not know we had detached garage. We should not have had to make changes to our house and the garage as our house and rooms were correct square footage. You were told wrong and they are retired and did not leave a paper trail so that is that. You need to prove you mainly use the house and not the garage, you could build a walkway from garage to house and connect them so it is considered one house, you cannot have renter upstairs and childcare downstairs unless you create separate heating system, and if you have renter upstairs her children are part of caseload of childcare ratios even if she is not working. If you teach piano or Kindermusik even if not in the same space ( childcare in garage or outside and Kindermusik inside) you have to count them as part of your childcare ratio. The list goes on and we are not going to build a walkway between the house and garage. I am also not going to stop teaching piano or music lessons or Kindermusik.

We have decided to close Lakeview Childcare and music on August 22, 2025. We will provide our best care and efforts to our children enrolled this summer. All of our families have found other care and we will move on to our next journey. We are grateful for all of the families that have been in our care and worked together with us for all of these years. We thank Jen Hren, Haley Kubiski, Morgan Morse, Anna Escobedo, Jon Carlson, and Alece Carlson who dedicated to the program. Thank you to Connor Carlson and Ed Wrazidlo who helped build and create our program at Lakeview. Thank you to Andy Olson for keeping us safe and teaching us how to keep our program safe with our fire extinguishers, and other rules we need to follow. Our mission was to to provide care to children. Thank you to all who have helped us do that. I moved to Minnesota in July of 1985 and started my early childhood career. It is hard to believe that it has been 40 years. It is not the end but another chapter and new beginning.

With all my best to everyone and know that we want what is best for all!

Cheers and love,

Mrs. Cindy

Summer 2025 has been filled with enhancing our senses.

It is cold out, but we are dressed for it and excited to explore,jump, slide, dig, crawl and repeat.@

The final touches to our music and learning room are done. The garage is ready for it’s next adventure and will be used as rehearsal space and when we do our family get together rather than renting space in the community.

Happy New Year 2025! We closed out the year with a big change of moving the childcare fully into the house. We still continue to honor our mission of limiting our usage of water and paper with no paper towels, Kleenex, or napkins and using cloth, washable rags. We still reuse, recycle, repurpose, and repair materials, toys, we use in the childcare. There is much work to be done after 40 years of teaching in early childhood and the amount of materials, curriculum, and STUFF! The break has been spent donating toys and games and getting rid of STUFF that has met its purpose. Our childcare has been blessed with all the donations my own children have made over their lifetime. It has been fun to watch this generation enjoy the same toys and materials my own children used. The house and been cleaned from top to bottom and bottom to top! There is still more to do and we will adjust to the new routine. We said goodbye to compostable toilets and sinks and eventually they will move somewhere else for someone who needs them. We celebrated three birthdays in December and the children are excited to have access to dramatic play. We added sliding in the front yard and are enjoying all of the ice in the backyard. Hopefully, we will get more snow but for now ice has been exciting for this group of kids. They have also been able to identify the animal tracks in the yard. We all know how to walk like penguins and are learning why you do not run on ice or on the driveway. We are excited for more trips to Tischer, checking out frozen pond in the backyard, and making friends and more music and movement. Thank you to our families with patience with the move and my family for helping us with the transition.