Good to Grow Childcare

08/21/2026

Ready….set….GROW! ☀️🌻

Good to Grow Childcare is located in Eliot, Maine and offers full time programs for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years old.

08/20/2026

🚨🌱 SURPRISE! WE’RE HAVING AN OPEN HOUSE! 🌱🚨

And not just any open house…

Come see the NEW KITTERY GOOD TO GROW LOCATION! 🎉🌈☀️

📅 TONIGHT — Thursday, August 20
⏰ 6:00–7:00 PM
📍 1 rt 236 Kittery, ME

First things first: Is it completely finished? Nope. 😂

There are still boxes to unpack, things to hang, spaces to organize, finishing touches to make, and approximately 847 things still living on my to-do list.

But we are SO excited about this new space that we don’t want to wait until every last thing is picture-perfect to share it with you. 💛

We’ve been painting, building, moving, organizing, decorating, questioning our life choices, moving things we already moved once, and turning this space into a place our kids and teachers are going to LOVE. 😂💪

So consider tonight a SNEAK PEEK of what’s to come!

Come wander through the new classrooms, meet some of our amazing teachers, ask questions, see where all the magic (and snacks… so many snacks) will happen, and get a glimpse of what we’re creating.

🌱 Current families: Come see your kiddos’ new home away from home!

🌱 Looking for childcare? COME SEE US! We are currently enrolling and would love to meet you, show you around, and tell you more about our Infant, Toddler & Preschool programs.

🌱 Know someone searching for childcare? Tag them. Share this post. Send up the childcare-parent bat signal. Whatever works. 😂

This isn’t a fancy, perfectly staged open house. We’re still very much in the “making the magic happen” phase. And honestly, we think there’s something pretty special about getting to show you the space while it’s becoming Good to Grow. 🌱💚

Thursday • 6–7 PM • NEW KITTERY LOCATION

Come see what we’re growing. 🌱

P.S. If you see something slightly crooked, an unpacked box, a blank wall, or one of us staring into the distance trying to remember what we were doing… no you didn’t. 😂

07/24/2026

Finish this sentence...

Parenting is basically just saying ____________________ 47 times a day. 😂👇

But here's an even better question...

What's the wildest thing you've ever had to say out loud to your little one?

I'll go first.

One of our all-time Good to Grow favorites came from one of our teachers:

💨 "Henry, do NOT throw your farts at your friends." 💨

(Yes... that was a real sentence. 😂)

Now it's your turn! We KNOW you've got some good ones. Drop them in the comments. ⬇️

If this made you laugh... you're our kind of people.

Give us the kid—we'll take it from there. 💚

While they're busy making friends, learning through play, exploring, creating, and burning off enough energy to (hopefully) sleep tonight, you can tackle work, drink your coffee while it's still hot, or simply enjoy a few uninterrupted hours.

🌱 Good to Grow Childcare has full-time openings for ages 2+ beginning in late summer/early September.

Come tour our Kittery location—we'd love to meet your family!

07/13/2026

Listen, we know the struggle. 😂 Give us the kid—we’ll take it from there. Go take a nap, eat something you didn’t have to cut into tiny pieces, and spend a few hours without asking anyone what’s in their mouth. Come back at pickup rested, recharged, and ready for whatever fresh chaos the evening has planned. 😂🌱

We’ve got a few full-time openings for ages 2+ starting September 1st!

email us at [email protected]

07/12/2026

You got them dressed. They got undressed. You got them dressed again. They got undressed again. It’s fine. Just throw the clothes in the bag and bring us the kid—we’ll take it from there. 👕👖🩲🎒

email us at: [email protected]

06/13/2026

Dang…I was literally just complaining about the amount of toilet paper rolls in our bathroom being saved! 🤣🌳

You toss one in the trash every few days without thinking about it. By December, you've thrown away 384 perfectly engineered planting vessels that cost garden centers four dollars each. That's over fifteen hundred dollars of seedling infrastructure heading to a landfill, and nobody told you.

Here's what those tubes actually do when you fill them with soil and tuck a seed inside. The cardboard cylinder forces the root to grow vertically instead of spiraling around in circles like it does in plastic pots. You end up with a taproot that drives straight down, building the kind of foundation system that laughs at drought and stands firm in wind. It's the difference between a plant with shallow cocktail-party roots and one with an anchor.

But the real magic happens at planting time. You don't unpot anything. You don't disturb a single root hair. You dig your hole, drop the entire tube in the ground, cover it with soil, and walk away. The cardboard walls dissolve within weeks, releasing the root system exactly when it's ready to expand. The plant never experiences that traumatic moment when roots hit air and panic. It just keeps growing as if nothing happened, because from its perspective, nothing did.

While those walls break down, they're feeding an entire underground workforce you never see. Soil microbes arrive to feast on the cardboard fibers, reproducing rapidly and creating networks that help your plant absorb nutrients. The decomposition process releases small amounts of carbon that neighboring plants can use. You didn't just plant a seedling. You planted a biodegradable fertilizer packet that delivers nutrition on a time-release schedule perfectly synced to root development.

The same tube that protected your toilet paper becomes a guardian for tender stems. Slice it into rings, press each one into the soil around a transplant, and you've built a fortress that stands between your baby plant and every creature that crawls at night looking for soft tissue to sever. The barrier works for weeks, then melts into the earth without leaving a trace.

Stack them flat and they become w**d suppression that improves the ground instead of contaminating it. Unlike landscape fabric that eventually shreds into permanent plastic confetti, cardboard smothers unwanted seeds and then vanishes into humus. You get all the benefits of a barrier with none of the environmental guilt that comes from burying synthetic materials around your food.

The brilliance is in what you're not doing. You're not spending money on peat pots that cost a fortune and take forever to decompose. You're not wrestling with root-bound transplants or watching seedlings wilt from shock. You're not buying plastic collars or chemical w**d preventers. You're intercepting something on its way to waste and converting it into five different garden solutions that work better than what you'd buy.

Three hundred eighty-four chances every year to build stronger plants, protect vulnerable stems, feed your soil, and block w**ds. All you have to do is reach into the trash can before the bin goes to the curb. The resource was always there. You just didn't know it was worth saving. [V5JJ1]

06/13/2026

One of the hardest parts of owning a childcare center is learning that teachers have a completely different definition of trash.

Empty yogurt containers? Art.

Paper towel tubes? Art.

Toilet paper rolls? Apparently premium educational materials.

I walked into the bathroom today and discovered what appeared to be a toilet paper roll retirement community.

Me: "Miss T, do we really need 72 toilet paper rolls?"

Miss T: "Need? No. But what if we decide to build a life-size lobster, rocket ship, and dinosaur next week?"

Me: "What art project are we even saving them for?"

Miss T: "We'll know when the time comes."

At this point, I'm convinced childcare teachers don't see trash. They just see craft supplies that haven't discovered their purpose yet. 😂🎨✂️🧻

Truth 😅

06/11/2026

06/07/2026

❤️ One of the things I care about most at Good to Grow is the happiness of our teachers. ❤️

Our teachers spend their days teaching, comforting, encouraging, cleaning, mediating highly emotional disputes over who had the blue crayon first, locating missing shoes, wiping noses, celebrating milestones, answering approximately 4,732 questions before lunch, locating the smell of p**p, and somehow convincing tiny humans that pants are not optional.

They are the heart of everything we do.

Early childhood education is demanding work. It requires patience, energy, creativity, flexibility, and a sense of humor that borders on supernatural. Our teachers pour so much of themselves into caring for and teaching children every single day, and I never want them to feel like that effort goes unnoticed.

Because one of my core beliefs is simple:

If we want children to thrive, we have to make sure the adults caring for them are supported too.

One of the small ways I try to show my appreciation is by randomly sending a text that simply says:

"AJs order?"

The response is usually immediate:

"YESSS 👏🙋‍♀️🙌🏼🙏❤️💕🥰😍"

And then the orders start rolling in...

☕ FroJoes
🥤 Rushes
☕ Cold Brews
🧋 Chais
☕ Hot coffees
🦞 Lobsters (looking at you, Theresa...)
🍹 Margaritas (you okay over there, Allie?) 🤣

For the record: the "margarita" request never gets met with an actual margarita. This is a childcare center, not a beach bar. Although after Art Show and Graduation week, I can't blame anyone for dreaming big. 😅

The videos you're about to see are from our Annual Art Show and Pre-K Graduation—one of my favorite Good to Grow traditions.

What families see during those few hours is beautiful artwork, proud children, smiling teachers, and a celebration of growth.

What they don't always see is everything that came before it.

The Art Show and Pre-K Graduation may only last a couple of hours, but they represent nine months of hard work, dedication, patience, creativity, and love from our teachers. Nine months of helping children learn, grow, create, gain confidence, make friends, solve problems, and prepare for their next adventure.

The artwork didn't magically appear on the walls. The confidence our graduates showed didn't happen overnight. The relationships, skills, and memories that were celebrated this week were built one day at a time by a team that genuinely cares about children.

Since Aroma Joe's doesn't carry live lobsters or margaritas, we had to improvise. So when Miss Melinda recognized our teachers at the Art Show, Theresa finally got her lobsters (thanks to Melinda), and Allie will get a girls' night with Margaritas (who's in?!)

After nine months of lesson planning, teaching, comforting, redirecting, cleaning, encouraging, creating, celebrating milestones, and helping children grow, it seemed like a fitting way to say thank you.

Because sometimes supporting your teachers means coffee.

Sometimes it means listening.

Sometimes it means jumping in to help carry the load during a busy season.

And sometimes it means showing up with two lobsters and margarita mix because your staff has spent the last nine months helping children become the very best versions of themselves.

A good director supports her staff's goals.

Even the weird ones. 🤣🦞🍹❤️

To my Good to Grow team: thank you. The children are lucky to have you, the families are lucky to have you, and I am incredibly lucky to work alongside you every day. 💚💛💙💜🧡❤️🎨🎓

06/02/2026

highly recommend!