Don't call Donna Oldenkamp a babysitter.
Instead, the Indian Hills Apple Tree Preschool & Learning Center employee describes herself as an early childhood professional.
Oldenkamp's job: caring for the personal and educational needs of your kids when you're at work.
And since the children in her charge are ages 2 and under, potty patrol is a major mission.
"When you're dealing with small kids," Oldenkamp said with a harried laugh, "it's all about the potty."
And Oldenkamp, herself, the mother of three grown children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, is the right woman for a stinky job.
"Believe it or not, I think I have the best job in the world," she said in a roomful of ankle-biters. "These kids are the lights of my life."
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With 25 years of experience -- the majority of which has been with Apple Tree -- Oldenkamp is a potty training pro.
Likewise, Brenda Thelen -- with more than 21 years of experience -- knows a thing or two about preschoolers.
Caring for kids from newborn to 4 years of age inside her Northside Sioux City home, Thelen didn't intentionally set out to be a day care provider.
"I spent 10 years selling jewelry for a living," she said. "It was only after my two sons were born that I decided to work from home."
Yet Thelen knew child care was a profession that ran in her family.
"My great-aunt Mary Ann ran a day care in Morningside for 30 years and my mom is still a 'mother hen' when it comes to her kids or any one else's," she said. "I was taught by the best."
According to Diane Merchant, director for the Indian Hills Apple Tree, her young charges are also "taught by the best."
"With so many children are being raised by working parents or grandparents, quality child care is truly a necessity," she said. "Parents demand the best for their kids and we are here to provide it."
Merchant said the first five years are important to the development of children.
"Everything that we do is designed to shape the social, emotional and cognitive skills of children," she explained. "The type of person a child becomes is often determined before age 5."
Kathy Bertrand knows that and it's one of the reason the Apple Tree early childhood educator is determined her classroom serves as a "safe haven" for her kids.
"Whether it's because a parent is separating or experiencing unemployment, kids are not immune to household stresses," she said. "We've developed a relationship with parents to know when someone might need a little extra attention."
Bertrand's happiest memory: teaching 2-year-old Tommy Nguyun to speak English.
"Tommy speaks Vietnamese at home and English at Apple Tree," she explained. "His mom is amazed at having a bilingual child."
Yet Merchant is quick to point out that day care providers can never take the place of parents.
"What we do is a supplement to anything that's done at home," she insisted. "It takes a team to raise a child."
For Thelen, it also takes plenty of colored chalk to raise a kid.
Thelen, herself an artist, enjoys having children explore their inner Picasso by drawing on the sidewalk.
"Kids should be allowed to develop their creative side," she said while supervising four knee-high artists. "You don't do that in front of a television set. You do that while playing and through personal interaction."
Thelen acknowledges that she is sometimes the one who witnesses a child's first steps or first words. Yet, like Merchant, she knows she will never be a substitute parent.
"To my preschool kids, I've never 'mom,'" she said. "I'm simply Brenda or Brinnie or Brin-Brin."
Thelen pauses for a moment.
"Although one of my preschool kids has been calling me 'grandma,' lately," she said with a raucous laugh. "I'm not a grandma in real life so I guess it's time for wrinkle cream and Botox."
Even though she knows it's not for everyone, Oldenkamp said she wouldn't trade her job for anything in the world.
"I spend my mornings with kids at Apple Tree and, then, I'm sometimes called on for babysitting duties for my own family," she said. "I can't stay away from kids."
Oldenkamp insists she wouldn't have it any other way.
"They keep me young," she said.
Thelen said in order to take care of children, you've got to be a bit of a kid-at-heart yourself.
"You have to see the world on their level," she said while putting on a pair of oversized sunglasses. "Another thing is can't be afraid of making a fool of yourself."
Thelen said her dream is to take on a second generation of children.
"Some of the kids I initially took care of are now in college," she noted. "It might be fun to provide day care for their children some day."
