kids!

We had a weekend full of children, and as a result, we both have colds. On Friday, we kept Mark and Susan's kids while they went out of town for the night. Their 12-year-old went to spend the night with a friend, and so that left us with the remaining three, ages 11, 8, and six months. We had already committed to work Parent's Night Out at church that night, so Susan just signed the younger three up for that, and I took them with me. I got to their house at 2:30 Friday afternoon, and kids started getting off buses at 3:30. Susan is very organized and had instructed the older children that they were to help me, so it wasn't too hard to get everyone fed, in the van, and on the road by 5:00. Mary Grace and I even managed to work in a game of Mall Madness (she won). I'm not sure that Matthew was entirely confident in my ability to pilot the van to church, but he's the worrier of the bunch. Mary Grace is the self-appointed safety captain and made sure I knew where my seat belt was.

Kid count: 3

We picked Patrick up at LifeWay and made it to the church in plenty of time to get our room ready and deposit the kids. We had an interesting evening with our class of ones and two's. We had eight - we seem to always have one or two "bonus" kids show up who weren't on our list. One of our little group was pretty unhappy due to an ear infection, and so Patrick spent a large part of the evening in the hall with her. This group always has plenty of runny noses, and I think that's where we picked up our germs.

Kid count: 11

After PNO, we collected our charges and headed back to Mark and Susan's house. Matthew and Mary Grace took showers and went to bed on their own, and despite the 25-minute car ride, six-month-old Anna was wide awake. I managed to get Anna down sometime after 11:00, and she slept until 7:30. Patrick made pancakes the next morning, and we went home after Mark and Susan got back to do the Saturday morning soccer routine.

Saturday night was kid-free with dinner at Brentwood Grille and a performance of the Nashville Symphony.

Sunday morning wasn't our normal extended session turn, but we swapped with a couple who needed to be out of town. As a result, we weren't in our normal room, but the older two's room, with ten kids. Two kids left after Sunday School, but we got two more whose parents came for church. These kids are far more active than our normal class, and Patrick did a great job of keeping them entertained with stories until our turn to go to the Rainy Day Room. We had one little girl who was new and not used to being away from mom at all and so she needed lots of attention. In the Rainy Day Room, we got into the copycat "I need to go potty" game as a ploy to get taken out of the room. We were so busy that the hour-and-a-half went by quickly, and I'm proud to say we didn't lose anybody.

Kid count: 21

On Sunday nights, I keep the baby room in the church nursery, and I had a 10-month-old and a 7-week-old. I actually got them both to go to sleep at the same time!

Total kid count: 23