Adventures in Babysitting

On Thursday, a good friend of mine headed to the hospital to have her third baby while her 3 and 2 year old boys came over here to hang out with us.  My sister was in town, so we managed to keep the ratio of children to adults at 2:1 but it was still quite a busy afternoon!  Between the four kids, I'm pretty sure every toy got some personal attention even if it was only for a few seconds until another, better, more fun toy was spotted.  We played inside, outside in the backyard and outside in the front yard and I think we wore them down.  Well, I know that they wore us down at least.  When Pat got home from work, he was a big help too.

As luck would have it, macaroni & cheese was already on my menu, so we had kid friendly food ready to go.  I don't think I would have done bathtime with 4 kids had they not all been sweaty from playing outside, but I thought it was kind of required.  I didn't want to send dirty kids along to meet their newest sibling.  We loaded them into the huge bathtub in the master bathroom and Pat went down the line of kids and shampooed them all up.

Since the baby wasn't born yet, our big playdate turned into their first sleepover.  Jack was really excited about it.  He's watched a few shows where there are sleepovers so he thought he was ready to have his own.  And he has bunk beds in his room, so there was plenty of bed space.  However, I really wasn't sure that I was going to get them all to fall asleep in there.  Jack usually sleeps with his lights on, unlike just about every other child.  His friends wanted the light off, Jack wanted the light on...hmmm.  I finally ran downstairs and got Jack his flashlight.  Which he obviously should have had anyway for his sleepover...isn't that kind of a requirement?  Jack also had his Thomas "map" which is a pamphlet with pictures of Thomas the Train and all his friends.  He just likes to "read" it and needed some light for that.

I left the room for a few minutes and came back to find all 3 boys in the bottom bunk looking at the map, studying the trains and train sets.  They were discussing which trains they had and which ones they wanted and it was really cute.  But it was still bedtime so I sent one back to the top bunk and told them to go to sleep and left again.  I repeated that whole process a couple times and then said it was time for the map to go away.  Then there were a few trips to the potty.  Finally, I sat in the room with them (in the dark) and told them to be quiet and to lay down and go to sleep about 30 times.  And finally, they all did!  And it was only 8:30.  I left to the sweet sound of 3 little boys snoring.

It was quiet all through the night.  I heard them start talking at about 6:30 and I checked on them 15 minutes later.  As soon as I opened the door, they were off to the races...gotta get to the toys and start playing.

The boys' dad arrived mid-morning with the exciting news that they have a new baby sister!  I was thrilled to find out it was a girl and I'm looking forward to meeting her soon.

So, I'd say it was a pretty successful sleepover.  I think they're a little young to realize that you're supposed to try to stay up late and drive the parents crazy.  Which is good because I know they need their sleep and I certainly needed mine!

Here's a picture of them all playing in the big sand pit at the playground a couple weeks ago...