Kid Swap

We have good friends from our church who live a block from us, whose two oldest kids (they also have a baby girl) are really close with our two kids. Three-year-old boy and five-year-old girl, meet three-year-old girl and five-year-old boy. My two are constantly pestering me about when we're going to see them, go to their house, have them come over, and so on. In fact, the four of them together is easier to manage than our two or their two separately, they get along so well.

So I'm not sure why we and our friends haven't thought of this before, but last weekend we negotiated a bit of a kid swap. Saturday morning, I had a church leader's meeting, and Amy had to study and wasn't feeling away, so we sent our two in our friends' direction, where they all soon headed to the local park to cheer on their oldest in his soccer match. Sunday afternoon, we reciprocated the favor by taking their two oldest, which involved a rapid-fire succession of activities: snack, walk to playground, playground, walk home, eat dinner, watch TV, and read books. Meanwhile, our friends luxuriated in the relative serenity of their house. Of course, the kids had a blast having so much time together, to the point that they actually starting fighting a little; kind of like siblings do.

Surviving the weekend is no small task for us parents. So the kid swap will definitely be a featured tool in our arsenal. You'll get no complaints from our two the next time this happens.