This past weekend was interesting: My wife and I had agreed to babysit another couple's two children while they were out of town on family business and since their immediate family lived out of state, we volunteered to help. So last Thursday night, the two children were dropped off at our house and we started the temporary integration with our own two children.
Now, to put this in perspective, my wife and I have unofficially capped our brood to two children. Our daughter who is three and our son who is 15 months are enough for us to deal with on an ongoing basis. I can't tell you why that is other than every couple/parents have their limits and ours came with the addition of our son - who suffers from some sort of head trauma every other day from the adaptation of his new legs. Usually resulting in some sort of temporary facial disfigurement just in time for important photos.
Our daughter is past that point other than she is fully engrossed in her threes. Now I had heard that the "terrible twos" were difficult and was warned that the threes aren't a walk in the park. I would have to say that my daughter is a factor of 3 over her "terrible twos" making last year feel like taking a nap in a library.
This four day weekend of babysitting ballooned our small crew into double our size with children ages 6, 3, 2 1/2 and 15 months and we got a full indoctrination into managing a family of six and it caught us by surprise. Bath times, meals, night-time needs, transportation, events - all of it - was a re engineered effort to get the kids to where they needed to be at the right times.
And it's not like we stayed at home - Friday night we attended Sesame Street Live, Saturday we went to the city parade, Sunday night we met my folks for dinner at a restaurant and now today is our last day with all of us.
Now I need to clarify - our "adopted" children were great. They played well, followed directions, were polite and did well overall. Only one episode late last night with the 6 year old who missed his mom, but overall great. Our kids did OK - mainly in the sharing of toys department from my 3 year old. My son just liked sitting in the middle of the older kids play time. By Saturday morning, the novelty of having her friends over had evaporated for my daughter. But no 3-year-old likes to share their monopoly.
Reflecting back on the weekend, the most stressful part was just not really knowing what to expect. It seems simple enough to watch someone else's kids for a short period of time, what ends up being the difficult part for the adults is the inexperience. Having to temporarily retool how you approach everything in your day which, by bed time the best you can do is go to bed yourself (knowing that you'll be up several times anyway).
Maybe if you knew that it were to be a long term or even permanent change in your lifestyle, then the mental adjustment is actually easier. Mainly in the form of making that shift and doing it effectively. But when it's temporary, you're not willing to scrap your old methods and it ends up being a grand compromise in everyone's expectations with no winners.
In the end you just survive - try enjoy it for what it's worth - and deal with the rest and hopefully your marriage survives the influx!
Now, to put this in perspective, my wife and I have unofficially capped our brood to two children. Our daughter who is three and our son who is 15 months are enough for us to deal with on an ongoing basis. I can't tell you why that is other than every couple/parents have their limits and ours came with the addition of our son - who suffers from some sort of head trauma every other day from the adaptation of his new legs. Usually resulting in some sort of temporary facial disfigurement just in time for important photos.
Our daughter is past that point other than she is fully engrossed in her threes. Now I had heard that the "terrible twos" were difficult and was warned that the threes aren't a walk in the park. I would have to say that my daughter is a factor of 3 over her "terrible twos" making last year feel like taking a nap in a library.
This four day weekend of babysitting ballooned our small crew into double our size with children ages 6, 3, 2 1/2 and 15 months and we got a full indoctrination into managing a family of six and it caught us by surprise. Bath times, meals, night-time needs, transportation, events - all of it - was a re engineered effort to get the kids to where they needed to be at the right times.
And it's not like we stayed at home - Friday night we attended Sesame Street Live, Saturday we went to the city parade, Sunday night we met my folks for dinner at a restaurant and now today is our last day with all of us.
Now I need to clarify - our "adopted" children were great. They played well, followed directions, were polite and did well overall. Only one episode late last night with the 6 year old who missed his mom, but overall great. Our kids did OK - mainly in the sharing of toys department from my 3 year old. My son just liked sitting in the middle of the older kids play time. By Saturday morning, the novelty of having her friends over had evaporated for my daughter. But no 3-year-old likes to share their monopoly.
Reflecting back on the weekend, the most stressful part was just not really knowing what to expect. It seems simple enough to watch someone else's kids for a short period of time, what ends up being the difficult part for the adults is the inexperience. Having to temporarily retool how you approach everything in your day which, by bed time the best you can do is go to bed yourself (knowing that you'll be up several times anyway).
Maybe if you knew that it were to be a long term or even permanent change in your lifestyle, then the mental adjustment is actually easier. Mainly in the form of making that shift and doing it effectively. But when it's temporary, you're not willing to scrap your old methods and it ends up being a grand compromise in everyone's expectations with no winners.
In the end you just survive - try enjoy it for what it's worth - and deal with the rest and hopefully your marriage survives the influx!
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