Parenting: What we learned...

As some of you may know, Hep made a few more friends last weekend.  John and I babysat for a family in our ward from Friday afternoon to Saturday night.  We became instant parents of 4 kids ages 1 (M), 4 (T), 6 (B), and 8 (K).  Lucky for us, they were really good kids.  

Here are 10 things that we learned or realized from this experience.

1.  Everything takes 5X longer than it should.  I.e. getting to bed, getting ready to leave somewhere, etc.   We can now appreciate why some people with kids are late.  And now I'm even more impressed with those people that are always on time!

2.  Kids use a lot of cups!   Pretty sure when I ran the dishwasher Saturday night the whole top rack was full of cups.


3.  If we have girls, John may to need to learn how to play princesses... (T loved princesses and was especially in love with Rapunzel from Tangled.)

4.  We're not as young as we used to be.  My arm was sore Sunday from carrying M around on Saturday, and my back is all sorts of stiff and sore from jumping on the trampoline with them.

5.  Still not a fan of mini-vans.  Whilst babysitting we were cruisin' in a "swagger wagon" ... Okay, not the "real" swagger wagon (aka Toyota Sienna - watch the music video HERE), we were driving a Honda Odyssey, but we decided that since we were the ones driving, we totally gave it swagger.  

John asked me if I would rather have a Ford Flex or a van.  I said Ford Flex.  Which is saying a lot because I'm not a huge fan of the way Flexes look...


6.  Watching 4-year-old kids play soccer can make anyone's day better.

 
7.  We realized the importance of a good coach.  T and B both had soccer games.  T had pictures after the game, but she didn't want to wear her soccer jersey.  We tried everything to get her to wear it (bribes, peer pressure--"the rest of your team is wearing theirs"-- everything), but her coach was the one that was able to do it.  


8.  Despite my worries, I do have maternal instincts and heard M wake up in the night.  I was also the one to get up with her (a sign of things to come?)...

9.  Nap-time is the BEST!  M slept for 3 hours! 

10.  Lastly, through this experience we learned some of the joys of parenthood and are really looking forward to it, but Hep is not quite ready to be an uncle...