Co-ops and Playgroups Work (for us anyway)

I've been meaning to post about something for a while now - for my friends in other places who have kids like I do (most of you). It's about all the "kid trading" we do in this ward/neighborhood, which I find just delightful.

First, I am involved in two playgroups for Jake, one on Tuesday and one on Friday. Each group has four or five three year old boys and goes for three hours (9-12 and 9:30-12:30). We rotate houses, so every fourth or fifth week I have the boys here and the rest of the month I have those mornings free. Jacob loves the boys and getting to go play with them and I love being able to do whatever I need to do child-free (shopping, going into the school, temple...) When it is my week to have them, I don't dread it, rather I commit my morning to the boys and we go to the park, play and have lunch - and I do it all with them. It's not bad at all.

Secondly, we are part of a Friday night co-op. This one took some time to appreciate, but we are now believers. We and three of our friends schedule every month so that each couple gets all the kids (12 in all) one Friday night from 5:30-10 and the rest of the Fridays we have free babysitting 5:30-10! It really is a pretty sweet deal because it's cut down big-time on $$ spent on sitters (we like to go out every weekend) and the kids enjoy it a lot. It feels like a party every Friday night for them. Tonight we have co-op here, we have 11 kids currently in our house, and look - things are going so smoothly that I've found time to blog! Imagine that. In all honesty, the success of this program depends entirely upon the kids in the group and these guys are just great.

Lastly, I am on the waiting list for a neighborhood co-op that I've heard wonderful things about. I am hoping that my name will come up before I get pregnant again and start to feel sick because it will be awesome to wake up feeling yucky and know I have this option. Basically there are about 30 women in the co-op. They meet monthly to sign-up on the calendar for M-F slots 9-12 and 12-3. They have to sign up for one slot, but can take more if they want, so every M-F is taken by someone willing to babysit during those times. Each lady joins the co-op with 30 popsicle sticks, and each popsicle stick represents one hour of babysitting. When a day comes up that she needs sitting, she simply looks on the calendar for who has signed up to babysit that day and calls her to see if there is room to take another child. If so, she can take her child/ren and pay the corresponding number of popsicle sticks which the sitter will use as future payment for her own chidren. So the sticks just keep rotating around! The only requirement is that everyone participates at least once a month so as to keep the group flowing.

Anyway, I consider it a blessing to have so many families living so close who think and work like we do. Friendly trades like these are not for the faint of heart but they work well for us and our kids.