The birth control didn't work...

My wife and I spent this last weekend babysitting four kids age 1 to 7. We were told it would be nothing short of effective birth control by a number of people.

After 44 hours with the kids, I can't say that the supposed "birth control" was effective. In fact, my wife and I both enjoyed the opportunity to see how we operated in that environment and we both want kids just as much as we did before.

We both had fun seeing how the other one handled various scenarios. One scenario played itself out a number of times and we reacted very differently. Example: E takes a toy from or otherwise interferes with the normal course of the life of K. K screams (actually, shrieks is closer) in response. My wife's response was to reprimand E for interfering with K. My response, however, was to K for the screaming.

Me: "Are you hurt?"
K: [through tears] "No."
Me: "Then should you be crying?"
K: [through tears] "But he - "
Me: "No, should you be crying?"
K: [muffled response, head hanging, as tears slowly subside] "No..."
Me: "Okay..."

From there I'd either steer her to ask E to stop what was being done or to come to a grownup to resolve the problem. Once that was done, I'd respond to E and tell him to quit bugging the snot out of K.

My wife wanted to know why I didn't respond to E first since he initiated the whole thing. My response was that if I did that, K would learn that she could get what she wanted (an adult to ream out E and get him to stop) by screaming and crying. I didn't want her learning that screaming would accomplish anything with us. The tough thing about watching those kids for an extended period of time is that I don't know how her parents respond, but when you're babysitting, you effectively have to start from scratch with the "rules" for those two days and kids know it.

That's just one example of a number of them that came from two DINKs who had two whole days with nothing to worry about besides taking care of the kids. I think we learned two things. First, we're going to love being parents! (At least we think we will.) Second, we've got a ton to learn still!

Anyway, thanks to J, E, K, and C for being great this past weekend! We love you guys!