My Kid Share Program (or, how I survived summer)

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My friend and I were at a loss on how we were going to make it through the long summer with all of our kids (we have seven kids between the two of us). Neither of us had any childcare set up. We both enrolled in a couple of camps to break up the summer, but we were worried about the afternoons. Those afternoons can be the worst. We are stuck in the house, with no break. It is too hot to play outside.  So we came up with a plan – we decided to switch houses and kids two days a week, for the afternoon through dinner time.

Here is how it works:

On Mondays, she gets all of my kids. I drop them off and they play with all of her kids’ fun toys (i.e., different from ours) and have a great time. The kids get along great. I run to the store (so much better than going with three kids), and maybe even get a pedicure or some other errand checked off my list. Yay!

On Wednesdays, all the kids are at my house. They run around. They play well together. I make dinner for the kids. It is not really that much harder than making dinner for three kids. And by the time they are all finished with dinner, the kids are picked up and off to their home for baths and bed.

Obviously you have to have a good friend in order to pull this off. But I do think it is a great idea. And it was such a wonderful thing for me to look forward to every week. Plus, the kids really loved their afternoons with their friends.

I also loved Abbi’s post at the beginning of the summer to help all of us get through those long summer days.  Did you do anything special this summer to help your days become manageable? Please comment below!

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