My sister and Dan have been out of town for almost a week now. All has been going well, at least I haven't seen any of the kids in serious break down mode, but their week away has illustrated how interwoven our lives are. We did this on purpose. We live six blocks apart, our younger kids go to the same preschool, and our older kids go to the same elementary school. In fact, our best case scenario would have been the family compound. My relatively easy and cheerful life as a stay-at-home parent can be traced firmly back to my support network, my sister being a main stay. I just forget how much work we do to make it happen until the babysitting grandparents have to be let in on the plan.

Case scenario 1: Getting the kids to school on Friday (because it's different every day)

I drive Rose and David down to Julia's house in the minivan. Rose gets out. Ariana gets in. Julia walks Rose and Miriam to elementary school. I drive David and Ariana to preschool. I sign them both in, I put in both their secret codes, I hand them both off to their teachers, who, of course, know my sister and I are interchangeable as pick-up people.

Case scenario 2: Getting the kids through swim lessons

I drive the minivan to Julia's house by 2:45. We push our respective younger children in their strollers to the elementary school. We meet the older kids as they come out of school. We both provide snack, though we are always covering for each other. We hustle the kids back to the house and pile them all into the minivan. I drive, though this is atypical. Normally, my sister drives my car when we are all in it. I drop everyone but me and David off at the swimming pool. Julia gets them all changed while I park the car. Then we do constant trade offs as someone (usually her) supervises showers and swimming while the other (usually me) supervises playing in the park. There are three shifts involved because each of the three girls has a different swimming time slot. At 5:15, one of us gets the car. We pile everyone back in, offer everyone snack from whoever's bag is closest, and hope we can drop her and her kids off and get me and mine home before everyone melts down from hunger. This week we just brought everyone back to my house for dinner which John had cooked.

Case scenario 3: Getting the kids to Sunday School

At 9:15, I drive Rose in the minivan to Julia's house. I give Dan the keys. He takes all the girls to Sunday school while I walk back up the hill home. After school, he drives them all to our house where we provide lunch, and everyone hangs out.

I knew we ate meals together 2-3 times a week. I knew we walked to school together nearly every day. I hadn't realized how many key exchanges we did.