Playing Musical Parents

The last week, while we were out of town, a good friend of ours found herself in town for a visit.  It worked out perfectly as she stayed at our place and took care of our gimpy dog while we were away.  Rather than pass like two ships in the night, she and her kids have stayed a little in to this week as well so it's been like one big party in our small place.  This makes for interesting evenings as all four kids have been crashing in the same room.  Surprisingly they all go down extremely easily. ... it's around midnight that the games begin.  Someone will mumble in their sleep or whimper a little, waking a non-sibling child who lacks the ability to drown out the noise.  Then a small little voice will call out "mommy" and it's up to us to quickly guess which mamma is being summoned.  The only certainty is when "dadda" is called - which has been a lot lately.  The hesitation is that none of us wants to rush in and rescue the wrong kid.  Can you imagine how traumatic that would end up.  Calling for mommy and strange Uncle Kyle comes rushing through the door in his boxers.  Of course, the down side is that more than one "mommy" might wake up everyone else, which happens none the less.  So it's kind of like playing musical chairs, but with kids.  I rush in to settle one of mine, but wake hers in the process, so as I exit she enters and as she leaves Gina heads back in to calm our other one - and round and round we go, where it stops nobody knows.  One particular moment even found all three parents in the room settling down all four children around 3:30 in the morning.  I was almost forced to call Karma for back up.