This is my friend Katie’s living room. It is full of color, great books, and a great spirit. I just feel love and a love of learning in her home. The following pictures are of the books on her shelves and one of the papers on her wall

Last Thursday I thought of this great win/win situation. I wanted to go hear Mary Ann Johnson, of http://home-school-coach.com/ present about the closet at 7 PM in Bountiful, and my two scholar phase kids needed to be picked up at 5:30 PM at the same place, where we have their commonwealth school. It made no sense to pick them up, bring them home 20 minutes away, and turn around and come back. I wanted a place where we could stay and have dinner that was free, so that ruled out restaurants.

I started thinking, hmmm, and then came up with a brilliant idea. I would ask my friend Katie if she wanted me to babysit while she went to my daughter’s self-directed scholar phase class. I remembered she said that she wanted to go to that every week, but she needed a babysitter. I offered to bring dinner in a crockpot to share in exchange for letting us hang out at her home in Bountiful while we waited for the closet presentation to start.

So I called Katie and she was totally willing. She was having a bad day and needed a break. She was brave enough to take 9 children ice skating earlier that day! Anyone who does that deserves to have the rest of the day off. Her toddler was acting toddlerish and constantly getting into things, like climbing on chairs and dumping contents of containers. I was more than happy to help. But instead of going to the class, our mutual friend Christina took her to the temple. While they were gone I worked on finishing up the dinner and also took photos of all the awesome books on her shelves. I want to read them all! The big boys went sledding outside, and the younger ones watched some brain candy (I wish I could eradicate it from my children’s lives but I am not there yet) while her rascally toddler, thankfully, slept.

Katie came back home and she started nursing her 18 month old who had wakened while she was gone. I was smart enough to have his big brother get him out of bed instead of freaking him out as a strange face by getting too close.  I was pleased and surprised to see her nurse him. I didn’t know she was “still” nursing. I am still nursing my over 2 year old. We swapped stories about nursing toddlers, how great it is to do it to keep them healthy, and the big challenge of wanting to extricate ourselves in the morning from them when all they want to do when they first wake up is nurse.

Our scholar phase kids came home thanks to our other mutual friend Aneladee giving them a ride, and my husband came over. We had the chicken soup I fixed and then rushed off to hear Mary Ann. Katie’s husband didn’t come home yet and her scholar phaser son had a Shakespeare movie party to go so we offered my 13 year old to babysit her kids while we brought my kids to the meeting place with a laptop and a DVD player and my 16 year old to babysit my younger kids.

It all worked out beautifully. I thought the soup was yummy and was pleased that everything worked so well. I did have to laugh when my son told me that when Katie’s husband came home he took one sniff of the air and asked his kids if mom had made that nasty chili again.Sorry for snatching your wife away Mike and filling up your home with that “nasty chili” smell that somehow came from my chicken soup!