One of my favorite ways to spend a Friday evening is to coordinate a couples' night out. This week was no exception as fifty small fry showed up with their parents, and half as many older kids appeared to watch them. There were ten real live grown ups to hold babies and steer things away from danger, but the true magic happened between thirteen year olds and toddlers. 

One couple who have never brought their family before asked who would be with their one year old son.

"He runs," they tried to warn me. I grabbed the nearest pair of teenage boys and tasked them with not losing this little guy. They took it on with the same gusto they have watched on any action show. They would not let me down, or die in the effort. 

One of the moms had specifically asked for a baby to hold, and the first one to arrive fit nicely in her arms. 

When half a hundred children are faced with a gymnasium full of balls and scooters, they know what to do. It was noisy. An even louder burst of excitement showed up when a group of kids found a baby bat who had innocently wandered in. A man with a PhD in physics saved the day, letting the small mammal loose outside. 

After an hour of kids bouncing around like ping pong balls, supper was served. Gluten and gluten free pasta, two kinds of sauce, salad and garlic bread were on the menu, and the teenagers felt pretty legit being the servers. An older brother checked in with the woman eating with his little sister. 

"Make sure you cut her noodles in half. " She reassured him that she would, and he ran back to the hoops. 

Toddlers adore riding toys. But they are designed such that an adult trying to push them will develop back pain in less than three minutes. But a twelve year old is just the right height, and amazingly, enjoys doing it. 

John put Charlottes Web on the big screen for the last hour, and kids cuddled up in the dark. As parents arrived, astonishingly refreshed from their brief reprieve, we hunted for shoes and diaper bags. One mother later told me that as she carried her baby, crying, to the car, he kept signing. 

"More! More!"

But the absolute cherry on the top was a text I got from the thirteen year old boy who had worked for three solid hours, chasing kids, dishing out pasta, and cleaning up juice cups. 

"Hi, Mrs Odhner, I just wanted to thank you so much for letting my buds and I help babysit. It was a great learning experience. I hope to do it again. It was a blast!"