It should not work. Really it shouldn't. But somehow a dozen adults and teenagers showed up to feed and care for fifty children for three hours. It is not as if I paid them. There was supper, if that is an incentive, but it was decidedly kid food. Pasta and tomato sauce, carrot sticks, grapes, watermelon cubes. There was salad for the green minded and grilled chicken strips on the side. Plain food, though it did accommodate the gluten and dairy intolerant among us. 

For the first hour they all raced around the gym on plastic toys, and chased balls. One woman paired up with two little girls who have rarely been left with sitters. Maybe never. She didn't leave their side. Teen age boys shot hoops, which impressed the little guys, and they all enjoyed the lift on the universal ban on making noise that plagues most children. The room was vast enough to swallow their sound such that another adult commented that it didn't feel like that many kids. 

It's true. Two kids, any kids, crammed into a one bedroom apartment, or a mini van, or an airplane bathroom feels like overload. But give them the space to twirl and they have a chance to do what they do best. Play.

The part that amazes me, though, is what it does for the big people. Once amnesia wipes your brain clear of the exhaustion that is parenting, it is actually a pleasure to answer fourteen questions in a row, or have a toddler on your lap.  To hold a boy close in the scary part of a movie, give a girl seconds on watermelon, and fit a puzzle. 

Since it is summer we benefited from the late sun and spent the last forty minutes on the playground. As their parents arrived, all spiffy from an actual restaurant, they looked on and enjoyed the temporary space between them and their brood. But then I reminded them of the one rule. 

"You must take home the same number of children that you brought. No exceptions."