Every year our couples’ small group spends a weekend in the North Georgia mountains, kids and all. Whenever I mention the trip to other people, they always say two things, usually in this order:

“Oh that sounds likes so much fun!”

“Do you bring kids with you?”

The answers? Yes and yes.

It might not sound like a relaxing mountain weekend, and it’s not. It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be a bonding time, a few days crammed in close quarters with shared dinner duties and lots of noise and late nights filled mostly with mixed drinks. If you want to bond with your tribe, let me just attest that the quickest way to grow closer with those other adults you “do life with” once a week or so is by wiping their kid’s yucky nose. Or their chocolate-covered face. Or by giving their baby a bottle. (Or having your daughters fight over who gets to give the baby their bottle.) When you start to recognize which toy is their favorite, or which lunch item needs to be left off their plate, you’re almost there. When you’ve chastised them for jumping off the bed too many times or handed them their third s’more behind their real parents’ backs, you’re even closer. And when that not-technically-your-child looks up at you and asks for your help, and you respond, “Of course,” as you help them wipe their poopy behind, you’re officially there. And, let’s be honest, it could be years before any of that stuff happens in the real world. But in a cabin filled with your favorite crazies for two or three days straight? Now that’s quality time.