Monday, November 03, 2008

A small town slumber party

Things we learned from our first slumber party...What a badge of honor it is for a group of 3rd Graders to stay up way, way, way past their normal bedtime...only to be followed up with how they totally crashed and burned the second the first of their band of sisters dozed off to slumber city.

How loud a group of zizzed up on Dr. Pepper and chocolate birthday cake 8 and 9 year old's can collectively squeal...it's ain't Memorex.

The regret of having the party on a Saturday night meant watching the girl's trudge off bleary-eyed the next morning for 10 a.m. church services. Stuffing them full of chocolate chip and whipped cream topped flapjacks and waffles may get them through the first 20 minutes or so, but I imagine the wall will be smacked into just before noon.

Selecting the night that Standard Time returns (fall back) enabled us to entertain the girls for an additional hour. For some, this may have been an issue. For us, it just gave us an extra hour to get breakfast on the table.

3rd grade girls are very aware of the caffeine content of Dr. Pepper, plain M&M's and chocolate cake as well as the sugar content of Dr. Pepper, plain M&M's and chocolate cake.

3rd grade girls don't talk about boys yet...(whew).

Even though Grand Parent's say they wouldn't miss their granddaughter's birthday/slumber party for the world (or at least the birthday part of it), be prepared to sling a 12-pack into their trunk for when they get home and need to unwind their nerves a bit.

Our construction practices on the playroom and upstairs bathroom proved effective against a 7.5 San Andreas Fault temblor...roughly equivalent to 6 third-graders and two 5-year old's on a sleepover.

A hungry 3rd grade girl can actually out eat me, slice for slice, when it comes to pizza.

Cheese pizza outguns pepperoni pizza almost 2 to 1, and when buying pizza for hungry 3rd graders, always go with the more filling hand-tossed crust, as opposed to our family favorite but less substantial thin-crispy crust.

When the morning came the inevitable questions floated through the hallway and crept down the stairs into our ears as we prepared breakfast -- "Where's so-and-so...what happened to she-and-she...did they go home...what happened?, as the remaining slumberettes took stock of their merry band and noticed far fewer heads present and accounted for.

That cry at 3:00 a.m. (now on Standard time...body clock says it was still 4:00 a.m.) from the one girl whom we suspected wouldn't make it through the night, was not nearly as rude as it could have been...due to a unwittingly humorous remark uttered by my 5.5 year old this morning. As we privately relayed the story of how so-and-so woke up early in the morning, panicked when she realized she wasn't in her own bed and through the fog of REM sleep, didn't quite recognize where she was.

To which PK innocently replied..."You're at a sleepover, silly.

Last, but not least, for 9-year old's, square waffles out favored the Mickey Mouse shaped waffles 6:2.

Overall the girl's seemed to have a good time, and through tired and sleep deprived eyes, the birthday girl ushered a sincerest of sincere thank-you moments after our last guest had departed.

On to Thanksgiving!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahh, You are just the best parents :)

AMomof2 said...

You're so much braver than I am. I'll take 14 of them to the zoo. But my sleepover limit is one at a time. I feel it's best to never, never, never be outnumbered at night and keep the numbers even not odd.

Anonymous said...

When I was 14, Mom volunteered to host a slumber party for my kid sister's Brownie troop. Most of the details escape me now, but two memories stand out:

1. My sister's birthday happens to be Dec. 25. The troop leader -- who is Jewish -- later reported that her then-6-year-old daughter could not stop talking about how cool it was that Grace and Jesus have the same birthday. When you're 6, theology takes a back seat to celebrity, I suppose.

2. One little girl was fine until about midnight, when she began clicking her heels together and repeating, "There's no place like home! There's no place like home!" over and over in the fervent hope that she would wake up in her own bed. Mom got sick of hearing it after about five minutes, but I personally found it hilarious.

Kudos to you for surviving the onslaught. Some of my best memories of childhood involve slumber parties at friends' houses.