Things that go bump in the night....

The Birthday Party Sleepover, is it a rite of passage or an insane parental decision? I will let you make the call. Yes it is true I just survived our first birthday party sleepover. Six of my daughters closest friends ascended upon my houses donning all the important sleepover necessities: Sleeping bags, pillows, stuffed animals, nail polish, etc.... 

I had a very flexible set of plans, and I think we can all agree that the road to hell is paved with the best intentions.  My daughter on the other hand had no plans set aside other than the fact that they were going to stay up all night.   So we ushered the noisy bunch in and fed them (pizza of course) and fancy party punch with a floating ice ring, nothing but the best.  After polishing off 2 1/2 pizzas in record time, I served them my works of art...drum roll please... 

penguin cupcakes, no real penguins were used of course. (The cupcake idea was found in Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson).  It took them some time to devour these cute cupcakes, when they finished they had only been here for one hour, ...thirteen more hours to go.

We moved right on to presents, which was followed by making friendship bracelets, nail painting (mostly shades of blue with neon green racing strips), 2 hours down. Next we played a improv game where you have to pretend you speak a different language and have to act out the sentence that appears on the card.  Everyone loved this, except for my cranky party girl. After this lively game they were all asking for a story, which was immediately shot down by the crankster herself.  Absolutely not she said, you'll ruin my party.  I never thought I would say this but maybe she is wiser than her years, I just which we could loose the attitude. 

3 hours down, 11 to go.  

Next they played wii,  followed by American Idol using the mic and amp of course. That is when it happened... the girl who was being Randy Jackson suddenly found her self very sad and ready to go home.  Ahhh what to do, after a quick chat with her Mom, Randy Jackson was back on the couch sending people to Hollywood.  Whew disaster averted... how many hours to go?  

Will I make it?  Running out of things to do and energy ... and fading fast. 

...yes it is me we are talking about.  

In my nicest storyteller mommy tone, I said " Girls lets get our P.J.s on and watch a movie."  Ah a simple feat,  ha, ha, ha, not so fast you silly rabbit... have you ever tried to get 7 preteens to agree on something...sigh.  Hey girls I said "I have a movie I think you will love and I bet none of you have seen it, My Neighbor Totoro... the finest in Japanese animation." They loved it.  It is now about 12:30, mind you some of these girls have never been up past 12 and the other half were determined to stay up all night.  In my best big happy voice I said "it's time to settle down and go to bed."  Asking if anyone needed anything before retiring to my own bed, I quickly slunk away.   What was I thinking?

The next 45 minutes went something like this, whispering, giggling followed by screams... my husband would get up and go downstairs and politely ask them to keep it down.   After the third round of whisper, giggle, scream it was my turn, so I asked them... why all the noise?

"Miss Bonnie" they said  "your house is scary", just listen they said.  Phsssttt, paaah, tap, tap, tap, whoooooo is what I heard. After another round of screams I said "O.K., O.K.  our house is over 100 years old, so when the steam comes up you hear Phsssttt Paaah and the tap, tap, tap are the dogs toe nails tapping on the hardwood floors.  The whooooo is the winter wind blowing."  After a few minutes of listening to all the creaks and moans of an old house I had them convinced that there was nothing to fear.  I grabbed a yoga mat and a down comforter and laid down on the floor with the gang and after a few fabricated giant yawns, they all nodded off to sleep.  I fell fast asleep too.  Now I can tell you that it has been a very long time since I slept on the floor and other than being a bit sore and a bit sleep deprived I survived along with the rest of them.  I crept up to my own bed ~5:30 a.m., while the rest of the gang slept until 7:30 a.m.

Can you imagine what would have happened if I had told them a few spooky stories, ...I would have been up all night! Thanks for the sound advice kiddo! Would I do it again... yes I guess I would.  I like the low budget, family style feel the sleepover vs. the commercial birthday bash.