Sleepovers Should Not Be Called Sleepovers

On December 1, the twins turned nine...NINE! The shock of that was coupled by the fact they wanted to have a sleepover. Ugh, not another one. I'd barely recovered from Katie's spa tween sleepover and the Brownies' sleepover. However, Sydney was not going to give me a break. She keeps a running tally of the injustices of being a younger sibling and informed me Katie'd already had two sleepover parties and she and Sarah hadn't had a one. The next point of negotiations was the invite list. Sarah's list was small, Syd's was not. They still wanted to have a joint party, which made me very happy. I don't imagine my luck will hold much longer. We managed to settle on each inviting three friends. Sydney worked out in meticulous detail the events that would take place, and a layout of where everyone would sleep in the family room. Sarah made the invitations. They told me my only task was cooking. "Sure", I thought.

As with Katie's party, we picked up the party goers at school. These girls had packed as if it was a week-long vacation. Mr. Liu just laughed and piled it all and them into the van. Sydney checked her itenarary and instructed the girls the order of events, which was met with lots of "But let's do this first!" and "Can we wait and do that later?" With a huge harrumph, she relented, but only on a few items.

We stopped at Dairy Queen for a pre-dinner Blizzard. As soon as we entered the neighborhood and the girls saw the boys outside playing, all Blizzards were left on the counter and out the door they went. I saw Sydney check 'playing with boys' off her list. Dinner was devoured in record time and they were ready to dance. I soon became DJ Mel with the duty of spinning constant tunes, which then turned into Freeze Dance. The amount of energy two Belgians, a German, a Mexican, an Aussie, an Italian, and two Americans expended was a sight to behold. I'd jacked them all up with plenty of sugar so I had nobody to blame but myself.

It was after 11pm before sleeping bags were unrolled. I figured it was safe for me to go upstairs, but at 1:30am, I still heard giggling. At 3am, everyone was asleep, with the television blaring. I hoped they would sleep late. Nope. 5:30am brought the first sounds. By 7, they were clamoring for breakfast. They were all outside again at 8, which left me with the task of rolling up sleeping bags, and sorting discarded clothing.

They tried to talk me into extended the party since Katie extended hers, but to no avail. I knew every one of those girls would go home and pass out. When I saw one of the mums that next week at school, I asked if her daughter was tired after the party. She said she wanted to send her to our house every weekend, because for the first time she didn't argue when told to go to bed.