Slumber Party

What do you get when you combine 10 girls ages six through eight, a trampoline, lots of sugar in the form of cupcakes and M&Ms, at a slumber party? Well, you get a massive nap the following day. I am not a great hostess whether I’m entertaining children or adults. It stresses me out. I also end up cleaning the house right before guests come over and so when they inevitably track in grass and dirt and things get spilled, etc., it gets on my nerves because now I have to clean again! What good is that? As with a lot of things, entertaining is just not my strength. So agreeing to host this many children was, in retrospect, a bad, bad idea.

I have to say that I didn’t initially consider 10 girls to be too many. I had recently been empowered by helping a friend of mine host 22 thirteen year-old girls at a sleepover. Other than it being extremely loud (and reminding me of my pimply-faced, boobless, permed 13 year-old self which is never a positive experience), it was fairly easy. We tag-teamed it which limited the messes and the chaos. So, it was deceptively, as I would learn, easy. How was it deceptive? Well, there is a big difference between eight year-olds and 13 year-olds.

Last year, I let Kate have her first slumber party for her birthday. She has had people spend the night before, but just one at a time. Or we’ve had cousins over but their parents were present and I wasn’t necessarily the one in charge of anything. So, for her eighth birthday, I let her invite her best friend who is in another class, her cousin, and all of the girls in her class. Meg was not invited to attend her sister’s party last year, so I let her come this year and invite a friend of her own. All of that equaled ten girls. Which, in turn, equaled bedlam.

All of the slumber parties she’s attended before have had fun little activities.  For example, at one party, they had a “spa” and did make-up and painted nails. At another, they decorated pillow cases that served as their party favor. At her party last year, I had a few games – pin the tail on the donkey, fluffy bunny, and a few others. I found in that experience that it is exhausting to be responsible for the flow of the party so I knew I had to do something different this year. I hired a traveling art teacher to come and do an art class for the kids. It was scheduled to take up two hours – which were two hours that I didn’t have to be in charge of anything. Sold! The party started at 5:00. The art class started at 5:30. Then would be dinner, presents and cupcakes, which left time for a movie and popcorn and then bedtime. Easy Peasy.

The art class was great. The kids really seemed to enjoy it and seemed to be really proud of their owl renderings. For the most part, they listened intently to the instructor. And save for the mystery farter in the room, it was a low-key, relatively quiet, enjoyable couple of hours. As the painting portion came to a close, my sister-in-law arrived with my niece. They live two hours away so the plan was for them both to spend the night. Thank goodness for this fact. Had she (my sister-in-law) not been there, I might not have survived and would likely still be cleaning up. She helped me get dinner together for everyone which was a fairly simple process given that pizza was what was on the menu.

At this point I should back up and let you know that at various points throughout the art class, the kids got to take breaks while the instructor and I used hair dryers to dry the coats of paint. The breaks actually started calmly enough but got progressively wilder as the class went on. At the first break, they ate much of the M&Ms, Chex mix, and Goldfish I had laid out for them. By the last break, those items were used in combat in a hearty game of “hurl them at your friends”. Since I was in the other room with a hair dryer drowning out the sounds of food being thrown, I had no idea this was going on. It didn’t take me long to discover it, though, when I was finished as everywhere I stepped provided a new crunching sound.  All I could think of with each crunch was how I had swept and vacuumed mere hours before.

Kids, as it turns out, are very much like dogs. If there is food out, they will eat it. They don’t have any internal wiring to tell them that they are full. They had eaten enough of the snacks that now that it was dinner time, no one was hungry. This was troubling to me for a couple of reasons. One, we had four pizzas that someone needed to consume. Two, I knew they’d get hungry later and I’d have to get everything out a second time. I had kind of planned to simply shove them down the stairs and lock the door and then go downstairs the next morning to see who had survived. I knew this would now not be possible. Miraculously, even though no one was hungry, they ALL managed to force down a very sugary cupcake which was becoming more and more obvious that several of them did not need given their current state of hyperactivity.

All in all, dinner went off without incident. After cupcakes it was time for Kate to open her gifts. During this time, I did noticed that a few of the girls had brought their tablets. Tablets to a party? Really? All of the 13 year-olds had brought their phones to the party a few weeks ago, but I understood that. They’re 13. They needed to Instagram the event at every interval. But eight year olds?! At one point, one of the girls announced that they could all sit on the couch and watch The Croods. One girl sat by herself and played a game. I was losing control of the party quickly as well as becoming annoyed. I glanced over at my sister-in-law who, mercifully, is a teacher. We gave each other a WHAT THE HELL? look. She quickly announced that the electronic devices needed to be put away.

I was grateful for her being there for a lot of reasons but the main one was that she could step in and be the bad guy when I needed her to be. I struggle sometimes with not really knowing how to direct/discipline children who aren’t mine. I didn’t want to embarrass Kate by being too lame (although this will most certainly be inevitable) but I also thought the presence of the tablets was a little rude. These are sweet kids, don’t get me wrong. But there were things Kate wanted to do at her party that couldn’t be done if everyone was pairing off and doing their own thing on their I-Pads. The exorbitant use of these items is a soapbox issue for me anyway, but I really felt like they needed to interact as a group instead of burying their noses in their apps. Of course, if I had just let technology rule the agenda, it probably would have been much quieter.

Once the electronics went away, the kids went out to the trampoline. I had instructed them not to have more than four girls jumping at a time. I didn’t need girls slamming into each other and getting hurt. Of course, one girl for whom this was her first slumber party, immediately did a flip and somehow managed to align herself perfectly to go right through the unzipped door and land on the ground. Catastrophe! Again, I know how to deal with my child when they are hurt, but someone else’s child with their own set of quirks with which I am unfamiliar is another story. She was fine, but a little sore. I did not want to call her mother because I didn’t want to worry her or for this girl to leave. I knew she was okay, but she didn’t know she was okay. I can give my kids a pep talk and force them to face their fear and get back on the trampoline, but I have to approach someone else’s child differently. In the end, she was fine and she stayed. But it was a traumatic few minutes for us both.

When I would look out the window to check on them, I would see that no one was heeding my command to only have four people jumping at a time. I would go out and remind them of this fact and they would comply for about 3.67 seconds. This was my first clue that no one was planning to listen to me for the duration of the party. I sent my sister-in-law – “the Gestapo” - to lay down the law. There were a couple of girls who began to emerge as the ones we were going to have problems with. I began making mental notes of things that I needed to discuss with my children about what they needed to do or not do when they went to someone else’s house. First on the list was to actually do what the parent(s) asked them to do.

I’m not so naïve as to think or even suggest that my children always mind me. They don’t. But when I use a certain tone they know I’m serious and they will get in trouble if they don’t comply. Through this party, I discovered that there are some children that are simply not made to mind. What their parents may not realize is that it then becomes the problem of the parent who is hosting them. I want my children to be the type of kids that the parents want to invite back. I’m not saying that they always are; but that is certainly my expectation. If they are not, it is not due to a lack of me drilling it into their heads. My sister-in-law and I both remarked that if we ever witnessed our child(ren) doing or saying some of the things that some of these kids did and said, there would be serious consequences. And I am comfortable using a tone with my kids to get their attention. Your kids; not so much.

I was grateful to note that Kate seemed to realize some of the things I have taught her. She began coming to me to tell me of things her friends were doing that she knew they shouldn’t be doing. For instance, some of them had opened a closed door and let themselves into our workout room. In no time at all, our elliptical machine had been destroyed. We have had this machine for probably eight years. My husband and I use it with some frequency. Somehow one eight year old girl managed to rip one of the arms off in less than five minutes. (This is another item on the list of not-to-dos – never open a closed door at someone else’s house. If it is closed, they don’t want you in there.)

I thought that planning the party on a Friday night was smart – the kids would be tired from a week of school. Instead of them being tired and it making them sleepy, they were the kind of tired that made them slap-ass-happy wild. I managed to corral them upstairs to get their jammies on in preparation for the movie. I know none of them brushed their teeth at this point because no one quit talking at 500 decibels the entire time they were up there. I heard from a neighbor the next day that, although they live two houses down, they could hear the noise from INSIDE THEIR HOUSE. At this point, I began thinking about where I had gone so wrong in making this decision to have this many girls over. I thought about that party of 13 year-olds. Thirteen year-olds are self-sufficient. Their manners have set in and been reinforced for a longer period. They can practice self-control. Yep. That’s the difference. That’s where it all went of the rails for me.

They gathered downstairs for the movie. The next trial was to get them to agree on a movie. When we turned on the Apple TV to browse available selections, the first graphic that came up was for the movie Frozen. All. Ten. Girls. Went. Bananas. I was reminded of footage from when the Beatles came to the US. People were screaming. People were crying. A few people had to be resuscitated. But it was a tease. The movie isn’t available yet. It was an ad to pre-order it. Epic party fail. No movie choice would now even come close to being a good one since the Frozen rug had been yanked out from under them.

They settled instead for Soul Surfer. My kids have seen the movie multiple times and really like it. They go to a Christian school so I know that the other children’s parents would appreciate the positive message of faith that is present in the movie. What I wasn’t sure the parents would appreciate was the shark attack scene that, while brief, could still bring on nightmares for their children. I let the girls know that there is a scary scene in the movie but they all wanted to see it. They said they could handle it, so I acquiesced.

As I was leaving to take Meg and her friend upstairs for a different movie, one of the girls who had not eaten dinner announced that she was hungry. Had this been my child, I would have simply said that she should have eaten her dinner and waltzed up the stairs. Given that I supposed to be a gracious hostess, I offered to pop popcorn which I had planned to do for them anyway. We have a big popper like the ones that you see in concession stands which is good for a bigger group. However, it takes a long time for it to warm up to the point that anything is actually popped. I turned it on to warm it up and went upstairs to get the other movie going.

I got Meg and her friend situated with a tamer movie in my bedroom and returned downstairs to assess the popcorn situation. One girl asked when it would ever be ready in a tone that indicated that she is not often made to wait for anything. I explained that this popper takes a long time to heat up. She would ask me this question three more times before I was able to produce popcorn. (Another item for my list – don’t make demands of your friends’ parents.) The girls settled in with their popcorn and waters and were relatively quiet during the movie. Aaaaahhhhhhh.

You are likely reading this and thinking what a horrible, mean person I am. I was actually very nice to all of these kids even when they were doing or saying things I didn’t like. Nicer, in fact, than I can be with my own children (poor things). I merely was making mental notes as all parents do. Taking stock of behaviors I either did or did not want to see repeated in my own children.

During the movie, two girls came up the stairs and sheepishly asked where we keep our markers. I don’t allow markers downstairs so I asked them why they needed them. They didn’t want to tell me. I asked, “Is someone asleep?”. They answered affirmatively. I asked, “Is it Kate?”. They nodded. I said, “They are in the top drawer in the table behind me. Do your worst.”. Poor Kate. She requires a lot of sleep.  Always has. These girls aren’t yet old enough for the bra in the freezer routine, so markers-on-the-face would have to do. When I went down the stairs to check on them, many of the girls – although awake - had orange moustaches and beards. Kate had some doodles but was still blissfully sleeping, sitting up in her chair.

By the time the movie ended, there were two more girls who were tired and ready for bed. Everyone had already assembled their sleeping bags in the playroom. The tired girls got in theirs and worked on falling asleep (or, in Kate’s case, falling back to sleep). I told the remaining girls that they needed to be respectful of their tired friends and not be too loud. I let them know they could continue to talk/whisper, but it was time to wind down. As it turns out, these girls did not yet know the definition of the words “respectful” and “wind down”.

When the noise level became something I could no longer ignore, I went downstairs and was greeted by one girl who was so sweaty from dancing and farting that she had taken off her pants. (Mystery farter revealed!) The other girls were not amused but were expressing their displeasure just as loudly as she was yelling during her dance. I told them all to quiet down again. There were five of them awake; four who were being wild and one who was begging the others to let her go to sleep. They got quiet, so I went back upstairs. By the time I reached the top stair, all hell had broken loose downstairs again. I gave it a couple of minutes hoping they’d hush on their own – again, not wanting to stifle them too much since it was supposed to be a fun party. They didn’t, so I sent in the big guns, my sister-in-law.

It was hilarious. Every time one of us went downstairs, they played the blame game as to whose fault it was that they were being so loud. The poor girl who was experiencing her first slumber party was the one who wanted desperately to go to sleep. She had not been as lucky as the three who were asleep and blissfully, inexplicably unaware of the noise around them. I explained to the wild ones – the Final Four as I named them since they were the last to go to sleep - that they needed to be respectful of their friend who was trying to fall asleep and to please be quiet. I told them I did not want to have to come down to tell them this again. I’m not sure what might happen when I say that I don’t want to have to “do this again”, but to my kids, it means disaster.  When I say that, whatever they are doing stops. I was confident the Final Four would sense this as their final warning as well. Yeah…no.

It was after midnight. Literally as I was turning to leave the room, they began raising their voices again. I would end up having to go down one more time before the roaring finally stopped – sometime after 1:30. I had to be more direct than I had wanted to be, but this poor girl could not go to sleep and neither could anyone else in the house. Well, the little girls and my sister-in-law actually managed to go to sleep around 12:30, but I was still awake. And Mama needs her sleep.

Miraculously, they all woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed the next morning. The first person to rouse was Kate followed by one of the Final Four. They woke and ate breakfast at various times and were surprisingly pleasant and perky for kids who had had so little sleep. I, on the other hand, was knee deep in coffee all morning. No one seemed to remember my grouchiness from the previous evening or, at least, all was forgiven. They played and jumped on the trampoline until it was time to pack up and go. I had them come in the house in shifts to gather their belongings. As it turns out, eight year-olds should not be relied on to be solely responsible for getting their things together. The number of items left at my house was in the double digits. One girl actually left her entire bag – her bag! It was the mystery farter, too. And although they were enclosed in the suitcase, I needed those pants out of my house.

I have to say that I did survive and once it was over it felt a lot easier than it had during the experience. I do think it is key to have a buddy there who can help you. I don’t recommend having that number of girls in that age group. There’s just not a lot of self-control at age eight. In fact, the six year olds were not as wild as some of the older girls. If you do have that number, make sure it’s a group of kids you know fairly well so you know what to expect in terms of their behavior. As I mentioned already, these girls are all very good individually. (Well, there’s one who kind of isn’t.) But as a group, I felt like I should have had some type of tranquilizer gun at my disposal. I’m just too old and require too much sleep to be game for this kind of thing. I should have known better. It’s my own fault.

It will be a long time before I have that many people sleep over at one time again. It was too rowdy and I don’t deal well with chaos. I learned a lot from the experience and have had some good conversations with my children about my expectations about their behavior that I’m not sure I would have had before. I would have assumed they already knew these things. But, some of their friends didn’t seem to know them, so I made it a point to have that talk. I had it in a way to not make Kate think I had not enjoyed having her friends over. Now that I’ve had a good amount of sleep, I can say that they are all sweet, good, silly girls and I like them all.

The good news is that the party is now behind me and I don’t have to do another until Meg’s birthday in October. The better news is that I now have a perfectly reasonable excuse not to get on the elliptical machine. The culprit, Kate later told me, was the mystery farter. So, we’ve discovered that she can leave her mark on our exercise room as well as in her pants. Thank you, mystery farter.