The Classic Sleepover

Instead of a birthday party this year, Elijah had some friends from school sleepover. Now, I admit that this wasn’t a suggestion that Elijah came up with on his own… I suggested it because I just didn’t have the wherewithal to plan a big birthday extravaganza like I have for the past 3 years – especially when only 4 kids every show up anyway.

There are a few basic rules that I think should be followed for any sleepover.

Rule 1: Always have an even number of kids – especially if it’s a party for girls. Kids tend to pair off. And if you have only 3 kids, or any odd number really, you will have one child who feels left out and unhappy. Sometimes that ends up being your kid – which no one wants as he can’t call his parents to come and get him early – he’s stuck there. So it’s best to have even numbers. The groups of two tend to change as the evening progresses, but everyone is generally happier.

Rule 2: Find some activity for the first evening that will make the children tired (preferably exhausted) before bedtime. We went to Chuck E. Cheese (with coupon for double tokens) and then McDonald’s indoor playground. We spent roughly 3 hours (total) in both places. The kids got to play all the games they wanted (no one came and asked for more tokens). They played long enough to be hungry when it was time to go. And they had enough tokens so that everyone had about 100 tickets and got two or three things from the prize boxes. At McDonalds, everyone played long enough that they had worked up a sweat and they all began to have that I’m getting a little tired look in their eyes.

Rule 3: Have good music that you can listen to loud in the car. I have found, especially for short car trips, having good music with a lot of kids in the car makes a difference. Without music they will begin to search in the crevices of the seat, the floor board and their pockets for objects that make quality projectiles. Said projectiles never hit the intended target who is sitting right next to them, but rather will hit the toddler in the car seat three rows over, the back of your head, or the windshield. I can only assume this isn’t the intended target because when confronted with angry mommy voice, the assailant will invariably claim that it was an accident. And being a strong believer in the inherent good in all, I will believe them – if they can make the claim with sincere voice and facial expression.

Rule 4: Keep them up late. In a further quest to make your evening go smoothly, when you return home, have some simple activities for the kids to do. We used playdoh and playstation. The evening isn’t the time for Jedi attack and running through the house – as you are going to be on the verge of grumpy and don’t want children returning to their home saying something like – Elijah’s mom shouts a lot!!!! Let every child know that they have until a specific time (I picked 845 – which was already past all bed times but Elijah’s) to play games. When the nerdy kid informs you that his bedtime is at 7:30 – make a big deal about being able to break all the rules at a sleep over. Of course, this only works with small children. Never suggest to a 10 year old that he can break all the rules – as he will not be content with the bed time hour rule alone.

Rule 5: Be prepared for the wind-down. Having kept the children up for at least an hour past their bed time it’s time for the wind down. The wind down is what I think is really the best part of any sleep over. It’s the part that most everyone remembers the most. It’s that time when everyone is in the bed and the giggling begins. This is the time when the parents have to go in repeatedly and say, boys keep it down. It could escalate until you get to “Don’t make me come in there!!” but if you’ve followed the previous steps well enough, then it shouldn’t be necessary.

Rule 6: The morning after. It never fails that, despite being up late the night before, the children will arise, en mass, not that hour of 9:30 as you had hoped, but exactly 30 minutes before you normally arise for work on any other day. Typically, this is not a gradual slow awakening where they are content to sit in bed, snuggle under the covers and watch television. Really, it’s much more as if the pause button has finally shut off and they are going to resume activities from the night before. It is almost always the two who were up the latest who will wake up the earliest – which is nice because then you know exactly who to blame for your own irritability the next day.

Rule 7: Serve a heavy breakfast. As you stumble about the house trying to function on a mere 2 hours of sleep – a nap really, your quest for today is to make the children as slow moving as possible so that you can survive the morning until parents begin to pick up their children. To facilitate this, you want to feed them a big, heavy breakfast. If the food itself doesn’t slow them down, the sheer weight of the meal should make them at least 10 lbs heavier so they are not as mobile as they once were. It also might result in extended visits to the restroom.

Rule 8: Kick them outside! After feeding them a meal that would harden even the cleanest arteries, send those children outside to play. If you time it well, then the parents don’t even have to come into the house (which will be trashed – mostly because you didn’t bother to clean it for kids – and they didn’t bother to clean whatever they played with the night before).

Rule 9: Force your child to admit through direct questioning that he did indeed have the best evening ever and pat yourself on the back.