Sleepover Sensation

by Meg Ferrante
Issue 118, May/June 2003

The invitation came by e-mail with only a few days' warning: Would I like to bring my son, my sleeping bags, and my snack food of choice, and join two of my son's friends and their moms for an overnight party?

I scrolled back to the top of the message to make sure it hadn't been misdelivered. A slumber party? You're probably picturing scavenger hunts, flashlight tag, and classic ghost stories. But our sons had all turned one just a few months before. I pictured pandemonium.

It seemed like a really bad idea.

For the record, I'm all about adventure. I'm a glass-half-full kind of gal, except that, around our house, that glass is almost always getting spilled. I hate to inflict that on someone else and their clean kitchen floor. Carried overnight, to include two different meals, that's a whole heap of mess to mop.

Part of me felt that an all-night party for not-even-two-year-olds was really rushing things. Everything in its own time, I reasoned. Part of me couldn't help but think about bedtime. We have enough trouble sleeping in our own bed - how would we manage to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor? How could we possibly settle down with not one, but two other partners-in-crime bounding around together? Finally, the biggest part of me just didn't know how to suspend operations for 16 hours, let go, and relax.

While I pondered the preponderance of motives to excuse myself, a flurry of messages arrived in which Katy and Amy planned the menu, proposed toddler-friendly activities, and plotted the evening of bliss we gals would share once we'd nursed our exhausted rapscallions off to la-la land. Finally, a chance for us - ours of adult talk uninterrupted by phone or computer or by staccato statements as we pass each other in the halls, chasing the kids around each other's houses. Katy even suggested a good chick flick in case we got bored of chatting. Amy shot back an e-snort: "Merciful heavens, girl! Bite your tongue. Movie? Bored? As if there could be any way . . . " They had no idea I was hesitating. And by then, I had no idea why. So we went.

It didn't live up to a single one of my expectations.

We kicked off the gathering with a hearty and lively sit-down breakfast-for-dinner of whole-grain French toast, fresh berries, and sauteed sweet potatoes. In an effort to emulate their buddies, all of the boys ate pretty well for a change. They then helped sweep the floor, feed the fish, give the dogs treats, and even water the garden with leftover puddles from the backyard wading pool. They all hopped in the tub for a big, bubbly family bath, and then the mischief-making got underway as they bounced on the bed in their matching bathrobes - a surprise gift Amy had bartered for on www.mothering.com.

Snacks were next, followed by truck races, silly dances, and - unbelievably - patient turns waiting to ride the rocking horse. A fall and scrape led to sympathy nursing all around - and finally, with bedtime long past, floor spins and couch leaps gave way to eye rubs and glassy stares. We bundled up and headed outside for some sleep-inducing stargazing. It worked - for two of the three boys, anyway, which left the house quiet enough for me to coax my little hanger-on to at last get some shut-eye. Compared to my vivid imaginings, all relatively easy.

As it turned out, though, we'd trashed the place. Dropping that half-full glass would have probably been an almost welcome relief compared to the popcorn kernels, sesame cookies, and apple pieces our free-range roosters trooped all over the house. The cleanup was like weeding - how can you pull just one? Picking up kernels led to scrubbing the kitchen floor led to wiping down the stove led to rearranging and cleaning out Katy's pantry. But what would have taken one of us all day was finished in an hour - in no time, we were camped out on the couches with cold beverages. Now the real fun began.

We started with an icebreaker: "If" questions. As in, "If you could destroy a single invention, what would it be, and why?" I voted for guns. Katy and Amy couldn't decide among TV, circumcision, and pantyhose. "If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?" All of us liked the thought of building a commune-style neighborhood and paying likeminded people to live there. "If you could meet one person who has passed away, who would it be?" led to discussions about dead relatives and then, inevitably, hashing and rehashing stories of the ones still living.