The Sleepover

Ever since she got her sleeping bag for Christmas over a year ago, Clare has been eager to put it to use with a sleepover. I have admittedly dragged my feet over this. Bedtime is something we have down pat around here, and I enjoy my peaceful evenings.

However, Clare's sweet friend Elise was the perfect candidate for a sleepover that would remain relatively calm, so I gave in to the inevitable. Elise arrived around 4 p.m., and the girls immediately fled to Clare's room to play "school, with stuffed animals!" Because seven hours of school just isn't enough! Their squealing woke Danny up from his nap, and while at first he was content to chill in front of "Dinosaur Train," he soon wandered upstairs and became the skunk at the picnic (in the ever-eloquent words of my mother, who is also fond of saying that she has "dirt to scratch and eggs to lay" when she has a lot to do. You can take the girl out of Kansas, but you can't take Kansas out of the girl.)

This seemed the opportune moment to pull out my ace in the hole: three new packages of Silly Bandz, the latest craze that strikes most of we parents with the age-old lament of "Why didn't I think of this?" Happy to include Danny as they swapped, compared, and counted, a crisis was averted. Soon the pizza arrived and it was time to don jammies and pop in the movie. In a happy coincidence, Elise brought footy jammies, so all three looked adorable.


I had selected "The Sword in the Stone" from Netflix, knowing that it would appeal to Danny more than anyone, but also figuring that we needed to throw the kid a bone on this girl-dominated sleepover. Predictably, he was way more into it than the girls, who only kept one eye on it while they hopped around the couch. Eventually, they settled into writing books. Yes, I do believe these girls might be kindred spirits. It was a pretty funny scene, the girls hunched over their papers in concentration while Danny ran around the house, jousting on his stick horse with swords constructed from Tinker Toys stuffed down his back and in his hand. A happy chaos.

It was already clear that Clare was enjoying the evening, but when I acquiesced to her request to read her own book, as well as the book Elise brought, for bedtime (to themselves), she declared, "This is the best sleepover ever!" Ah, my dear girl. May it always be so easy.