Another school year has come and gone and this year, we let our 15-year-old daughter celebrate with a slumber party.
This was my husband’s doing. I’m the party pooper here, usually nixing slumber party plans — or at least cutting the invite list way back. But my daughter asked her father for permission and he said yes. And as she rattled off the names of the girls she wanted to invite he took the attitude “the more the merrier.”
As it turns out, about half of the girls weren’t able to come. So when I tell you we had eight girls sleeping over you’ll probably wonder what the “problem” was. And truth be told, there really wasn’t one. It’s just that in our house, the only room big enough to accommodate more than two or three kids is the living room. Even there, five or six is probably the top optimum number that can fit.
So we put up a big party tent in the backyard — one we had bought for the recent college graduation celebration we threw for our oldest. Various electronics allowed the video game console to be played on a large screen my husband set up. This would allow for games and movies and all of the girls brought sleeping bags, so we hoped they might consider a camp out — something the boys had done with their friends.
But we’re talking girls. Once the mosquitoes made themselves known, the living room was the place to be. I can’t imagine that the teens crowded in there were very comfortable — although they didn’t seem to mind. The “problem” that arises — for me — is that our bedroom is adjacent to the living room. Just because my daughter and her friends want to stay up all night doesn’t mean I want to do the same!
I stayed up as late as I could, playing cards with one of my sons, who I’m sure wished he had made plans rather than hanging around a house filled with his sister’s friends. By the time I went to bed between 1 and 1:30, things were starting to quiet down. I think the girls eventually went to sleep, which all of us women know is not the point of a slumber party.
Of course, the fact that they went to sleep disappoints my daughter, who worries that a slumber party is not successful unless everyone stays up all night. But I’m thinking that if she polled her friends, they’d all say they had a good time. And in my book, it was a very successful party!
