Last night GB went to his first sleep-over.
You will think I’m an over-controlling, compulsive, buttinski but I was terrified all night. I literally couldn’t sleep. Visions kept running through my head all night. I was worried about GB. And I was so concerned for the mom-in-charge. There was a total of seven boys with two other smaller children. And in my book that’s a lot of kids spending the night. It could be a recipe for chaos………. Not that I wanted to jinx the night.
My memories of sleep-overs are that someone always feels alienated, tempers flare, and I was always the last person still awake. It’s scary to be in a strange house and everyone is asleep, and there you lay. But the lasting impression was one of fun. I still wanted to go. I just didn’t want to be alienated, annoyed, or the last person awake. You know?
I was fully expecting a phone call all night to come and get him. And you may laugh, yes you may. But I’ve been through this before. When Aquagirl had her first sleep-over we got the phone call at 2:00 a.m. She was still awake and she was scared. She desperately wanted to come home. Luckily, we lived only three doors down, and it was an easy transition. I still felt terrible for the other parents, though.
Jabem never had qualms. He would go and have a blast, get no sleep, eat atrociously, and come home and grump for the rest of the day until he’d readjusted. He loved it! It gave him uninterrupted video game time with lots of friends. He’s almost 20 now, and when his friends come over, I still find some of them sacked out on the sofa in the mornings.
But I didn’t know what to expect with GB. He is my overly compulsive child. Everything must be the way it always has been. Here is another laughable tidbit; the child still insists on sleeping with his nursing pillow. He doesn’t know that that’s what it is, but he loves it, and he WILL NOT sleep with anything else. Trust me, I’ve tried. I have this image of him going off to college and dragging his ratty nursing pillow with him……………LOL! So I just wasn’t sure what his response to a sleep over was going to be.
Want to know how it went?
It went great! He had a blast. He ate terrible. He got no sleep. He played video games, had Nerf wars, and he introduced the other boys to his new passion; those teeny, tiny army men that you get 100 of them in a bag from the dollar store. This is not to say that they didn’t have drama, because they did. One of the birthday boys, they’re twins, was having too much birthday. And he experienced at least one, maybe more, of my fears. GB came through exhilarated and unscathed, but I can’t say the same for this birthday boy. His twin brother was having a high time, but I think the crowd was too much for poor W.
I think that *when* GB decides to have his own sleep over, I’m going to restrict the number of guests. Because I’m 44, I need my sleep, and more importantly - I’m not as brave as the twins’ mom. She gets big props from me!
I’ll bet GB sleeps well tonight! 
***Edited the next morning: Just wanted to update you on GB’s sleep status. It is now 11:00 a.m. on the day after the sleep over, and GB is still asleep. It’s been 12 and 1/2 hours since he went to bed. Does it make me a bad parent that I’m letting him sleep? Too late now.
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