We hosted a slumber party the weekend before the election and, honestly, I didn’t think that one through AT ALL. Our previous experience with slumber parties (my own childhood included) indicated that children would stay up so, so late and parents would be so, so tired, but did we heed this experience? No. Youth: wasted on the young. And then on Tuesday, I alternated holding my phone and a glass of wine until Trump’s speech at midnight (I really feel for the people on the east coast!). I got up the next morning super early, super tired, and just hungover enough to remember why I don’t often drink more than a glass or two at a time. I don’t think I’ve caught up on sleep yet.
The occasion for the slumber party was Charles’s EIGHTH BIRTHDAY OMG. We had planned to go to the park and play baseball with all of his friends, but it was raining, so I set up some games and crafts instead. Perhaps predictably, the games and crafts (coloring masks! making mini-marshmallow-and-toothpick sculptures! that weird cookie-on-your-face game! cornhole in the living room!) held the attention of ten second-graders for all of five minutes and then they played freeze tag in the rain. And then, somehow, the girls convinced the boys to play “house” for a good twenty minutes. And then they just started running around the house screaming with no particular goal or play scenario that I could see.
They scarfed pizza, they ate chocolate cake and key lime pie, and we sang. There were presents. The kids watched the baseball classic, Rookie of the Year. The girls went home, the boys eventually passed out around midnight (adjusted for Daylight Saving Time, so it felt like 1 am), and they were up again playing video games and riding bikes outside by 6 am. It was glorious.
It is rewarding to know that Charles has so many friends who care enough about him to make his day special AND that they are good kids. He’s eight, he can be a brat sometimes, but he’s a loving, kind boy who is positive and happy and he seems to surround himself with others who are like him. That makes me happy.
Perhaps you’d like to know what kinds of presents are most coveted and appreciated by an eight-year-old boy? I find information like that helpful. Legos were, and always are, a big hit. Baseball is huge for him right now, so baseball cards are currently filling every spare pocket and the occasional card makes it through the wash, especially since Charles does his own laundry and he’s not super diligent about checking pockets. Grandpa and Grandma gave him a really cool light/siren/sounds package for his bicycle, and he has declared it his “most favorite thing ever.” I gave him books, several of them in Spanish, because I love him the most, but I’m also boring.
This little goober is eight. I can hardly believe it.
