Stress, recovery, and recovery from recovery

I'm pretty sure none of y'all out there have attended a sleep-over with a bunch of 7 year olds lately. Most of you, not since you were seven.

I wasn't invited to, nor allowed to have a sleep-over when I was that young. The earliest I remember attending one was 4th grade, possibly third.

When my daughter kept asking for a "half-birthday" party at some venue like Pump It Up, GattiTown, or the Wiggly Play Center, I 'splained to her that she couldn't have a half-birthday this year, because she had a big regular party just six months ago, and it not appropriate to attach the word "birthday" to any pary because it means people would bring presents, and that was unacceptable. Being she already got presents this year.

There were tears and a small tantrum.

The "beginning of summer swim and sleepover" idea was a compromise. Something kick-ass enough, in the mind of a 7 year old, that it's okay if she doesn't get presents.

One major issue we had is that Stick Girl is scared to death of the water, yet she wanted a Hawaiian theme and for everyone to go swimming.

I had many minor panic attacks during the planning of this party. I'd never been to our community pool before (even though we've paid for it through our evil housing association's dues for 7 years). Stick girl kept over-planning things, and I knew she was bound to be disappointed with some aspect of the party. And we had to buy a bunch of grass skirts and Hawaiian clothes that might not arrive in time for the party (they did).

In the end, I figured out:

--Put a bunch of kids together and they'll come up with their own entertainment. In the pool, in the back yard, on the top bunk, their entertainment just happened.

--Kids think it's great if you give them a bunch of junk food. And when it's a party, you can feed kids a bunch of crap you wouldn't otherwise serve them.

--If you speak to other people's kids sternly, they will actually listen to you.

--Little girls love grass skirts.

The only stressful part for me, ultimately, was the sleep issue. It was the first big sleepover for more than one of the girls, and I was prepared to stay up until every last one was asleep, just to make sure I was available if one of them needed to go home.

Luckily, it wasn't necessary. In the end, after hearing the same girl utter, "But I can't sleep!" for the fourth time in ten minutes (at 1:32am) and 'splaining that all they really needed to do was close their eyes and not talk for a few minutes, what worked was uttering, "Well, there's always duct tape," under my breath.

I didn't hear another peep.

Of course, they were all up at 7am, and The Jesus of Cheese kindly went out for Krispy Kremes, saving me from cooking the healthy but boring breakfast of eggs, sausage, toast and fruit that I had planned.

They were all gone by 11am. Even Red and Freckled.

I had an afternoon of beer and NASCAR planned for myself, but the NASCAR didn't happen--Dover had a rain delay.

The 7-11 guy teased me because it's usually guys who start drinking at noon.

Hey, I had my reasons.