By some miracle, my kids have managed to make it to the ripe old ages of ten and twelve without me being subjected to a sleepover.
Last night that streak ended…and so did my sanity.
For the last three years, my kids have “organized” sleepovers that have always managed to fall-through. Usually in the form that my child and the other children made all of these plans, but forgot one crucial component: forgot to ask their parents! Sometimes I was asked and the other mother wasn’t and sometimes it was the other way around. So, last week when I was asked if two Hooligans from a few blocks away could come stay the night the first night of Christmas break, I said, “Sure.” Never in my wildest dreams thinking it would happen.
Oh, I was wrong. IT happened.
Now, before I give you all the dirty details, I will openly admit that I know that overall this was VERY MILD compared to what some people endure, but for me and my first experience, I was ready to pull out my hair–not not just the grey ones.
Here’s a rundown of events:
5 pm–Hooligans arrive. I start making pizza.
5:20–Hooligan #1 poops something the size of a baby in our toilet. This hooligan will forevermore be referred to as Pooper.
5:25–Eddie informs me that Pooper is ticked because Henry and Hooligan 2 commented on the size of Pooper’s deposit. Pooper threatened to go home. (Sounds bad, but I would have been fine with that.) I talked to the boys about remembering we’ve all been constipated before. It’ll be OK, let it go. (Clearly this kid let one go.)
5:30–kids leave-relief floods me…
5:37–kids return with a TV… they take it upstairs to Eddie’s room…
5:45–pizza cut and served
5:50–kids take their pizza and several cans of pop upstairs. My jaw drops and steam starts spiraling out of my ears. My kids KNOW better than to take food upstairs. We eat at the table only. Taking a deep breath, I mentally dislodge the stick from my backside. This isn’t the end of the world. Besides, it might be better they eat upstairs where I don’t have to hear them belching and smacking their food. It’ll be OK. This just gives me the perfect excuse to make Eddie clean his room top to bottom tomorrow.
7–kids come ask if they can use the big TV in the living room. I surrender the remote and go make myself useful in the kitchen, then decide to go to my room.
8–they start rummaging through all of the DVDs in the closet with such great noise I’m sure our closet neighbor heard…and they aren’t that close. I peek my head out to see how bed the mess is and there is a trail of DVDs from the hall closet, across the living room, to the other hall, up the stairs and to Henry’s room. I swung open the door and declared, the DVD-brick road needs to be cleaned up NOW.
8-1:10–kids are up and down, up and down, up and down the stairs. They have decided to watch their DVDs upstairs but keep coming downstairs for more cans of pop… I can’t say for sure, but I think they each had on average five cans. Note to self: you didn’t hide them well enough, Rose!
1:10–I have had enough and I hear someone rooting around in the pantry. I get out of bed and put a stop to it. “But Mom, Pooper’s STARVING,” says Eddie. Gritting my teeth, I tell them, “I’ll make a big breakfast in the morning. It’s after 1 am. It’s time to be sleeping. No more food and no more pop. Go to bed.” I followed them upstairs and told all four of them it was time for bed. Do you think they went to bed? NO!!! They giggled, stomped, talked loud, thundered up and down the stairs until 4 am. At which point I went in there and about lost it. They’d all written all over each others faces with colored Shapries. I was horrified to find that Henry had a strong similarity to Satan. Telling them all in as calm of a voice as possible that it was time for them to GET SOME SLEEP then I went back to bed as if that was actually going to happen.
4:30–I hear what can only be the front door. I bolt out of bed and swing my door open in time to realize Pooper has decided he’s had enough of me being bossy–he’s going home. Oh and Hooligan 2 is going with him and since he brought his TV, Playstation, and enough clothes to stay for a week my kids are going to help him carry his crap home. I said no. It’s dark out there. Nobody leaves until the sun is up. Fortunately they didn’t argue. But decided they wanted to go jump on the trampoline…with flashlights. I quickly found a movie for them to watch on Netflix, parked them on the sofa with popcorn and told them not to get their butts up until the sun was up.
5:55-ish, Eddie comes to knock on my door. Pooper called his mom and said he had her permission to walk home.
6:15–I walk out to find my boys and the one remaining Hooligan are passed out on the sofa.
9–kids wake up, Hooligan doesn’t like the cereal I have and decides to go home.
Sleepover OVER. And looking around at what could only be described as tornadic activity that has swept through my kitchen, dining room and living room there will NEVER be another sleepover again. My kids, however, don’t realize this because they’re already trying to plan another and I hate to say it, but that won’t be happening!
As I said, I know others have had it worse, so here’s my QUESTION: Please, oh, please, tell us all about your sleepover from hell. I really want to hear someone else’s experience. Misery loves company, you know.
Rose Unscripted 
LOL! I have 3 teenage daughters, so I can relate. The worst was when my oldest turned 13. They decided to throw that shredded gift packaging all over the first floor. I yelled at her to clean it up, and we got into an argument. Her friends helped me clean up though. Now, I just put all sorts of junk food on the table, order pizza, and then hide in my room until it is over! Luckily, there have been no Sharpie incidents. It does help that I have known all of her friends since they were in Kindergarten. It is a guarantee that they will stay up until 3 or 4. Although, the last one – for her 18th birthday – she fell asleep first! Wuss!
I love your idea. There won’t be another sleepover with this group, but if there was I’d adopt your strategy!
“My kids KNOW better than to take food upstairs. We eat at the table only. ” Thank God someone else has this rule! I am constantly being called an evil mom because I won’t let people eat away from the kitchen table. Clean up is so much easier when it’s in one place.
I hate sleepovers. I’ve had to start saying no and (once more) being evil mom. I never get a good night’s sleep, I always have to clean up more than usual, and someone doesn’t like the way I do things. A couple of my horror stories are soda that got spilled all over the floor when it was late at night and I was super tired. A bedroom window that’s cracked from side to side. It still hasn’t been fixed because mobile homes have “odd dimensions” for window, and it’s been months since we ordered it. Kids sneaking food around so that I find crumbs of it later on (usually first thing in the morning). Broken toys has also been on the list, though compared to the food and soda, I can deal better with that because there isn’t extensive clean up. Oh! One time I took the kids out to Buffalo Wild Wings, and one of the kids had the hottest thing on the menu then thought they were going to throw up in the car on the way home–and he was right next to me. I’m telling you, that was the longest car ride of my life.
This didn’t happen during a sleepover, but one kid sat on a chair and left a poop stain on it.
I’ll share one sleepover I had when I was a kid, and it was the last time my mom ever let us do a sleepover again. The kid who spent the night went to my sister’s bed and peed in it. She must have thought it was the toilet because she didn’t get her clothes wet. My poor mom was up in the middle of the night cleaning the mattress as well as she could.
Sleepovers just aren’t worth it.
No, sleepovers are NOT worth it.
I laughed for a good two days about your stories. (Sorry!)
And yes, food is for the dining room only. I even hesitate about letting my kids have an occasional meal in the living room (pizza and a movie). Probably how we ended up with a mouse taking up residence in the sofa.
I can laugh at my stories, too, now that they’re all in the past. I wasn’t laughing at the time, though. 🙂
I don’t like anything in the living room, though I have reluctantly allowed them to have a light snack as long as they have a plate or bowl. I know my kids have friends whose parents let them eat entire meals in the living room, but I can’t allow it. There are too many potential things to clean up, and trying to clean furniture is hard. We don’t have leather. We have the cloth.
There was a dead mouse under our sofa one time. There was a horrible smell for a few days, and I kept checking my kids’ underwear since they were potty training at the time. When we figured out it was a mouse, I nearly died. I hate those things.
OMG! Both of you are simply hilarious. Don’t know what to say. But yes, even I had to handle a baby with poop all over him. But only once. I was horrified at the situation. There was no one except me in the house then. So, I tried my best to keep the baby clean without touching his poop. When everyone returned from temple, they could not believe what I did and laughed at the whole situation. That day I felt some kind of deep attachment with the baby. It was a good feeling. 🙂