On Saturday night we made one of Annabel’s wildest dreams come true – we let her have a sleepover. She’s spent the night at a friend’s house, but she’s never had a friend stay over. I didn’t start having sleepovers until I was eight or nine, but Annie has been asking about them since she was four. In such a hurry to grow up, this girl.

We told Annabel she could invite over anyone she wanted, knowing full well she’d ask her bestie, Em. Em and Annie met on the first day of school and have been thick as thieves ever since. Em’s mom and I laugh, because the girls talk about each other all the time.

Me: Annie, how was school today?
Annie: Oh my gosh, Em did the funniest thing….Em wore the cutest outfit…Em drew the prettiest picture…

Once we got the okay from Em’s parents that she could spend the night, Annabel spent hours every day planning what they would do, what they would eat, you name it, Annie planned it. She has a promising career as a cruise director in front of her.

Em has come over for plenty of playdates before, but a sleepover was a new level of excitement that neither of the girls had ever reached. This upper echelon of enthusiasm brought with it a lot of jumping around and shrieking. So much shrieking. When I close my eyes, I can still hear the shrieking. Shrieeeeeeeeeeek.

Mike and I decided to make it the Best! Sleepover! Ever! which isn’t very hard with six year olds. We took them out for pizza and a movie, then brought them home to homemade ice cream sandwiches. I set them up with play tents and sleeping bags in front of the TV and let them watch another movie. I thought they’d fall asleep while they watched, but NOPE. Because sugar. I moved them into Annie’s room, where they eventually fell asleep after whispering to each other for another hour.

On Sunday morning, I woke up to, “Mom. MOM. Get up. We made you breakfast!” It was 6am. My left eye doesn’t even open until at least 7am. But I dragged myself out bed, where I discovered that the girls had decorated the kitchen with drawings and they’d made me a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. Super sweet. I had as much as my tired stomach could handle before I said, “I don’t want to eat this all, I want to share it with Dad!” Then I crawled back to bed and made Mike go eat some cereal.

You’d have thought those girls got twelve hours of sleep, their energy levels were unreal. So we took them up to the school playground to burn some of it off.

swinging

Meanwhile, James…sweet, sweet James. All he wanted was to be with Annie and Em. They were very sweet with him (Em has a brother the same age), but they sometimes wanted their own space to play alone. This would break his little heart and gave Mike flashbacks to when HE was the little brother wanting to play with his older sister and her friends. James especially wanted to be near Em, I don’t know, maybe because we talk about her all the time.

After we dropped Em off at her house, Annie was despondent. “I miss Em SO MUCH!” As if she wasn’t going to see her at school less than 24 hours later. James was equally sad. “Where did Em go?” But they both fell asleep during the short drive home, and stayed asleep for almost two hours…which meant that Mike and I got naps, too! I am MORE than willing to sacrifice my ears to the screams of six year olds if it means I can take an uninterrupted two-hour nap in the middle of the day. That is living the dream, my friends (oh, how my dreams have changed).