Slumber party

When Harrison asked if he could have a friend sleep over after another friend's birthday party on Saturday night, I said sure, thinking I was getting off easy because the party was over at 7:45, and the kids would probably only stay up for a couple of hours.  And you know what?  I should have just kept it at a friend after the birthday party, and everything would have been fine. Dorothy and Cooper would have already been in bed when the big boys came home from the party.  Jack could be easily placated with a Chris Farley movie (he hasn't seen Beverly Hills Ninja, and I am pretty sure he'll love it), and we'd have donuts or something Sunday morning and drive Harry's friend home.

But then Harry couldn't decide who to invite over, so I told him to just ask both kids.  When Jack heard that, he suggested that he should also have a friend over.  I figured what the hell, thinking the boys could just all hang out together, and I'd be spared the movie.

But then Cooper got wind of the whole deal and asked to have his BFF sleep over, too. And with 3 other kids already coming over, I didn't really have a good reason to say no, so I said yes, figuring to would be better to have one crazy night of sleepovers than 3 separate weekends where the boys hosted friends in turn.

And then Harry added another friend.

And that's how I had 9 kids at my house on Saturday night even though it wasn't anybody's birthday.

We went to Family Video to prepare for the big night, and I forgot how much I love video stores generally and that chain specifically.  I worked at Family Video in Pekin when I was in college and again in grad school in the summer in Madison, and I just loved it.  The constant alphabetizing and shelf straightening really did it for me.

Cooper really wanted the clown movie.

 Saturday got off to a bad start, though, and I worried that spelled disaster for the sleepover.

 But my little cheese stealer and I made a huge crockpit of mac and cheese after baseball got rained out.

 And the kids helped stock up on a huge variety of junkfood.

 Cooper couldn't wait for his friend to come over to start eating it, obvs.

 Dorothy didn't have a friend to sleep over because she's freaking 3 for freak's sake, so I was her friend.  First, she made us have a "midnight feast" of Doritos at 8:15.

 Vampire teeth interlude-- super scary, obvs.

 Then she needed a tri-color manicure

And a full face of makeup.

 I laid down with her at about 9:30 (2.5 hours after her usual bedtime), and she was out quickly, meaning I could sit with Ben on the couch and watch SNL because Cooper and his friend passed out in the living room watching Goosebumps at about 9:45, and Ben carried them both to their sleeping bags on Coop's floor (they eschewed his bunk beds in favor of a more authentically sleepover-y choice).

 Jack and his friend hung out in Harry and Jack's room all night, playing Wii U and watching all of the Harry Potter movies because they wanted to stay up all night.  They made it until about 1, which was when ben went downstairs and told Jack's friend to stop kicking the ceiling.  Directly below our beds.

Harry and his friends took over the family room downstairs and goofed around for awhile before paying XBox and watching The Martian.  Harry and one friend were out before SNL, when Ben and I crept downstairs to clean up soda cans (GASP! I'm the WORST-- if my new-mother self could see me now, she would be internet-message-board disappointed in me) and candy wrappers, and the other 2 kids fells asleep right after the movie was over.

The next day, it looked like a bomb exploded in basically every room.  Dorothy even dumped out all the toy bins in her room for solidarity.  Ben drove the kids all home around 9, and we spent the literal entirety of the day cleaning the house.  But!  I finally had an excuse to make monkey bread for breakfast:

 The best part of this is not the money on the floor or the candy bars and wrappers everywhere; it is the silly disco music blaring from their iPads.

When I was a kid, my favorite sleepovers were the ones with no parental involvement, plenty of space, and lots of snacks, so that's why I tried to offer the 5 kids who joined our 4 on Saturday.  I think it was a success, but my kids were all fighting crying assholes the next day (because of the exhaustion, I am charitably assuming) so we will probably never do it again.  Except of course we will.