Sleepovers - Then

I remember in the good old days…that is the days when my kids were little, sleepovers were important to them. It seemed like every other weekend, they begged for sleepovers. That wasn’t bad but when you have nine kids clamoring for a sleepover, it is. Sometimes there would be nine extra kids over. Maybe some of my kids would spend the night over at someone else’s house. But then if that happened, it wasn’t uncommon to have a number of my kids having one or two of their friends staying over-night here.

The sleepovers became a ritual. Of course, their friends would come over early on Friday. That meant supper and of course that meant pizzas! Besides pizza, there had to be snacks and some sort of drink.

Sleepovers do not mean kids sleep. It means they come over and stay at your house, clean out your refrigerator and food pantry and stay awake all night long. This is where parents come in…they stock up the refrigerator and keep the food coming. They make sure that the kids keep the noise level down. This also includes hauling them back into the house late at night when you hear the basketballs bounce on the court with the outdoor light on.

The next morning after you don’t sleep…you have to get up early and get some food on the table. That means…eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, and someone does a run to pick up doughnuts. After the kids play some more…their parents slowly drag themselves over and pick up their kids. Other parents don’t show up for hours. Sometimes someone seems to be here for the whole day.

The sleepovers continued until my kids were well into their teens. Sometimes there would be at least another eight or nine extra kids here on some weekends. But it seems that every weekend there were extra kids over at my house.

The sleepovers turned into huge parties, and after prom parties. No one else was crazy enough to have those parties. Pizzas, pop, and snacks were a must. And the next morning an assembly line would form in the kitchen making platters of eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, and toast. By the time everyone went home…the house needed to be cleaned up.

Oddly, afterwards the house was strangely quiet. If our kids were at home, they would collapse on their beds from their hard night of being awake all night. The only people around and awake were us, the parents…cleaning up the house and trying to stay awake.

Honestly, I don’t miss the sleepovers but I do miss the kids!