Ever wonder why they call it a slumber party when no one gets any sleep? My daughter just talked me into having a slumber party with middle school girls. The last time I threw one for her she was in elementary school.
We had too many girls – 14 to be exact. The girls looked adorable when they first arrived all huddling together in fluffy PJ’s, with matching slippers.
After they got jacked up on soda, candy and cake, they started running amok, jumping on beds and having pillow fights.
You might as well be watching a scene from the movie Where the Wild Things Are with the kids ready to let the rumpus begin! One child was giving my daughter’s favorite American Girl doll a crewcut fit for a marine, and another was hiding in my linen closet smearing more chocolate on my sheets than you’d find at Hersey Park, whining, “I’m starving, there’s NOTHING to EAT!” She’s the redhead with pigtails who already left a snow cone melting on my den rug.
At 1am when the girls wouldn’t go down, I started cursing the inventor of the sleeping bag. Then my husband yelled, “There’s a mouse in the house!” seeing a rodent scampering behind the tv cabinet, moving faster than Bo Jackson in his heyday making a 40-yard dash.
My husband didn’t realize that the girls let my daughter’s hamster out of the cage. By that point, I was actually thinking of calling parents in the middle of the night.
Blogger Lori Lite of Stress Free Kids has some great tips for a birthday party. She tells me that her post Stress Free Birthday Party was inspired by a middle school party. She talks about the need to limit choices, manage technology, and set boundaries. I obviously didn’t do this. The girls at my daughter’s party spent hours arguing over which Movies On Demand to rent and kept sending messages to each other on cell phones. Lite suggests limiting movie choices with the birthday girl deciding ahead of time and collecting cell phones at a certain time.
I would also advise you to avoid slumber parties before kids reach middle school age. The little kids are way too young for group overnights. Have the younger kids come to a “pajama party” instead where they dress for bed and watch movies and eat pizza but leave by 9:30pm. This way you won’t end up with more bags under your eyes than you’ll find in a box of Lipton Tea.