We told him he could have his first friend sleepover. I don’t know why, exactly. It wasn’t a birthday. I just sorta felt like he needed it. To feel like being the Oldest has some sort of super power to it in a world where it, I think, can sometimes feel like a lot. A lot of expectations. And maturity.
He’s just shy of 9. And I write about him less and less lest his friends stumble upon this blog in 2024 and use my words as weapons against him. Or he becomes 22 and questions why I thought writing that story about that time was a good idea when it was his life.
But this sleepover. It’s everything I dreamt of.
I wasn’t an exemplary baby mommy. I felt, at times, like I was living outside of my comfort zone constantly. And not in that way where “that’s where the magic happens.” More in that place where I feel inadequate and unequipped but I muddled through. We all find ourselves in those spots, I am sure. Where we are not wired to do the duties as assigned but we connect the wires just long enough to get jumpstarted and into drive.
But this place. While challenging in its very own rite, it’s the bomb.
The kids talk back. I get the eleven between my brows. And the NOISE. Oh sheezy. The freakin’ NOISE.
But it’s also so my speed.
The age where we chat. We talk about sorta life stuff. Where we find ourselves not touched in EVERY single moment but still snuggling and kissing away scrapes and boo boos. But yet, they still need us in this very comforting way.
We talk openly. And they have bed times. And we read bigger kid words. And we talk hygiene and expectations. I just like it here better.
…
So the sleepover happened.
When we’d told him he could have two friends, he immediately selected his cousin and said, “he can be a friend, too, right?”
There was pizza. There were laughs at the kitchen counter. There was total utter annoyance from the two Littles to the trio of sleepoverers. The Littlest and Middlest DEFINITELY struggled to understand that it wasn’t necessarily for alllll of them. And there was talk of scary movies and clowns.
They played Madden. They played hide n seek. They watched Dude Perfect. They giggled about who-knows-what. They made it until 11 pm in the basement. And then they all traipsed up to the playroom and spent the night on the floor.
I had more fun than I should have just listening to all their convos and the lingo of 8ish-year-old boys.
And from all accounts, they had fun.
At one point, the boys were discussing the eve and one stated, “It should be called a wake-over, ’cause no one really sleeps.”
Why kids don’t get to create all the words, I’ll never understand:).
I’m not certain we’re at the regular sleepover stage yet but oh my Mama heart savored this tiny rite of passage. I love having their friends in our home. I love that right now, they are all comfortable being lined up on spinning stools bellies up to the breakfast bar. And that they don’t seem to think we’re lame. Yet.
