Sleepovers

During the non-school, mostly schedule-free days of summer vacation, I find myself perched on the tip of a double edged sword. On the one side, I get to spend time with my children. We get to meander through our days with relatively no time commitments, except for the ones we create for ourselves. We are not beholden to anyone, or anything, unless we choose it (like swim lessons).  But on the other side of that sword is the tension that can arise from the uncertainty of no schedule. The "boredom" of staying in the house when the sun is the most intense. (We are fair-skinned folks in the desert, in a state that has the second highest skin cancer rate in the world after Australia.) The kids get restless, and so do I. We make play dates, pool dates, park meet ups and have dinner with friends with kids. But still, there is a lingering tension.

Thank goodness for sleepovers! A day when two kids can just play together till their heart's content, and jabber the night away until they both pass out. One set of parents gets a reprieve from one (or both, or whatever) kids being stuck in the house, and the other set of parents gets to (mostly) relax because their kid is just so happy to play with a friend. No one has to leave after dinner, no one has to say goodbye.

Carrick and Ethan, about the
age of their first sleepover.

Carrick went on his first sleepover when he was two years old. He has had the same "best friend" since he was born. I was best friends with a gal I worked with while we were both pregnant. So, these two boys have literally hung out since before birth. So, leaving my two-year-old at my best friend's house was a no-brainer. I knew he would be just fine. I had no worries that he would be scared, or want to come home (although we were prepare for that, just in case it happened.) Since that first sleepover, we have shared about a dozen sleepovers with the same family. Each time a success.

Tonight, it's "our turn" for a sleepover. Carrick's best friend's folks get to have a night off together, and Carrick gets to do the one thing he's been begging to do all summer...have a sleepover. I am yielding my tidiness for the night, and just letting them play. I'm not going to try to pick up toys after them, or police them too much. They play pretty well together, and they are now at that age where they actually understand about how to share, take turns, and communicate about how they feel. The earlier days of sleepovers meant a constant eye, just in case their young brains thought it a good idea to hit, or throw toys, ya know?

What I will do is have a spread of snacks on hand. I don't want to be constantly in the kitchen. I just want to listen to them have their hilarious conversations about Angry Birds, Star Wars, swimming skills, dinosaurs, and Digimon. They totally get each other. As my son grows older, and doesn't need his mom as much, I enjoy seeing a side of him that comes out when he's really in his element; when he gets to play with his best friend, be totally understood by someone, and just be a kid. That's what summer vacation is all about.