1. They will sleep as many as 10 to a room (if you call staying up all night and spilling food all over the place “sleep”).
2. The pop/hip-hop music will pulse through the house till 11:59 p.m. Then it will be replaced by screams and giggles, mostly screams.
3. At least one kid will freak out and: a) vomit on everything b) swell up scarily in some kind of mysterious allergic reaction, and c) have to be transported home early, usually around 2 a.m., in a freezing rain on a lonely dirt road to a godforsaken rural part of town, where the man of the house answers the door with a shotgun.
4. One clique-we’re talking 11-year-old girls here-typically has a feud with another clique, so half of the group goes downstairs in a fit of clique pique and ends up sleeping on the living-room floor -except for the little waif who sleeps on the sofa-the one we just reupholstered, with the new Waverly cover-which now has a subtle chocolate motif and reeks of Reese’s Pieces left over from Halloween.
5. If it’s a birthday-party sleepover-and almost all birthday parties nowadays involve mandatory sleepovers-one child, preferably not your own, will become hopelessly lost in a huge, tangled pile of sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, stuffed toys, candy wrappers and scads of torn wrapping paper. The best policy in such cases is to have the dog sniff a piece of the lost child’s clothing, and with some luck the animal may eventually retrieve her.
NOW, THESE RULES are not hard and fast. Sometimes the children actually stay up even later. Sometimes more than one child has a meltdown and has to be driven home. But it’s usually worth all the trouble.
Despite the loss of sleep and overall chaos, children’s sleepovers are an increasingly important ritual in our lives. As The Wall Street Journal recently reported, sleepovers have become a national “mania,” with some children starting as early as 3 years old and requesting overnight stays on a weekly basis.
Since any conventional play date could turn suddenly, unexpectedly into a sleepover, you become experts at last-minute sleepover readiness. These are the kind of emergency skills that could come in handy, say, during a hurricane or a terrorist attack.
If the sleepover is at another girl’s house, there are all kinds of frantic preparations, from getting our daughter’s sleeping bag and her own special pillow ready to packing the Benadryl tablets-everyone has a minimum of two cats, one guinea pig, a cockatiel and possibly a rat-the miniature flashlight and, finally, giving her braces a half turn before she leaves.
What to wear is, shall we say, important. (Actual quote: “Omigod, it’s such a big deal!”) Whoever has the best pajamas usually gets the first “dare,” and a sleepover is not a sleepover without a game of “Truth or Dare.” This is a two-part game, as you may know, in which the virtues of honesty and courage are emphasized.
As in Truth: Ask one girl if she likes another girl-and the other girl is right there!
Followed by Dare: In a crank phone call to a boy, pretend to be the girl he has a crush on and tell him you feel the same way.
And so on. It’s nice to know that they are building real social skills as they play. It’s also worth noting that “Truth or Dare” is one of the last low-tech options available for today’s young people. Anything to lure them away from instant messaging and TV!
Now a few words about the morning after: If you are hosting a sleepover party, remember to stock up on various kinds of toaster strudel. Eggos, Pop-Tarts, etc. As for the parents, you might want a little eye-opener in your coffee, you know, to steady yourself.
Some parents do get carried away with the sleepover experience, particularly if it’s a birthday. They overprepare: Teddy-bear shaped pastries filled with ice cream. Table settings. Streamers. Custom paper plates. They work themselves into a frenzy, so that by the time you arrive to drop your child off, they’re having palpitations.
There is no reason to get overwrought. Especially when you calculate in advance that, by hosting such a get-together, you and your significant other can reasonably expect the other children’s parents to reciprocate, allowing you to ship your kids off for the night. So even as you are enduring the sleepover, you are also anticipating a quiet romantic evening.
Perhaps a movie followed by a sleepover, with giggles and screams of your own.
