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Sunday, March 29, 2009

Flashback Friday: My first sleepover

My brain has been going at the speed of a sleeping tortoise lately, so although it is Sunday already I'm barely coming up with an idea for Flashback Friday. It will be a miracle if I get everything that needs to get done finished by midnight tonight when I leave for Greece. Writing this actually isn't on my list of essential things to do and so rather than helping me get ready is slowing me down. But since my brain is going at the speed of a sleeping tortoise I can't think of what needs to get finished. So I'll forgive myself if something doesn't get done.

It will just be waiting for me to do when I get back, and that's okay. I'm going on a 4 day sleepover to Greece with my friend Jaehee. And Rachel. It should be fun, but I'm a little scared to leave home all by myself (with Jaehee and Rachel).

When I was (three or) four years old, my friend Rebekah planned a slumber party to celebrate her birthday. Rather, since she was also four, her mother planned the party. Rebekah invited a number of her friends over for dinner, cake, ice cream, games, a movie, and a sleep over.

That was a little adventurous on the part of Rebekah's mother, I think, inviting a bunch of little girls over, feeding them sugar, and then letting them sleep at her house. Very adventurous.

To add to the excitement that sleepovers typically entail, this was everyone's first sleepover, for the most part. At least, I'm assuming so since we were all about 4 years old and how many sleepovers can you really have before you're 4?

We stayed up really late. Super late. Later than I'd ever been up before.

Realistically we were probably in bed by about 9:00. I suppose that's one benefit of having 4-year-olds sleep over. They think 9:00 is late.

Rebekah's brother Zachary came in and fluffed all our pillows, Boh and Mo came in and read us a goodnight story, tucked us in, and turned out the light. And that was that. The sleeping part of the sleepover had started, which is yet another benefit of hving 4-year-olds over. Perhaps Mo wasn't so crazy afterall. 4-year-olds actually sleep at sleepovers.

Except for me. I was too scared to sleep and too embarrassed to tell anyone so I waited in absolute terror for everyone else to fall asleep and then I sneaked off into the night to find Mo.

Luckily we lived in a townhousey thing and our layout was very similar to Rebekah's house so I didn't get lost trying to find Mo. I was, however, crying when I found her.

"I want my mom!" I wailed.

Mo called my mom, who rushed over in her housecoat to pick me up. She walked me home and then sat on the stairs with me cuddled up in her lap for a while. We talked about how it's alright to be afraid and decided that sleepovers were perhaps best left alone until I was a little bit older.

And that was my first failed attempt at a sleepover. I've had many successful sleepovers since then. Sometimes I still want my mom.

4 comments:

  1. I was probably 9 or 10 at my first sleep-over and I hated it! I was so scared about being at someone else's house in the dark. Or I should say, my first sleep-over with friends. I slept over at some places when I was really little and my mom was having other babies, but they were those pseudo-relative types that you just feel comfortable with regardless. Most other things weren't very fun for me when I was younger.

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  2. Remember Josie's first sleep-over at Becca Brocco's? It was about 4 AM when I got the call that she just couldn't sleep.

    I hated sleepovers, even at my cousin's house. Of course, I have always had the nightmare factor to figure in. Easier to be in a familiar place.

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  3. Deklan was just at a sleepover last weekend when he called at 2:30 in the morning. Funny thing was, he'd been at a sleepover before at the same friends and made it through the night!

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  4. Some nights are scarier than others.

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