Sleepover!

Emily's been begging to have a sleepover for, oh, probably a couple of years. Her ambitions were fairly modest: just her cousin. My nephew is two months older, and when they're together they play and fight like siblings. She tries to make him play complicated stories with animal families, Fischer Price people, or various Barbie-like dolls, while he wants to blow stuff up, preferably with robots. And they're exactly the same size, so people always ask us if they're twins! Awww!

I keep putting her off because she and Penny share a room, Emily still wanders into our room about 50% of the time (and my nephew does the same thing at home, where he shares a room with his little brother). Maybe when you're five, I mean, when Penny is sleeping in a real bed . . . all my excuses finally were shattered when my sister thought she was in labor and I volunteered to let L. sleep at our house to save her from making the drive to school in the morning. Her husband's a pilot and currently out of town until Saturday, so she's understandably worn out (even though she wasn't in labor . . . yet.)

So, we ended up having a two-night sleepover, Wednesday and Thursday. The first night was a little rough. Penny was asleep in less than half an hour, but the five-year-olds kept opening the door, "accidentally" letting the kitten in, and then coming into the family room where we were trying to watch TV to tell us to get the kitten out. I think it was 9:30 before Emily was asleep, but L. knocked on the door to the family room (it's supposed to be the third bedroom) at 9:45, a little weepy and asked for his blanket. Which his mom forgot to put in his bag. He very reasonably accepted a green t-shirt of mine (his blanket is really one of his dad's green t-shirts) and was out in 5 minutes. I took the following pictures in the morning.


Yes, L. had to sleep in a hot pink sleeping bag.

The next night everything went more smoothly. We put Penny to bed first and read the older ones a chapter book (Nate the Great and the False Clue) in the living room. Penny was asleep by that time, and the five-year-olds were asleep in probably half an hour with only one or two requests for water, etc. For sleepovers on school nights, not too bad.

Emily wanted me to post this picture of her making a speech at a podium. The podium is really the cat's scratching post, which he has, shall we say, seasoned (christened?) so it's supposed to be on the porch, and some cardboard packing material from a game. I caught her doing this and asked if she wanted me to take a picture. Of course, Mommy!

Oh, look, and there's her school uniform. Fourth week of school, but hey, better late than never.