OMG, What a night!!

OMG whadda night!!  Six boys from Male Docling's delayed birthday party were coming for a sleepover.  The first one called on account of snow- there was 1/4 inch and none of the parents felt safe with the kids away from the bread and milk at home. 

Mr.ddd left first to meet the boys  at Dave and Buster's (a HUGE arcade/restaurant chain for those of you with sense enough to avoid it).  They arrived at 4:05pm so they could take advantage of the early bird special which gives arcade cards for ordering expensive menu items, but you have to order by 5pm.  The wait was projected to be 50 minutes.  Tip for those of you masochistic enough to take seven kids to dinner- letting the kids play with the artificial food displays is a very good way to get seated sooner. 

Dinner was mostly uneventful- only one large Sprite® spilled into my purse and only one found object flipped into a drink.  We managed to prevent male docling from shaving gum from the underside of the table to add to the spiked drink.  The boys are getting old enough that they actually eat, except one who must get nutrition from his fingertips because I never have seen food pass his lips but he will put his fingers on it and wave it around while he is talking.  Correction- I never have seen non-chocolate-containing food pass his lips, but even then it is less than you would expect given that he seems to be free of major growth defects.

The kids scattered like crazed weasels once in the game area and Mr. ddd bumped into parents of one of the kids who cheerfully gave us permission to "discipline" their kid.  I don't want to know what that means.  The gaming cards quickly became as empty as Paris Hilton's vow of celibacy, and we finally managed to wrangle everyone out of the ticket redemption center and to corral kids, stuffed Homer Simpson dolls, candy, fake medallions, and flashing-light toys into the cars.

After sensory overload, we returned home for more screaming, fart jokes, belching, (hey, not that much unlike this blog!!) and a screening of Balls of Fury (which was WAY funnier than I thought it was going to be).  Mr. ddd went downstairs to have them turn the TV off (they were all in the basement) when it got to be midnight.  He found the two boys that would later declare themselves homesick in the gym on the elliptical and the treadmill watching TV saying they couldn't sleep.  He tried to relax them and coax them to sleep using "Ancient Breathing Techniques".  I was surprised that didn't work, unless by "Ancient Breathing Techniques" you mean "smothering them with a pillow", or "snorting Benadryl®".

After some internal clock only kids know about rang, they started straggling up one by one with various claims that they couldn't sleep because of someone else making noise, someone else was farting, or homesickness.  One boy was so homesick he called his mother.  Meanwhile, Female Docling, who is eternally grateful that she has only one brother to torture her, began vomiting.  Only she doesn't know the rules about running to the NEAREST bathroom because she has never really thrown up before, so she runs to the DOWNSTAIRS bathroom, with the predictable bleak outlook for the carpet along the way.  Other casualties included her 4 blankets and Patrick, the giant stuffed dog she uses as a pillow.  His paw and the side of his nose were affected, and when I put him in the tub to get the big parts off, he looked like he had been to a really good giant-stuffed-dog frat party.

Meanwhile downstairs, the homesick boy couldn't figure out how to zip his sleeping bag or find his shoes, so I ran down the three flights again to help him. Events become more confusing at this point, but as near as we can figure it, the second homesick boy came up and declared that he was homesick but he wasn't leaving, he just wanted to sleep somewhere else besides the basement, where we have two queen beds.  He wanted to sleep UPSTAIRS where the other three boys have taken all of the beds.  Mr. ddd had been in bed (since I am the night owl used to being up at all hours), although I only had three boys to find beds for when he went back to bed.  Now he arrives to find five out of six boys up (it is almost 2am by now) and, sweetly, asks what he can do.  I told him to handle the second homesick boy while I went to make f.d.'s room habitable again. 

There is a good reason that I am not a nurse.  I would NEVER have made it through nursing school because of my strict policy that no one vomits alone in my presence.

I got the first load of laundry started and came back down to see who was where.  The tally: One daughter laying face down on the foyer rug, Male Docling on the new couch in my office,  Homesick Boy #1 sitting on the living room couch watching SpongeBob Squarepants with the mute button on waiting for his mother, Most Responsible ("those other guys won't let me sleep and I have to get up early" IANMTU) in M.D.'s bed, The Belcher is on the foldout ottoman bed in the kids' office/playroom, Mr. Anorexic is on the fold-out couch in the basement, and homesick boy #2 was in the basement bedroom with the light on.

So the alarm went off around 7am, by which of course I mean the HOUSE alarm, because nothing so mundane as an alarm clock will do at this point.

I hear random crashes from downstairs and the floor shakes periodically, but there is no crying and no one has come to me with reports of bleeding, though Mr.ddd just informed me that male docling just shot blue paint onto our freshly painted deck with one of his new Toys of Destruction, which are mandatory offerings to every boy under the age of 12.  Mr. Anorexic is complaining of an earache, female docling is better but still a little sick.  She insists that she is well enough to attend the Hannah Montana movie this evening.  Even diverdowndog is on edge, because she saw what happened to Patrick. 

One by one the parents came to pick up the kids, two of whom left without shoes or street clothes on.  I don't know if anybody brushed his teeth, but we have a new pair of boys' underwear and a new sock. 

Maybe next year we should host the giant-stuffed-dog frat party.

Comments

[igloo]

DDD,
That sure brought back memories. Two boys, 2½ years apart; many sleep overs. We raised horses, so we were the go-to for sleepovers.
I can promise you two things. This is not the end, and in twenty years they will be the Best of Memories.
IG

[Wench Lizzy]

Wow, Doc, you are a brave person to take that on! Kudos to you!

[Meditrina]

What a hoot! I'll bet you can't wait to go back to fighting Darwin.... much easier. ;-)

[Nurse Tammy]

ddd - every nurse has his/her kryptonite. I try not to pass out doing deep suctioning... emesis is easy! And anyway, nursing school is about rabid instructors, sleep, deprivation, drudgework, and writing insanely detailed care plans that will never be implemented and are covered in red ink and useless comments from the clinical instructor, not about patient care!