February 23, 2013: Madeline’s Slumber Party

Today is Madeline’s birthday slumber party down in Houston.  We didn’t know when I would get out of work last night and late Friday night drives down to Houston are exhausting so we decided that we would just get up early and try to make it down there this morning.  That often works out better and is far safer since I am not driving so exhausted.

We were up really early and on the road before seven.  The drive was fine and we got to the Grices’ around eleven.  I worked just a little bit and then we headed over to the Toccos’ where the party was kicking off in the mid-afternoon.

The party got started around four, I believe.  There were probably a dozen girls there for the party.  We had all thought that they would hang out inside and use the hot tub outside later on once Joe had a chance to warm it up.  But before anyone knew what was happening everyone was in swimsuits and out in the main pool – which was relatively cold.  I can tell that everyone is getting old that they’ve forgotten how warm you are when you are young and that the continuous “it’s so cold” feeling that we always wondered about with adults doesn’t exist for them.  Now that I am older I see why adults always feel cold, I’m in a fleece nearly around the clock, but I remember when I was young telling myself never to forget that as a child, adults are always cold and kids do not need anywhere near the thermal protection that we project onto them as needing.  But, as expected from my own childhood observations, all the adults have completely forgotten this and feel that rather than being colder themselves, the world itself is now colder and children must, as an artifact of that, be cold too.

Nearly the entire evening of party was out in the pool.  Later on, after there was food, the hot tub was warm and Liesl went out and got into it with the other girls.  Liesl was totally in her element.  She loves having a party and she loves hanging out with older girls.  This is totally Liesl’s scene.  She just had a blast all night and older girls always love having her around because she is so much fun.

After the pool portion of the party was done, Joe set up the theater and we all packed in to watch Mall Cop which Dominica and I have seen before, although I can’t remember where.  It is a cute movie and was one where the little kids could stay and watch too.  Liesl had a good time in the theater with everyone.

After the family friendly movie was over the little kids headed off to bed and the older girls split into three camps… the horror movie in the theater group, the horror movie upstairs group and the sleepy group.  I will never understand the preoccupation that tween and teen girls have with nonsensical, gory, violent films.  The adults mostly moved into the house and watched Clueless together.  Benny and I stayed out in the theater to watch over that group while they watched the relatively awful movie Sinister.

After that all of the girls were terrified and needed me to escort them to and from the house to use the bathroom.  The girls who had watched a horror movie inside the house wanted to join the group in the theater (which is an unattached building) but needed me to escort them out to there as they were scared too.  Bennie ended up going to bed and stealing the room that I was going to share with Liesl.  Liesl ended up camping out in the one slumber party room with some of the other girls.  So I was left with nowhere to sleep except on a couch in the living room (Dominica and Francesca were using the other two couches.)  But I can’t sleep on couches very well.  So I did some thinking about it and was considering sleeping in the theater because I was the last person awake and there was going to be no chaperon watching over that building and being separate didn’t seem like a good idea, but there was no way that I would get sleep in there as they were loud and watching movies all night and giving makeovers and they wouldn’t want me in there.  So I thought about it and took one of the pool lounge chairs, put some towels on it as it was soaked, and moved it over next to the house so that I could plug in my CPAP.  And with just one blanket I curled up outside by the pool and went to bed where I could watch over the theater while not having to intrude on them.

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