The Beautiful Aftermath

  Last Friday night was our family's turn in the babysitting rotation we've formed with three other families (best idea ever). Each couples takes one Friday a month with all four families' worth of kids (that adds up to eleven, in our case) and tends them for four hours while the other three couples have a date night. It makes for one heckuva Friday night play group for the kids each week, and three nights out (without paying for a sitter) for each set of parents each month. Good trade-off, in my book. But I digress. As I was saying...

  Last Friday night it was our turn to watch the munchkins. And then, because I sometimes often do crazy things, I gave Laurelei permission to invite the three older girls in the group to stay and have a sleepover with her. Which they did.Oh My Gigglefest. Who knew four seven-to-eight-yr-old girls could have so much fun in such a small space in only one night?

  I guess I did. Somewhere, in the recesses of my memory, I knew how much fun it would be for them, because I remember what sleepovers were like for me when I was that age. And not only the level of fun, but the bonds of friendship that were formed by those experiences...the meaningfulness in the midst of the silliness that I maybe couldn't identify then, but I could feel in the strengthened connections with my friends. And I can see it now.

  Which is maybe why I let it happen. And why, when the girls had all gone home after very few hours of actual sleep, but plenty of waffles with blueberry syrup, and Laurelei had fallen asleep on the couch, exhausted, I wandered around the mess that was now our home, smiling. Curiously pondering the workings of childhood imaginations that led objects to be end up where they did. Content with the beautiful aftermath of what I hope will become a meaningful memory for my daughter and her friends.

(were they playing bookstore? I don't know...)

 That's some serious sleepover hair there, kiddo. 

But beautiful.

xo