First Sleepover

For some reason, I envisioned Jada's first sleepover involving more pre-event fanfare: maybe all us parents, nervously wringing our hands as we exhaled and then mutually decided to start letting our kids sleep over at each other's houses, and then holding our breath as we said our respective good-byes.  Instead, Jada hit this milestone and the event hardly registered a blip. 

Her friend had hatched the plan for a barbecue and sleepover, her parents approved, we found ourselves saying yes, and next thing you know Jada was packing her backpack and skipping in anticipation.  I've never seen the girl power through her chores with such purpose and efficiency; clearly she took to heart my repeated insistence that there would be no sleepover if she wasn't done with her chores by the time the barbecue began Saturday evening.

All four of us had a great time at the barbecue, and then a couple of quick good-bye kisses later, Amy and I were walking Aaron home and feeling a little sentimental.  We assumed Jada would do well away from home for the first time but braced ourselves for the possibility of a middle-of-the-night phone call regarding a certain girl freaking out.  We also braced ourselves for the possibility that some little brother might not like being alone without his bunkmate, and would come down early to snuggle with us instead.

That call never came; Jada did just fine and reveled in the newness of having breakfast the morning after.  And Aaron did just fine on his own, ambling down at a reasonable hour and announcing to me that he quite enjoyed having the room to himself.  Well, that was easy.  Now the hard part will be to convince Jada that she can't necessarily do sleepovers every weekend.