The Awakening

By sleep-over standards, our first went well.

Eight boys were sensory over-loaded on unhealthy snacks and multimedia entertainment; and severely deprived of sleep and proper hygiene procedures. A beautiful balance for a newly-nine year old.

After pizza and cake, we loaded the monsters into 2 cars and made our way to the movie theater. After an obscene amount of money at the ticket counter and an even more obscene amount paid at the snack counter, we made our way inside and occupied an entire row for The Incredibles.

It was early still; retarded local ads for realtors and car dealerships attempted to enthrall the boys while we opened candy, mapped out the seating arrangements and cleaned up the first 5 spills. During the excruciating set-up, the family of 3 behind us gasped, “Are they all yours?”

If I was anywhere near my game, I would have pointed out to her that of the 9 children seated, I would have had to have produced septuplets, as they were all the same age. But I wasn’t, so I merely smiled and replied, “Tonight they are.”

We made it back home around 11, which I thought would be ideal, as they would probably not last that much longer, perhaps falling away during the movie marathon we had lined up.

Again, not on my game.

They made it to 4:42 a.m, they reported gleefully at 7:45. We know, we replied, our crusted over eyes revealing this truth.

So we pumped them up with more sugar in the gluttonous form of Dunkin’ Donuts and sent them on their way.

Yes, it was a success by sleep-over standards