It Was Dad's Idea

Last Friday we suddenly discovered that it was a long weekend, with a day off school on Monday.  The Common Household Husband suggested that our Youngest Daughter have a spur-of-the-moment sleepover on Sunday.

When 11-year-old girls see each other for the first time in two days, they feel compelled to scream with delight.  As our guests arrived, they hugged and screeched in the front hallway.  I walked past the girls into the kitchen, where my husband was standing, holding his fingers in his ears.  I said pointedly, “This was your idea.”  He said, “But I thought they would be quilting.”

Dad-sponsored sleepover activities:

Eating Pizza 

Stuffed Crust Pizza! Yay for Dad!  After dinner, the girls jumped up and down in the kitchen singing camp songs at the top of their lungs.  You probably know the song “Bananas”, which starts, “Eat – Bananas, Eat, eat bananas” and ends with “Go – Bananas – go, go – bananas.”  These girls knew several other verses, for oranges and cows and such.  We heard all verses.  The neighbors probably heard too.

Scientific investigation

At about 8:30 PM, two of the girls rushed into my office and said, “We need the computer!”  I asked why, and they said breathlessly, “We need to look up eosinophil!”  I figured this was some character in a video game that they wanted information on how to beat.  “You want to look up who-what?” I said.  They exclaimed, “It’s something scientific! But first we need to know how to spell it.”  “Oh,” I said, “a scientific endeavor. Well, you certainly can use my computer for that.  And I’ll bet the Common Household Dad will know how to spell it.”  Sure enough, he did.  

We have a microscope in our spare bedroom (every spare bedroom should have one) and the Common Household Dad had gotten out the prepared slides, one of which was a sample of eosinophil.  The microscope activity probably lasted a full 15 minutes.

Observing nature

The Common Household Dad owns and operates a fish tank containing a few fish and one adult snail.  I will have nothing to do with the fish tank, which is a kindness to the fish considering my track record on taking care of the rest of the house.  To young children the fish tank is a good source of amusement, and our sleepover guests were no exception.  Apparently a spontaneous generation miracle occurred, because, as the girls were looking in the tank, one of them cried out, “Oh, look!  There’s a baby snail!”  Much proclamation of cuteness ensued.  “Oh, my gosh!  The baby snail is gigantically tiny!”  Then they started trying to explain how a single snail could have babies.

Mom-sponsored sleepover activities:

- Salad with the pizza.

- Getting up at 2:15 AM to turn off the light and make the girls go to sleep (at the request of one of the girls).  Dad slept through this part of the sleepover.

- Making misshapen eggs and rubbery pancakes for breakfast

- And attending weddings:

Weddings

The next morning after breakfast I was invited to attend some weddings.  The Common Household Dad was not invited because he had already left for an important appointment at the casino.  The game room was an utter mess, but was a good site for each of the girls to marry a stuffed animal.  The most important role seemed to be that of the flower girl.  Flowers were represented by cards.  The flower girl threw the cards up in the air and they landed all over the room.  The second most important moment was when the groom was instructed “You may now peck the bride” (when the groom was a penguin) or “You may now devour the bride” (when the groom was a polar bear).

A successful sleepover.  Good job, Dad!

Activity for this weekend: clean up the game room.  This will be a kid-sponsored activity.