I neglected to mention earlier on that Fifth Grader asked if she could have a sleepover birthday party this year. It's this Saturday. I attempted to limit the number of guests to half a dozen or so...but you see, Fifth Grader is a bit of a social butterfly. She has friends from several walks of life - yes, at the tender age of eleven, she has already racked up more than one walk of life - and she feels it is important to have representation from ALL sides at her birthday celebration. From there, it becomes a question of weighing the repercussions: what might happen if so-and-so is invited but what's-her-name is not?
I stopped the guest list at twelve. I also relented to allow Third Grader to invite one friend of her own to sleep over so that she would have the means to retreat gracefully if she finds herself being bossed around or rudely excluded. Luckily, three of Fifth Grader's invitees have previous engagements. As of today, we are all in with ten guests plus the Tornadoes. And myself.
But that's not the problem.
My one condition for allowing this party to happen was that we have to keep it simple. Fifth Grader selected two easy and tween-appropriate activities, passed on goody bags (we will do simple photo books to give everyone later on), opted for make-your-own sundaes instead of cake, and agreed that, with the right assortment of frozen pizzas and snacks, music and movies, they would get along just fine. We designated this afternoon to gather the assortment. With snacks, drinks, pizzas, paper goods, new DVDs to watch, and sundae toppings, we are all in at about two hundred dollars.
But that's not the problem.
It's kind of the problem. I wasn't really expecting to drop two hundred dollars on a party for an eleven-year-old. But hey, whatever. The problem, really, is that on the drive home from stimulating the economy, while I was trying to mentally process just how loud and maddening this party is actually going to be, the Tornadoes teamed up to engage me in a conversation about - capital murder.
Seriously. All of a sudden, Fifth Grader displayed a burning curiosity to understand the events surrounding the murder of a local police officer two years ago. And the trial of said murderer. And the appeals process. And what death row is like. After spending forty minutes in Target buying flower plates and hot fudge, this is what she's thinking about.
This propelled Third Grader to begin her own interrogation about the Casey and Caylee Anthony case. Why did she do it? What did she tell people? Is she sorry? What will happen to her?
I did my best to answer their questions. The thing is, no answer is ever a conversation ender with these two. No, an answer is an open door to five more questions! After a relentless twenty minutes of discussion about murder, death and the afterlife, I complimented them on their curiosity and BEGGED them to please, please change the subject. Please. Before I completely lose my mind, can we please talk about how we are going to fit ten girls in our family room on Saturday?
Oy. Dinner tonight: pita chips, hummus, and wine. Lots of wine.
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4 comments:
At the baby shower for my daughter four years ago, we played this little game, where all of our sage elders wrote a piece of advice for us first-timers on an index card...
The usual sappy truths were delivered unto us, "Cherish every molment..." "Teach them well..." blah, blah, blah...
One gem, one diamond in the rough, we laughed off at the time as a simple act of brevity, which now stands as the truest trueism was written by my aunt...
"To be a good parent you need to Drink. Heavily."
10 kids? wow are you bold. I just had 3 teens last night who managed to turn the entire attic into a 'club' complete with pink glow of a dolphin neon light, disassembled all of the shelving, moved boxes, and stashed it all in ancillary eaves of the loft not made for storage (on planks, no flooring, so who knows when a bin will come flying through the roof)
oh, and btw, they pulled up the ladder along with them. sigh. Innovative 13 year olds, gotta say.
p.s. In the spirit of your quotes here, I'll add my own fave on teens/tweens, which has held form in the 'truest trueism' of lunch table observations/middle school angst:
"The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another. ~Quentin Crisp"
wow. I definitely saw how one question is the gateway to eleventy billion more when they were here.
At least they've stopped asking about that guy on the side of the road in the canyon, though, right?! That's a good thing. ;-)
We took a trip to NY during an election season. The ride home was hours longer than it should have been and my kids talked my ears off. As we were pulling into the driveway, finally home, one of the political as played on the radio and my oldest asked me, "Mom, what is an abortion?" A whole weekend in the same hotel room, something like an eight hour drive home constantly chatting and seconds from freedom, I got this. ARGH!
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