While You Were Sleeping

In our community, it is commonplace for children to invite each other to sleepover.  When I grew up, we called these "slumber parties" and I didn't go to many, my father thinking it wasn't a good idea.  My dad never felt the need to give me an explanation for his veto, but as a parent myself, I understand there are potential pitfalls when you let your child sleep at someone else's home.

When my boys were younger, I was very concerned about their safety.  I am still concerned, but now I am also increasingly exhausted.  (Almost 15 years on the job does that to you.)  Over the years, at times, the boys have been invited to sleepover at a child's house whose family we don't know.  In those cases, I call the family to find out about them.  These are awkward conversations.  Without offending the parents, I am attempting to discover if they have loaded guns sitting around, if they are drunks or drug addicts or have poor sexual boundaries.  I have found that coming right out and asking those questions puts people off and even if you ask directly, you are not guaranteed that they will answer truthfully.
 
When Secret Service was in 4th grade, a boy whose family we did not know invited him to a birthday sleepover.  We took him over and spoke to the parents to assure that they'd take good care of our darling.  I gave Secret the same words of advice I always give when dropping my kids off at someones house - remember to say thank you and flush the toilet.  Then, we went on our way.  The next day, we returned to pick up our boy.  He was in a cheerful, effervescent mood.  As soon as we got into the car, he excitedly told us he'd discovered a wonderful show, Family Guy, and had stayed up all night watching episodes.  As we turned the corner, we told him that we were headed to Lowe's to buy a new refrigerator, and he suddenly became irritable.  Secret grumbled that he was tired and wanted to go home to sleep.  When we arrived at the store, he snarled at us and crumbled into a heap, saying he was unable to walk.  Science Girl and I loaded him into a shopping cart and wheeled him around the store, looking at appliances.  Every now and again, he'd lift his head and mumble something but mostly, he was out of it, not waking to start his day until 5 PM.

A couple of weeks later, the new refrigerator was delivered.  As they wheeled it in, Secret looked surprised and confused.  "When did we buy that?" he said.  "While you were sleeping," we responded.