sleepovers

We have reached the age of the slumber party, oh my. The girls have all had sleepovers at their grandparents house - which is located about two minutes from my house - since they were babies, but now we are branching out into new territory. Elizabeth started her summer off with two back to back slumber parties, one at a friend's followed the next weekend by a birthday slumber party at our house for a group of nine year old girls. What is it about having a sleepover that is so exciting, so desirable, even at such a young age? I flash back in time to my own preteen/teenage years, and all the slumber parties I attended. As with most all girl events, there is plenty of social stress to go around at some point or another. Who gets to sleep next to who, what kind of pj's you brought to wear, who has the coolest game to play, it's all part of the girl hierarchy that naturally seems to come into play during an evening like this. Here's a question: do boys have slumber parties? They must, but what happens at them? I'm quite sure they are fundamentally different in some way from the girls' version, but how exactly? I have no sons, so I will probably never know the answer to that. All I know is that with the girls there just seems to be a certain amount of angst, as there tends to be in any all girl related gathering, but it seems to be heightened at a slumber party.  Men always seem to envision slumber parties as erotic pillow fighting escapades. I can say from personal experience that while there might be pillow fighting, it is not exactly what I recall as erotic. But there is for sure a certain heightened amount of tension present, and I think it has to do more with the social hierarchy aspect of things - the establishment of a pecking order within the usual pecking order as such. What I mean is that usually only the girls who are within the hostesses inner circle of friends are generally invited to sleepover in the first place. On a daily basis, they stand by each other and each have a sense of comfort in their status as part of their group. However, everything seems to shift at a slumber party. Suddenly, all bets are off, and there is a scramble for acceptance within the group that is palpable. I watched it happen at Elizabeth's party - as the hostess she was granted a certain automatic queen bee status, with the others all competing to fit in somewhere. I watched as one of the girls had clearly been granted special status  - she sat next to E during the movie we played outdoors after dark on our deck, and of course the ultimate gift of being the one who slept next to her that night. A couple of the other girls paired off with each other, and seemed quite happy within the ranks, while a lone girl seemed to be somehow both on the fringe of the group and yet questing for queen status all night. Interestingly, she had not been on the original guest list, but had phoned Elizabeth and managed to somehow wrangle an invite for herself.
Anyway, it's much like summer vacation type memories for me from the same period of time - they are almost visceral in their intensity and definitely evoke an emotional, if not completely nostalgic response in me. It's Sunday morning, and Elizabeth is currently still at a friend's house, having been invited to sleep there last night. I realize that she is entering a new phase of girlhood, has been for some time, but the summer time sleepover thing is what has really made it hit home. Mind you, for all her growing up I noticed that she didn't forget to bring her favorite stuffed dog with her for the evening. And whenever Elizabeth has a sleepover away from home, I get to have a slumber party of my own it would seem. Her twin sisters had great plans last night to sleep in the spare bedroom in the basement. We got them both all tucked in with various stuffies and blankies, said good night and retreated to the living room one floor up. I believe it was 30 seconds later, although Mike says we should "give" them a full minute, that the girls appeared in the living room with all their gear, saying they had changed their minds and would be sleeping in their own room instead. And then about a minute after that Kate appeared and said she couldn't sleep in there without Elizabeth and could she sleep in our room? Followed moments later by Emily saying that she certainly didn't want to sleep all by herself, and could she sleep in our room too? All of which I had been completely prepared for and within in minutes had them both set up on the floor of my bedroom and sound asleep among the laundry hampers of yet to be folded clothes.
The phone just rang and it was my eldest daughter reporting in, due home within the hour. Things must have gone well as her buddy is coming with her to spend the day at our place. Maybe later I will find a way to get them all to take a nap....!