in which I entertain (smallish) masses of small children.

Growing up, I never had any slumber parties. My parents weren't the type to throw parties for me (I did have two birthday parties growing up, two and only two, which I guess is better than one or zero). In contrast, we have birthday parties for our own children each year, and we had a pseudo slumber party last weekend.

The occasion was that her best friend from kindergarten was in town and was planning to attempt a first sleepover. We invited some other girls from the same kindergarten class and made it a slumber party themed event, but with the girls to be picked up by their parents around 8 or 8:30 or so (which is bedtime for most of these first graders, so I figured it would be more practical if they were already in their pajamas). We had several last minute cancellations, but the girls who did show up made such an unbelievable racket that I was somewhat relieved we didn't have more. They had pillow fights (I gave each girl a heart-shaped red pillow as a party favor). They frolicked about. They ate cheap frozen pizzas (I was going to call out for good pizzas, but the husband felt that frozen pizzas were good enough for seven year-olds).

The next day, Iris and our foster kittens and I were all exhausted. (The kittens were a little too popular at the party). Those kittens didn't get off my bed for about six hours, nearly three of which Iris and I spent slumped on the same bed watching the videotaped "Survivor" finale. Lola, who was less exhausted, spent the afternoon playing at a friend's house, and I even managed to get Anton to pick her up for me. "I'm sooo tired, I feel I can't drive", I successfully whined over the phone.

I had figured that if things got dull, I'd break out my nail polish collection and we could do pedicures or we could watch a movie, but it never came to that. Whacking each other with pillows and hauling the kittens around proved to have hours of entertainment value.

Meanwhile, Lola has suddenly unearthed a grudge from her birthday party... which was held over two months ago! It's all about that damn pinata. As the more devoted readers may recall, we hate pinatas, but we completely caved and got a pinata for her party. The actual pinata experience seemed so uncontroversial and anticlimactic. The little four year-old girls in attendance (the sole little boy invited declined to participate) ineffectively patted at the massive pinata with sticks for ages and ages, with hordes of protective grown-ups hovering around and overly anxiously monitoring the situation. Mind Eventually I gave in to the grown-ups' vigilance fatigue and softened the pinata up with a few whacks, and I brought down the house by remarking, "I can't believe how far I'm stooping", as everyone present over the age of four knew (and shared) our antipathy towards pinatas.

So we thought the pinata went off as well as it could, but suddenly two months later, Lola's mind was seized with the thought that at her friend Louise's birthday party, Louise went first at pinata time, but at HER party, Lola did not go first. Mind you, Louise's party was over six months ago, so it's not as if this were some fresh new injustice. I asked Anton who went first at Lola's party, and he said he lined the children up in order of size and let the most petite child whack the pinata first and that Lola made no complaint about this at the time. Lola has been bringing this up over and frigging again, sinking her head into her hands in despair over the lost chance to be the first to ineffectively wave a stick towards an effigy of Patrick the idiotic pink starfish. I've sworn that next year, she can whack first (therefore putting myself on the line to buy another frigging pinata and once again fail to uphold my ideals). Sigh.