All-Nighters Sleep Where They Fall

On Friday nights our family has open sleeping. No one is happy unless he or she has someone stay overnight or he or she is staying overnight at someone’s house. A regular old evening at home with mom and dad is just about the most boring possible way to spend a Friday.
The request to have overnight guests on Friday begins on Monday. Usually, I don’t answer one way or another in hopes the notion will pass as the week does.
Usually, it doesn’t and on Thursday the hounding begins and my resistance ends. “Fine,” I say with less and less sincerity as each request is made.
I don’t know what other parents do for their children’s overnight guests but I don’t do anything especially for Patrick’s buddies. I let them eat whatever is around and they always manage to find something. One morning I woke up and discovered they had made a bowl of cake mix batter and eaten it.
I never worry about where they all (Patrick never has just one guest) will sleep because they stay up all night. High school freshmen think 1 a.m. is the time to start a game of Monopoly or Axis and Allies.
The combination of game playing, TV watching, cake baking, and of course, telephoning takes until sunrise, when the guys collapse completely dressed including shoes in the nearest somewhat comfortable spot.
If I didn’t have other plans for my basement family room floor on Saturdays, or if the mothers of the guests didn’t have plans for their sons, I’d have several inert lumps residing there until mid-afternoon.
I try to generate some life by sending down the little kids or by turning on the vacuum cleaner.
One parenting skill I have acquired is: If I bribe the kids to do something, they have to pay up front. For example, if Patrick promises to clean my car in exchange for having friends over, the car has to be cleaned beforehand, because his good intentions become good for nothing after a good night with the good ol’ boys.
On her last birthday Maureen held me to a three-year-old promise for a slumber party. The first birthday that she asked I said she was too young. The next year I said the baby was too young, he wasn’t even born but was expected any minute. The next year I said I was too old. Finally, this year I gave in.
Colleen, the great entertainer, who loves to give parties, thinks the girls who come should stay over night afterwards. I say they should go home.
“When your Dad and I have friends over, at the end of the evening everyone goes home. They don’t even think about staying overnight.”
“That’s because people your age don’t stay overnight at people’s houses. They have to go home and take care of their kids,” Colleen answered.
“That’s not the reason. People my age don’t stay overnight because sleeping on the couch or the floor doesn’t appeal to them when they could be sleeping comfortably at home in their own bed.”
Most of the time the overnight guest is no problem. Occasionally, a younger one gets scared around midnight and wants to go home.
The problem I have is with my own kids. Where is everyone going to sleep so everyone is happy?
I tell them to just go to sleep and it won’t matter that the guest is sleeping in Machaela’s bed and Machaela has to sleep alone in Colleen’s bed because Colleen is sleeping overnight at her friend’s house.
The problem is eventually settled but first we have to have some tears and some pouting and some “No fair!” accusations.
Even my little guys have had their friend, Mark John, stay over. They think the big kids get to have guests so why shouldn’t they?
Getting them to bed isn’t a problem. It is the morning that comes to soon. They get to up to watch Saturday cartoons just when Patrick and friends are going to bed.
I know this overnight ritual sounds crazy but I put up with it with one stipulation – No one sleeps in my bed!
March 4, 1987