Finally, after months of prodding mom and dad, Eric was finally able to host his first sleepover.
After soccer practice, I convinced Jinu's mom to let me take the boys out for some fun. I had some shopping to do and thought the boys would enjoy themselves in the playroom. It was late when we finally finished dinner and ice cream at the food court so I simply asked Jinu's mom if he could sleep over. A little coercion by Jinu and the boys were bouncing off the roof on the drive home.
Things went quite smoothly all things considered. Let the boys play Wii for an hour and told them that they had to be in bed by 9:30. It's always surprising to me when young boys willingly follow a grownup's arbitrary rules!
As it was his first sleepover, I felt a responsibility to try to make it memorable so I imposed a silly No Laughing rule after lights-out which I had to enforce a couple times with "The Claw." The Claw is my all-purpose tickling, grabbing, discipline device. It's just my hand with its fingers clenched. After a couple predictable disruptions, the boys were asleep by 10:00.
They were up bright and early though by 6:30 AM playing Wii and watching TV. I dragged myself out of bed around 8:30 to make them some grill cheese toast in which they only showed a passing interest. At times, Eric would be playing his DS and Jinu would just be watching, or vice versa. It reminded me that sometimes childhood friendship was like that: someone along for the ride. You like them for that quality.
I considered organizing an activity for them before Jinu's mom came to pick him up but then thought better of it. It's important that adults not impose too much upon 5-year old hearts.
