The little friend from He@#

Spring 2004...
My little girl, Meri, has a couple little friends stay overnight. They're in preschool or kindergarten and are generally all good friends at school. Meri has had one of them stay over before.

On this night, little friend 1 is pushing Meri and little friend 2 apart by working them against each other. Little friend 1 once bit herself on her own arm and blamed Meri. Little friend 2 has known Meri since birth. I am frustrated because 3 little girls cannot be friends at the same time. It just doesn't happen...

The whole evening, friend 1 is crushing badly on 13 yo Ryan. 9yo Maddy has a couple friends over too and one of her friends feels like she has to constantly be the peacemaker for the littler girls. Maddy and her other friend just ignored them and did their own thing, until Maddy discovered that all 3 little girls had been trying on her training bras all evening along with the dress up clothes. So feathers had to be smoothed down over that and littler girls needed change back to their own clothes.

So I hang out in the kitchen mostly, cooking, cleaning up or watching tv while I make some snacks for the girls. One at a time come into the kitchen looking forlorn and abandoned. First it's friend 2. She helps me mix up some cookie dough, gets bored and goes back to the gang.

Then Meri comes in crying in abandonment and I let her eat a little dough. She helps me plop out the cookie dough on the pan and stick it in the oven. She gets bored and goes back after some encouragement.

Then friend 1 comes in acting upset and a little pouty. I let her help me loosen the cookies and put them on a rack to cool. She feels better and goes back to break up the other two who sound like they're having fun.

FINALLY it's bed time! They all camp out on Meri's bedroom floor in sleeping bags. I let them talk in the dark and the room is strangely quiet after only a few minutes. It's great what a dark room can do for chatty little girls.

Fast forward to 11:30pm...

My bedroom door creaks open and I awake with a start. There is nothing more startling than a small head who's eyes barely clear the bed, peering at you from the foot of it whispering "mommy!". I always think of some scary murderous puppet movie from my teenage years when she does that...

Meri came around the bed then after my heart stopped doing flips and I suddenly couldn't breathe. She reeked of perfume. The perfume we gave her sister for her birthday. Her pajamas literally were drenched with the stuff. I asked her what happened and she was crying. She said she didn't know... Friend 2 is standing in the hallway crying, also drenched in perfume...

I went to Meri's bedroom and turned on the light. Friend 1 is doing a rotten imitation of snoring, acts like the light has woken her up and groggily turns around. "What's the matter?" she asks... I told her as I'm looking around on the beds and around the sleeping bags on the floor for the perfume bottle. She denies knowing where it is.

By this time, I know she has done this... So I demanded that she give it to me. After a couple denials which I bluffed my way through, she finally acted disgusted and reached under her bag and handed over the near empty bottle of gummy bear scented perfume.

After cleaning up the girls as best as I could and giving friend 2 and Meri clean pjs, they finally settled back to sleep.

I was never so glad to see a friends mother as I was the next morning when she finally went home. Robb and I vowed to never let her sleep over again... Or at the very least not to have more than 1 friend stay over at a time until she's much older.