Sleepover Fun

Since our Valentine's Day child care exchange nights didn't work out due to illness, we rainchecked with our friends and decided to do it this past weekend and upcoming weekend. So Drew's friend came over this past Saturday night and we'll be bringing him to Ryan's house this weekend. Bill and I are going to the Melting Pot for dinner...soooo yummy. I've been cutting calories and doing extra exercise all week just so I can not worry about indulging while we're there.

But getting back to this past weekend. Drew and Ryan entertained themselves quite nicely while I finished up the spaghetti & meatball dinner.

Here they are shooting hoops in Drew's room.



And now they've moved on to playing with the garage and the cars.


They, of course, spent time with Drew's big train set, which has now taken over our guest room floor because we couldn't handle the sprawl in the living room anymore. No pictures of that though because I was actually cooking at the time.

After a good dinner and special St. Patrick's Day cookies that Drew just couldn't resist at the commissary, the boys begged and pleaded with Daddy/Mr. Bill to play the Wii. Despite the fact that neither one of them is old enough to really get how to play Guitar Hero, that was their game of choice. These pictures are kind of dark because my real camera battery died and was charging and I was forced to use my cell phone.

Bill tries to explain to the boys what they should do.


Now it's Drew's turn to drum and Ryan's turn to rock the guitar.


After the Wii the boys also made some delightful ice cream and other snacks in Drew's kitchen, which Bill and I dutifully pretended to eat right up.

Miraculously I was able to get both boys in pajamas with clean faces and teeth by 8:30. Here they await their stories.


I heard some whispering back and forth for a while, but not nearly as long as their last sleepover. They must have tired themselves out better this time.

And finally...asleep. The flash on my newly charged camera makes it look like the lights are on in his room, but they're not.

The next morning I thought if I woke up at 6:45 I would have enough time to shower and check email before the boys woke up, and then I'd make them blueberry pancakes. But the boys had other ideas. Clearly they just didn't get enough playtime in the night before because not a minute after I heard my cell phone chirping I also heard little voices in the bedroom.

Before bed on Saturday night Drew realized that he and his friend had not played Drew's favorite new board game "Monkeys Jumping on the Bed." He has been talking up this game to Ryan at the park since he received the game for Christmas, so it was no surprise that it was the first thing they requested on Sunday morning. Here Drew explains the rules to his friend.

Actually before the request for Monkeys Jumping, when Ryan and Drew came out of the bedroom, instead of asking where Daddy was (which is usually one of Drew's first questions in the morning), Drew asked "Where is Mr. Bill?"

Drew is counting down the days until he goes to "friend Ryan's" house. He's cute in that he rarely refers to Ryan just as Ryan. Because Bill's brother is Uncle Ryan and there was some initial confusion about who exactly our playdates at the park would be with, Drew feels the need to continually distinguish between the two.

The Adorableness of Drew's First Sleepover

This past weekend our park playdate friends had a Christmas party to go to and weren't sure what they were going to do with their son when they went to the party. I offered to have Ryan come over here and play with Drew and they took us up on the offer. The boys, needless to say, were very excited about this. Drew actually has quite a lot he's excited about right now. Every morning he asks me for the countdown on the following...how many days till Grandma & Grandpa's, till Uncle Johnny, till Aunt Katie, till Santa, till go to the pool (for swimming lessons), till Ryan comes over?

Anyway, the morning of the sleepover Drew & Ryan also had swim lessons, so after the pool they didn't quite understand that it wasn't until later that they were going to play together. Even as we were getting ready for nap that afternoon Drew seemed reluctant to sleep, thinking that perhaps Ryan would come over while he was still napping. Ryan's mommy experienced similar things at their house. Once Drew woke up from his nap, he knew it wasn't long till his friend arrived, so he pulled one of the dining room chairs over to the front door so he could look out the window for Ryan's mommy's van. And there he stood anxiously waiting until finally they pulled in the driveway. It took the boys about 5 minutes to pull out all Drew's GeoTrax trains. Ryan barely even noticed his Mommy & Daddy leaving.

Drew & Ryan played with the trains until it was time for dinner and, although they ate, they clearly had other things on their mind. They could hardly wait to get back to the trains. They also pulled out Drew's little Cars tent and sat inside there giggling at God knows what for a good little while. Drew's garage and all his cars followed the trains and tent play. And because they ate good dinners and were behaving so well (I thought sure we would have sharing issues), both boys got some ice cream shortly before bedtime.

As the hour approached for bed, we got pajamas on and brushed teeth, and then settled on sleeping arrangements. We blew up our twin-sized air mattress and put it in Drew's room for Ryan and intended for Drew to sleep in his bed. Drew didn't really like this arrangement. He thought at first that he should sleep on the air mattress and Ryan could sleep in the big bed (what a nice host!), but then seemed to think they should both sleep in the big bed (aka we're going to get all my cars out of the toy basket and play until midnight). Mommy obviously thought better of this and got Drew to finally agree on separate sleeping for the two of them. So we all temporarily settled into Drew's bed for some stories and songs. They each took turns picking stories and songs and I was able to oblige most of the song requests, although Ryan had to help me out a bit with what exactly the Old Man played knick knack on for a few of the numbers. Drew thought my hesitation and Ryan's help on this song was particularly hilarious. After about a half hour of stories and songs I hugged both boys and said good night.

Feeling sure that this was not going to be as easy as walking out the door seemed, I headed to my bedroom to read a magazine and listen to the boys on the monitor. I didn't even get through the first page of the magazine before their whispering started. It cracked me up a little bit that they even knew to whisper back and forth. Even with the monitor's volume all the way up I couldn't exactly make out what their toddler-speak whispers were, but it sounded like each one of them was trying to get the other to come down or up and play in the other's bed. Sure enough, as I peeked my head in they were passing books back and forth. I gently reminded them it was time to go to sleep when Drew asked me if he could play with his guitar. I told him no because each time the guitar ends up in bed with him the strings get broken and Bill has to fix them. So I gave them both kisses on their heads again and headed out the door again. I lay down on my bed again and I hear Ryan whisper loudly "Drew, no. Your mommy said no guitar." I run back to his room where I find my child in the middle of trying to return the guitar to the toy basket without getting caught. No such luck. Anyhow, the whispers continued back and forth until almost 10:00 when their eyes finally gave in to sleep, but I was amazed that at just 3 years old they had grasped one of the main tenets of sleepovers: whispering and giggling in the dark.

All in all, the night couldn't have gone better. Ryan was a trooper and didn't exhibit any homesickness at all, and Drew wasn't as possessive of his toys and such as he thought he might be. And although their sleep was a bit late coming on, once it came, they both made it through till morning without incident. At breakfast the giggles and mimicking each other continued as Ryan declared blueberries to be his favorite and Drew quickly chimed in that they were his favorite too. I practically had to drag them away from the trains (again) when it was time to go to swim lessons and meet Ryan's mommy. After lessons, both Ryan and Drew were very sad that the fun of the sleepover was over. Something tells me we may have to do this again.

I'm kicking myself now for not getting out the camera, but hopefully you can get a little bit of an idea how adorable the whole situation was. I should have put a hidden video camera in the bedroom to capture their whispers...