Ringing in the New Year

We spent New Year's Eve over at RJA and Kristy's house, along with Elizabeth & Toby, S.A.M., The Admiral, and Miss M. Thanks to Warren and Uncle Dave, we all feasted on sushi and other Japanese delights. Once stuffed, we spent the remainder of the evening lounging on the sofa drinking various liquids debating the merit of New Year's resolutions and global warming.

The children, all seven of them, mostly moved as a pack through the house alternating between Rock'em Sock'em Robots in the boys' room and Monster House in the livingroom. (GK wasn't technically part of the pack, although the kids did take time to hang out with her every few minutes.)



There were some squabbles, but nothing major. Jiro, who is happy to sift through the trunk full of DVDs for hours on end when at the Alleys', behaved the best in my most biased opinion. (He didn't even try to sneak sips of my champagne!) I had visions of all the kids passing out around 9:30pm...maybe 10:30pm, leaving the adults to play complicated board games (or raucous drinking games), but at midnight they were still raring to go.

Satchel cornered Kristy earlier at the playground and secured himself an invite (of sorts) to spend the night. (He's been dying to sleep over at JP's house ever since JP spent the night at our house in November.) When it was time to jammy up, Satchel cornered Kristy again and secured himself a pair of JP's special footed pajamas.



When it was time to go, Jiro (who is no dummy), refused. "No, I want to spend the night too," he said in his oh-so-cute way as he scooted himself back on the bottom bunk.


"Come on sweetie," I said. "You aren't big enough to spend the night yet."

"No."

"Jiro, come with Mommy and Daddy. You can stay next time," Warren tried.

"No."

We looked at Big Momma helplessly.

"Jiro, sleepovers are for four-year-olds and up," Kristy said firmly.

"No," he said as he scooted further back.

Had I not been on crutches I would have simply scooped him up, but that wasn't happening.

"I just don't want him waking up in the middle of the night while RJA is passed out (from a long night of doing dishes) and the baby is nursing," Kristy said.


"Once he's asleep, he usually stays asleep," I offered.

"Yeah, Satchel's the one who usually has issues at night," Warren said.

"Yeah, Satchel's the one who might wet the bed," I said in a bizarre attempt to make things better, not worse.

Kristy went in the bedroom one more time, looked at Jiro, and said, "Okay, but if he wakes up, I'm calling your ass in the middle of the night."

"That's fine, I'll come get him," I said feeling sure that this wouldn't be an issue.

After obsessively coaching Satchel on peeing before he went to sleep and assuring him that the bathroom light would be on, we left. I felt horribly guilty. We were going home with no kids and Kristy & RJA were left with six. SIX!

Going home to find no kids always makes me feel weird. The house just isn't the same without them running around. I tossed and turned and dreamt strange kid-related dreams until 4:10am when my cellphone rang.

"Jiro's up," Kristy said.

"I'll be right there," I said strangely relieved.

"Come on, Warren, let's go get Jiro," I said.

"Grrmph," he said.

I put in my contacts, put on my boot and my coat, and stormed out on my crutches. I half-way hoped Satchel would be ready to come home too so I could get some sleep, but those thoughts soon vanished when I realized that everyone on the road at 4:15am on New Year's Eve/day was drunk. Suddenly my heart was pounding and I had horrible flashes of getting killed on my way to save my baby from his first sleepover.

Luckily I arrived safely to find Jiro quietly sitting on the couch next to Kristy, who was being a very good sport about the whole thing. (She didn't even say, "I told you so," one time.) Jiro hopped off the sofa, requested his Cars DVD and followed me out the door. Once in the car he asked to hear the Ramones' rendition of "Spider-man" and sat quietly while I navigated past the second wave of drunk drivers. (When we got to Overton Square I saw a guy stumble out of Bari and barely make it to the corner of Madison & Cooper.) Once home, Jiro followed me to the front door, went in quietly, took off his jacket and slippers, crawled into bed with Warren and went right to sleep.

I crawled in too and slept pretty soundly until 9:30am when Jiro was up and ready to go again. Thankfully he ran into the living room and enjoyed having the toys and TV all to himself until 11:30am! A New Year's miracle! Plus we had S.A.M. & The Admiral's New Year's Day Feast to look forward too...