My Dad Was a Slumber Party Crasher and a Terrible Influence!

When I was pregnant, I didn't really care if Pie was a girl or a boy.  Of course, no one believed that because everyone has to have some sort of preference, but really, all I wanted it to be was human.  At that point, I was fairly certain I was incubating some sort of demon whose only purpose would be to destroy everything in its path.  Turns out, I was somewhere around half right.

Anyway, I don't remember a whole lot about the last hour of her birth, but I do remember George getting all excited and emotional and telling me, "It's a girl! She's a girl!"  I was pretty excited, too, but mostly, I was just thinking about how cold I was and how much I wanted to tear the oxygen mask off of my face.  I'd done it three times, but my doctor kept putting it back.  Still, one thought, short and fleeting, ran through my mind at the word "girl".

Slumber parties!

I love slumber parties.  It's something I never grew out of, and I can't wait until Pie wants to have them.  From the ages of 9 to 14, when they (or I, who knows) became uncool to everyone else, I had one at least monthly, and I always had the best ones.  For one thing, it was never just a slumber party.  It always started with bowling or rollerskating or miniature golf.  After some sort of kick ass activity, we'd have the slumber party.

In the summer, we'd put the tent up and do it that way.  We didn't really stay in the tent, instead taking advantage of the opportunity to roam the neighborhood at night.  That ended when my art teacher, who lived a few houses away, called my parents to inform them that several of us were running up and down the street without pants.  Both of my parents were horrified by that, and from then on, all camp outs included someone checking on frequently and in random enough intervals that they couldn't be planned around.

Inside slumber parties weren't quite as cool because I constantly had to remind everyone that everything we said traveled through the heat vents and right into my parents' room.  They were still fun, though.  There was baking and bra freezing and even though they were banned from my house, someone always snuck in a Ouija board.  If my mom was sleeping, or not home, my dad let us make prank phone calls, and in the later years, let us use this magical thing called the internet that I was the first of my friends to have. 

My dad also hung out with us a lot, which is (according to my husband) weird, but my dad is awesome and everyone liked having him at the slumber party.  He gave great (meaning terrible, and should never ever be listened to) advice, he regaled us with tales of all the rockstars he used to hang out with (with pics, so we knew it happened), and most importantly, he let us get away with things no sane adult would ever let us get away with.  One time he even taught us how to build spud guns so we could shoot moldy tangerines at the neighbor's house.  He and the neighbor didn't get along well.  Now that I think about it, I wonder if the reason he hung out with us so much was to create an army of preteen girls to wage his war on the neighbor.  Brilliant move if that was, in fact, the plan.

Anyway, I'm wholeheartedly excited for the day Pie wants to have her first slumber party.  Hers won't be as amazing as mine were, because in all honesty, I'm pretty irresponsible, but not that irresponsible.  No prank calls.  No wandering the streets.  Everyone has to wear pants.  No shooting old food at others' homes.  But I know how to make a good slumber party happen, and I hope I'm cool enough to hang out.  And if nothing else, I guess I can enjoy being the one to listen in through the heat vents.