A few weeks ago Tucker had his first sleepover with his friend John. John's parents were going to a late-night event at their church so John came over to start his night's sleep at our house and be whisked away in the late evening when his parents were on their way home.
Tucker was beside himself with excitement. He ate a banana and about two bites of vegetables for dinner, and incessantly asked when John might arrive. I told him half an hour. He asked how long half an hour is. I told him about the time it was going to take Austin to come downstairs and eat his dinner. Tucker then started inquiring fervently about Austin's progress in the shower and what foods he was going to eat, as if rushing Austin through these events was going to make the time go faster.
John arrived and Tucker was ecstatic. We let them stay up an hour playing, and Tucker achieved new levels of hyper. He wanted to play with everything, with John at once. John was a little overwhelmed by Tucker's attentions, but held his ground pretty nicely except for when the ferry operated by Tucker was attempting to knock out John's train on the train table, and when the dinosaur came to attack him. A timeout helped Tucker regain a sliver of composure, but not much.
Both boys were in their beds in Tucker's room by 7:30 pm. As I walked out of the room, I wondered if they would fall asleep before John's parents came back to pick him up (at 10:30 pm). For awhile it was in question, but they did end up falling asleep at the reasonable (in such circumstances) hour of 9 pm. In the intervening hour and a half, Austin and I were treated to quite an earful. I don't know if I've ever heard such a long conversation between a two year-old and a three year-old boy. I wish I had had a recorder to immortalize their soliloquies.
John: My parents are gone.
Tucker: They're at church.
John: But I can't see them.
Tucker: Let's look out the window and check.
John: But we just looked out the window.
Tucker: But we haven't looked out the window again now.
John: Okay.
Mostly they talked about whether the lights should be off or on, and whether it was night-night time or not. But most of the time it sounded more similar to a "Who's on First?" skit than a conversation. One child would be speculating about whether Austin was in his office, and the other would be talking about the lights. Then it would shift and one would muse on whether it was, in fact, bedtime, while the other narrated what they were seeing out the window. Tucker is very sad he cannot have sleepovers every night. But don't worry, we read about Froggy's sleepover every night instead.
