Saturday, March 22, 2008

Yesterday was a big milestone for me. It's a little known fact that other people's children scare me.....and not just a little. I'm one of those horrible parents that always let their kids go to someone else's house but never returns the favour. I feel bad about it, truly I do. Usually once the other parent (the one on the short-end of the friend stick) hears about Tatyanna's condition, any hard feelings are gone and we can go back to the regularly scheduled routine of my child playing at their house. But, to be honest, I have never really felt good about this sort of unreciprocated arrangement. While it's true that dealing with my daughter's condition is stressful, the truth behind my never having my children's friends over is, more simply, because of my own anxiety. I seriously stress over the thought of having somebody else's child at my house for more than a couple of hours.

On Thursday, however, I decided that it was time to step out of my comfort zone and agreed to the dreaded sleepover. I made sure that that the spare sheets smelled of 'lemon and verbena' as opposed to stale linen closet, sent Trent on a quest for suitable sleepover food and ensured that both Tatyanna and Lexi were fully clothed the moment the school bus arrived.

Other than the fact that the 22 lb bag in the pantry was rice and not flour prompting a forced trip into town so that we could finish making pizzas, the whole thing went fairly well. In fact, I think I might do it again. The fact that Skylar's friend is in Keirnan's class at school, thereby ensuring that he was on his best and most mature behaviour was an added plus.

On an amusing note, Lexi was quite taken with our house guest and began to refer to her as "my sweetie" and could be found wandering around the house asking "Have you seen my friend? Where did my sweetie go?" While I found it to be quite humerous, I believe that Ali might have been slightly overwhelmed by the constant hero worship as she is an only child and has no experience with the fun of little sisters.

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