Friday night, our neighbor J. came to sleep over. She’s slept over several times – it’s easy to say yes when it feels like you just have an extra one of your own children running around. I love that John and Corrie obviously have very similar structure at their house. Truly, the only difference between J. and my own children is that I hear, “Miss Katie! Miss Katie! Miss Katie!” instead of “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” nonstop until I acknowledge whatever craft, Lego construction, or fascinating tidbit she wants to hear.
This weekend, not only did J. remind me of my own children, but she and the girls reminded me of alllll the sleepovers I use to have as a child. On Friday night, Gracie and J. played Super Mario Brothers on the wii. It was more of a mishmash of all Super Mario worlds, combined with Yoshi – I mean, it certainly looked different from the old school games. But the sounds, oh the sound effects were so similar at times. I had flashbacks to the first sleepover my friends and I had at Denise’s house when she first received her Nintendo. We stayed up all hours of the night – literally – taking turns killing ourselves and trying to get part that darn castle level. It made me think, too, of all the times my friend Pickles would sleep over at my house and how hard we tried to beat the original, Super Mario 2 (that was impossible!) and Super Mario 3. Seriously, the Mario Brothers ditty would end up on the soundtrack of our childhood. All of those scenes flashed through my head as I listened to the girls giggling and yelling “Press 1! No! The other button! Quick, jump!” from the other room. It was awesomeness.
Also awesome: the girls were so quiet the next morning, that when I woke up and found their abandoned sleeping backs in the next room, I wondered if they had all pigpiled into Bee’s bed at some point to finish sleeping. Yeah, keep dreaming Mom. Instead, they had moved their energetic little selves into the front room where they created a Barbie city. Alllll the Barbie furniture and Barbies were set up into several different…villas? general heaps of furntiure?…across the room. Listening to the girls sweet falsettos as they played Barbie took me back to all those times our cousin Shayne had slept over. One summer when my dad was finishing the attic floor, my sister and I had set up a permanent Barbie village in our playroom where we were sleeping downstairs. That village was left intact all summer, making it so much easier for Kim, Shayne and I to pick up where our Barbie sagas had left off. We would play for an hour when Shayne came with her parents to visit, or more likely for hours on end when Shayne came to spend the night. (That summer I think Shayne was at our house almost as often as we were!) It was good to learn that while the Barbie fashions and accessories might change, the storylines never will.
Later, after (most of) the Barbies were picked up, J. and Gracie decided to play with the spy gear that Gracie got for Christmas while Bee set up the Polly Pockets. (I can only imagine the hostage situations they were planning with Bee’s toys.) The girls shot secret messages out of Gracie’s wrist dart-launcher, created code names, and spied on an oblivious Bee – sort of like what my cousin Hoot and I would play when I was at his house. Only when I was younger, we were usually playing spy in the woods, or using our spy skills to torment his brother Andrew. At least Gracie and J. seemed to be benevolent spies!
It really was a trip down memory lane, listening to the kiddos play together so nicely. I think John and Corrie will finally start believing me that it really is easier for me with J. over when I start having sleepovers every Friday!
Tags: Barbies, nostalgia, sleepovers, spy, Super Mario Brothers, wii
January 23, 2012 at 11:11 am |
Sounds like a super wonderful sleepover. Ton of fun now and into the future.
January 23, 2012 at 9:01 pm |
It was THE BEST when I got to play at your house and not have to pick up at the end of the day
And my recollection was that I practically lived at your house every summer – perhaps I’m overgeneralizing!