We went out of town for the latter part of Memorial Day weekend, to help the Smiley’s with their addition.  Pat spent Sunday & Monday painting, Edie spent it playing with Abigail & Owen and I spent it snuggling baby Walker, cleaning Mollie’s kitchen, making strawberry jam and feeding everyone.  Pretty much the same things we’d do here, only we were there.   We got back late Monday night and all three of us just went straight to bed.

I worked Tuesday (teaching at The Happy Cook), Wednesday & Thursday (at l’etoile) evenings.   Edie had been mentioning hosting a slumber party sometime, but given my schedule for the week, it didn’t really get discussed much. I just nodded every time it came up, while I was knee deep in other things – like making sure they had dinner prepped or Edie had a ride home from soccer practice – you know, those sorts of distracting mom things. Thursday night when I got home from work, there was an email from Clare’s mom asking if it was true we were having a party the next day – which is how I found out it was a go and Clare was on the invite list.  Apparently Elodie was in charge of making invites but breaking her arm sort of interfered in that plan, so not everyone got a handwritten invite, which was the plan.  Also in the plan was for everyone to come home with Edie from school.  And that they were sleeping outside.   It was requested I serve pizza for dinner, but breakfast was wide open.

Really, that’s all I knew of the plan.  I was kept on a need-to-know basis, a quality Edie has been described by her friends as having.  Which she comes by completely honestly.  Ahem.  So I couldn’t quibble with her in the least on this.  In fact, while talking about it with Pat Thursday night, I admitted that I’ve done the exact same thing to her so many times over the years – springing an impromptu party – that I probably deserved it.  Pat agreed, saying “We just need to make sure this does not become a habit”, but as the words were coming out of his mouth, I could tell,  he knew we had no hope of that.  In fact, everyone I’ve talked to about this has given me pretty much the same look.  Uhm, hello?  Last minute pinata?

The thing is, Edie is one of those people who like to have things planned.  She likes to know ahead of time, like way ahead of time, what all the details are.  Her favorite  thing about school is structure -and she never misses an opportunity to tell us that it’s because we (me) fail to provide structure.  I was raised by the seat of my pants – you’d go to sleep in your own bed, but you weren’t always guaranteed to wake up there.  The adventures I had growing up would make Edie’s head spin.  Most people, upon hearing the tales of my childhood, think I should write a book.  They also wonder that I’m as stable as I am.  No, really.  My parents were the sort who thought it fun to break into their friend’s homes at 5 am and surprise them with breakfast.  Deciding to go camping after dark and waking up at the business end of a shotgun after setting up camp overnight in a not-so-friendly stranger’s yard was also a regular occurrence.  A few pieces of the puzzle just fell into place for some of you, didn’t it?

So this party and keeping us on a need-to-know-basis?  Makes my heart swell.  She’s learning to let go and roll with the punches, which is really sort of key in life I think.

And so, Friday afternoon when school dismissed, there was a roar heard coming down the street.  The neighbor moving in across the street stood on her porch, listened, saw them headed down our front walk and ran in, slamming the door.  They walked in, dumped their gear, creating a wall of little girl gear right there in the living room and proceeded to roam the neighborhood, walking over to McIntire Park to watch baseball before coming home to sit up most of the night chatting & giggling in a tent in our back yard.

I’m fairly sure a good time was had by all and I’m fairly sure they are planning on doing this sort of thing a few more times this summer.  I made them pizza for dinner – even buying a pack of pepperoni per Edie’s instructions, which was applauded by my girl.  I knocked it out of the park at breakfast with Julie’s Lemon Cheesecake Morning Buns – I cannot recommend this recipe enough.  It’s easy peasy, yummy and all you have to do in the morning is throw them in the oven and whip up a very quick glaze.  In fact, that breakfast alone may have sealed our summer party hosting fate, as I heard at least one girl saying if that’s how we ate around here, she definitely needed to come over more often.