They call it a sleepover because no one sleeps 'til its over.

When I write, I try and put a positive spin on parenting and hanging around with kids in general, because generally, I enjoy it. This has NOT been the case this morning. If you do not have kids and want to hold onto your positive outlook for the experience in the future, you may want to skip this post.

Last night started as planned, with eight bright-eyed, ready-to-party eight year olds showing up on our doorstep. We did pizza. We did some party games. We did a movie. We did teeth brushing, pajamas on and story telling. Suddenly, it was midnight. Jenn and I had already negotiated who was taking homesick kids home (it was me, and I got off without any) but there was some tidying to do and prep work for the morning. At 1 am, Jenn and I finally got ourselves to sleep.

At 5:10 am, Jenn came back into the bedroom. "They're up," she announced.

"Who's up?" I asked.

"All of them. They were giggling and playing with toys. One of them woke up at 5 and she woke everyone else up because there was no one to play with,"

I said, "But they'll all be crabby and tired by 6 am. This was supposed to be a 'sleep in' day."

"Yep, but it's not." Jenn answered. And crabby they were. By 7:30, there were arguments on which channel to watch. By eight, there were tears over who wasn't playing with whom. They'd divided into warring factions and were plotting against each other. They hadn't eaten breakfast yet and they wanted cake. Natalie was sitting on Izzy's pillow and she knew Izzy didn't like that. McMonk wanted everyone to leave so she could open and play with her toys in peace. Jenn and I both longed for our pillows and duvets while a full, busy day loomed ahead of us.

And the parents weren't coming to get their sleep-deprived, whiny little darlings for ... THREE ... MORE ... HOURS.

I was coherent enough to take this opportunity to do a happiness benchmark with McMonk and get her to realize that four hours with your buddies is p-l-e-n-t-y of time when you have a birthday party. We all vowed to do sleepovers one friend at a time from now on.

I'm so freakin' tired, I don't know why I'm still conscious.