Day 324: The Battle Zone

The boys had the closest they've ever come to a sleepover tonight, and if you ask them it was "one of the greatest nights ever". Which they will also say if you give them a happy meal, but you know. At least they're not telling me they hate me. Yet. 

Calen has a classmate buddy (Nick) and Cam has a classmate buddy (Connor) that are brothers. Their dad is deployed and mom had duty so she asked if I could watch her boys until she got off duty tonight, all the way until 11pm. 

Which to my kids mean "sleepover", because 11 is basically the middle of the night to them. 

Now, if you throw four boys in a house ranging from ages 5 to 8, the house is no longer a house. It's a battle zone. The once dining room chairs have blankets over them and are transformed into forts and "echo bases". The sofa is the sandbag barrier. The carpet is the battleground. No one is safe. Not even me trying to hide in the corner of the couch with my iPad. 

There was a basically non-stop 5 hour long laser tag battle and "grenade" fight. And by "grenades" I actually mean "snowballs", which aren't real snowballs but those cotton bean bag type ones I found at Target during Christmas time and bought two dozen of. Even Brad and I got involved, annihilating kids at laser tag and beaning foreheads with cotton snowballs. It was loud, it was bedlam, it was probably the most fun my kids have had in ages. 

Their fortresses....

Epic battle of awesome.

Intermission to run to the garage so all the kids can see the mouse we caught squeaking in the glue trap. 

Then back to shooting. 

Once it got late, I threw a movie on, anticipating little bodies that aren't used to being up past 9pm ever to crash and burn. And they'd get quiet, and they'd sit still, and they'd relax....

And then it seems they'd all realize at once that they were calming down, and all four of them would simultaneously launch themselves into the air, grasping for laser guns or snowballs or whatever and throw themselves back into battle.

They won't let sleep creep on them, the sneaky bugger that it is.  

At pickup at 11, only one of them was down for the count (Cam's little 5 year old buddy), and the rest were basically holding their eyelids open to refuse surrender to sleep. 

But I tell you bedtime was never so easy. 

Sidenote: This was an especially great day for Calen. Ever since his three best buddies (Cash, Julian, Mario) all moved away last summer, he's been aching to have friends his age come over and play (most of the neighborhood boys are Camden's age). With his buddy Nick over tonight, playing in his room, I can honestly say it's the happiest I've seen Calen in a long time. I mean, this kid is always happy, but he was really, REALLY happy.

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