How to entertain preteens

First of all, I dislike using the word “preteen”. Mostly because it involves the word “teen” and having something in my house that’s considered a “teen”, current, pre, real, implied, whatever, instantly makes me nauseous.

But Calen is twelve and a half and I basically can’t pretend anymore.

Calen has two best friends here in Kodiak, Noah and Todd. The three are thick as thieves and have been for the past two years. Todd moves away this week to mainland Alaska. 

Military life is hard, man. Especially for the kids.

This past weekend we had the two boys over for a final sleepover.

Sleepovers with preteen boys (cringe) are easy and require three simple categories to be successful:

1. Video games

Make sure the controllers are charged, move the TV upstairs (bonus points if they already have a TV in their room) and you’ll never see them for the rest of the night. 

2. Snacks

Pizza, pizza bites, pizza bagels, pizza flavored (whatever), Cheetos, fruit snacks, pop. Actual meals are optional. Whatever you do, don’t let the snacks run out.

3. Airflow 

Boys stink. Make sure wherever they are holing up at has some sort of consistent airflow, like an open window, or a fan. You might want to do a drive by spraying of Febreeze too for good measure.

And that’s it. They stayed up until midnight (I had to convince them to go to bed so they would be reasonable human beings the next day), I think I saw them twice to reload on snacks, and the controllers never died. They had a great time.

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