The Sleepover

Anticipation

The girls have lived away from us for a while since Jon and Debra lived in College Station / Bryan.  They having moved to Troy made us a bit closer to visit and interact.  Debra now was with a third child, William, who was still small enough to need to stay with mama.  

We had been wanting more interaction with Elaine and Susan.  The excitement of having them come stay the night with us was palpable.  

It begins

We spent the afternoon playing games and puttering about the house and kitchen.

We played farkle -- even though they could not grasp the concept of the game we rolled the dice and kept score.  They were left alone for a bit and we discovered that they made modifications to the rules in the tumbler.  Elaine made "tickets" out of the rules by tearing them into small strips that could then be redeemed somewhere.  We had to reprint the rules to have them available again.

We ate something and now it was time for bed.  The girls were to sleep in the formal living room in the hide-a-bed couch.  Grandpa and grandma would sleep in their own bed in the master bedroom.

The formal living room was something that we never had before.  We installed new carpet, bought new furniture, and made a couch table that sat behind the couch.  The hide-a-bed and the love seat had pillows that matched and tied the colors to the room.  There were rules made for the formal living room -- no food or drink allowed, not even on pie night.  The rules applied still with the girls.

Elaine and Susan were readied for bed by Grandma Jeanette.  I went to bed.

I waited for Grandma Jeanette to come to bed for a while.

I want milk

I heard crying from the front of the house.  I got up to see what was the matter.  Elaine was flailing away between the bed and floor yelling and crying she wanted some milk.  Grandma answered and said she could have some milk; come in the kitchen and you can have some milk.  The kitchen was just across the hall from the formal living room. 

"I want the milk in here". she screamed.  Jeanette answered, "we do not allow food in the living room".  Then the cycle started over. An impasse was reached.  To my amazement Susan was sound asleep as her older sister issued a cacophony of demands and wails.  Jeanette was frazzled with the irrational demands of her grand-daughter.  Neither was ready to concede to the other.

Intervention

 I spoke with Elaine and asked her to do what her grandma asked of her.  She persisted in the same vain. I picked her up and carried her cradled in my arms to the room where the TV resided.  She continued her crying and now demanded that I put her down.  I told her I would put her down if she would stop crying.  Things continued along this same route for some unmeasured amount of time.  I listened to here yell and demand while I held her cradled in my arms.   

I too was growing fatigued with the insistence and crying.  I freed one hand and as she yelled I patted on her mouth making an "indian yell".  She grew angry and bit me on the finger.  I thought,"this is on me, I guess". and continued holding her. 

Conclusion

Elaine said, "I need to pee", to whit I said, "stop crying and I will put you down".  This continued for a few more minutes then she exclaimed, "I peed", and kept crying.  I said, "quit crying and I will put you down.  Golden silence emerged.  I put her down and told her to go get clean clothes and get cleaned up.  Elaine went to the bathroom by herself and then went to bed.  We all went to bed and slept until morning.