Good bye my friend, or not- whatever

Ally has a dear friend that she has known since kindergarten who is moving away.  Her dad has been relocated already to Massachusetts and the family initially thought they would wait here for him to finish his schooling and come back, but have since decided to go meet him there.

Ally got a call a few weeks ago from her friend that said that it was time for them to go.  They were renting their house and moving before school started.  Ally was of course devistated.  I can't imagine the pain of having a friend, a very close friend, move far away.

So I decided that we should have a going away sleep over for she and her four close friends (this group of five girls runs around together all.the.time).  A proper send off for an eleven year old young woman.

 Even though I SWORE I would never host another sleepover.  Ever.  I decided that a group of 5 couldn't be as difficult as a group of 11 (remember the sleep over massacre of 2010?). 

 We lit a fire and gave the girls hot pokers so that they could roast hot dogs and I threw bags of chips and pitchers of koolaide at them from the door.  And then TWO of these girls reminded me that they don't eat meat.

 I fought back my initial reaction to tell them to eat a bun and some chips.  Because that would be rude.  Instead I went to the kitchen and cooked up some pasta with veggies and a cream sauce and then I threw that at them on the deck.

 I also delivered a platter of chocolate bars, white and strawberry marshmallows and graham crackers so that they could roast smores for dessert.  Because I'm a rockin hostess like that.

 And they proceeded to roast them into charcoal nuggets- like all children do.

 After dinner, I gave them the materials to paint a picture for Makayla to take with her.  I thought she would enjoy something that they all made together to hang in her new room in New England.  And then the girls started painting their hands and I declared arts and crafts time OVER and I told them all to GET LOST.

They played hide and go seek with the neighbor kids, watched movies, ate popcorn and finally around 11:30 I left them to their own devices and retreated to my room. 

Not even 10 minutes later I heard a strange hush fall over the girls and one said very sternly 'Go get your mom'.  In my head, I was trying to figure out which emergency room was closest.  Fortunately, or not- depending on how you look at it, it was nothing life threatening.  Turns out, they were all hanging in the kitchen when the 100 pound beast dog that we have been babysitting (you might want to quit reading if you have a weak stomach)  (just sayin) released uncontrollable diarrhea all over the kitchen floor.  Once I was on the case, they disappeared out back clutching their noses in their hands and gagging and giggling.  I got the joy of cleaning that up all by myself.

By midnight I had the floor disinfected and I was back to my bed.

Fifteen minutes later I had to capture five giggling running girls in the hallway and remind them that they were to stay in the living room and GO TO SLEEP.

Dan's alarm went off for work at 4:30am, I could still hear them talking.

5:30am I stumbled my bed headed self into the living room and declared that they had to go to sleep.  If only for a few hours.  Moms would start picking up girls in three hours and they had to have had at least a little sleep.

And finally- they rested.

It took me all day to recover from that much chaos- but I had done my duty as a mom and given the girls a proper send off for their friend.

Their friend, who strangely enough, isn't moving right now after all.  Turns out they haven't officially rented their house yet, and her mom is still looking for a job, and she's going to start school tomorrow with the girls.

I think I've been duped.