No school? Let's PARTY!

Charlie is on his sixth day of school cancelled due to weather, and he came into my room this morning all chipper and asked me "what do you want to do today!" in one of those this is so cool I'm in vacation mode type voices.  And I thought ... I know what **I** want to do today, and it doesn't involve anything more than closeting myself in my office and plunging into all of my projects.

So I blew his mind and said, "well, today would be a good day for you to have people over."

Charlie doesn't let many opportunities pass by and he went from a few people to a full blown party within, I'd say, five minutes!   The phone was ringing like mad and he kept running into the bedroom and asking about this person, that person, and so on.  The thing was, I didn't care!  So I kept saying yes, and then I said if they needed rides that was fine too, because I was realizing that the time we'd chosen -- 11:30 (which was a huge bummer for him because it was 7:30 when this all started and he wanted it to happen NOW!) -- meant that there would be people looking for lunch, so we'd have to go to the grocery store.

It was a huge snowball, no doubt, but like I said, I didn't care, it seemed like a good opportunity for him to get the guitar hero party he's been asking for months to have over and done with and I am closeted in my office with music playing and they're not really bothering me at all.

But it is interesting to watch.  There are 11 kids, five boys, six girls, and they just ate pizza and an ice cream cake and I even bought soda (when I am in that mood, you can even drink soda, imagine that!) and they are all sitting between the counter and dining room table having a really good time.  They all seem to be enjoying being together -- and it's not a situation of girls hanging with girls, boys hanging with boys.  Charlie is quite in his element bossing everyone around, asking them what type of pizza they want (and writing it down) cooking the pizza, serving it, pointing out that if you asked for cheese then you couldn't have pepperoni, and then I last left them trying to distribute the ice cream cake ... and the first three people had enormous pieces!  Charlie was begging Morgan to PLEASE split hers in half or else there wouldn't be enough.  She wanted him to just not have a piece, he thought that was "a horrible idea," and I just laughed and closed my doors.  I am not sure how they figured it out, but the three people with the big pieces were hiding in the dining room with very smug looks on their faces!

It started out as a rainy day (and very icy, which is why school was cancelled) and now the sun is coming out.  And it's hot -- like in the 40's.  It should be interesting to see if they go outdoors and "play."  Or is that just not the hip thing to do in middle school?

Peter dropped by on his way from work to a meeting and was a little blown away that there was a party going on!  Normally I don't even like him to have friends over because I don't like to be tied down -- what if I change my mind and want to jet to Paris in the afternoon?  I like to keep my options open.  But today the plan was to stay housebound and working ... so what the hey.

Maddie called at noon ... "So I hear there's a party going on there."

How did she know?  Apparently, according to her, she knew about it about 15 minutes after it had been discussed.  What she really wanted to know, though, was when could SHE have a party.   

I guess that just goes to show, you can't have a secret party as long as the internet and cell phones are in existence!