Twinkle tries to "sleepover"

"Please, Mom, I HAVE to go, because everyone will be there!"

I knew this was coming, and I failed to prepare. Bottom line: I should have been ready. I should have known that when Twink joined the Organization For Girls (hereinafter referred to as the OFG) that this would happen. There was certainly no lack of warning - the cheerful informational brochure that The Head Mommy gave me even talked about fun activities such as "sleepovers, dances, and fund-raisers".

So, it came to pass that on a lovely Saturday (Yes, just yesterday, for those of you keeping track) Twinkle reminded The Wrench and I that our local chapter of the OFG was having a sleepover at The Head Mommy's house. And she HAD to go. My day was instantly shot. I broke out in a cold sweat. I became nauseated. I trembled on the brink of tears and insanity. I just love 'Tween drama, because it brightens any day, and leaves you feeling wrung out and haggard. Do they still make Geritol? I think I might need some.

This sleepover is SPECIAL; all the moms are sleeping over too, and it's a huge "girls only" party. So, you would think that this would be a no-brainer, right? Wrong. Twinkle has some pretty serious medical issues, and one of them is a real doozy. She doesn't just sleep walk, she has night terrors. Screaming, horrible, moaning, groaning, talking-in-her-sleep-for-hours-on-end night terrors. And she wants so badly to do the sleepover thing. Oh, and by the way, she also wants to leave her wheelchair out in the van. She wants to sleep on the floor with the other girls, and not have that damnable wheelchair anywhere in the house. Because, tonight she is going to be NORMAL.

Did we not just have this whole wheelchair discussion last night? After the Harry Potter Book Six incident? Hello?

Backstory: The first sleepover invitation came in the 2nd grade. We let her try it, and she made it to 10 p.m. Fine, we thought - maybe we can ramp up to this, and after a few more tries, she will be able to join in all of the wholesome sleepover fun that girls all over the U.S.A. enjoy. So, we tried again. And, again. Ad nauseum. And the calls would come; frantic late-night calls from the parents that we had tried to warn. Daddy or Mommy would have stagger out into the darkness, and return home with her crying in the back seat, always to the refrain of "I just want to be like the other girls, I just want to be NORMAL!".

Saturday night, we didn't even make it to pajama time. Twinkle's insistence on leaving the wheelchair out in the van took it's toll quickly, and well before midnight we were waving goodbye to the OFG sleepover, and heading home. Her pain was so bad that even two chapters of Book Six weren't enough to distract her. She finally drifted off into a fitful sleep somewhere around 3:00 am.

And Daddy and Mommy are still trying to recover.