For my daughter’s recent 10th birthday, we had offered a few options for celebrating it.  Either with style in the local amusement / restaurant, a DIY party at the house or just wait until the weather gets warmer so we can party at the local pool.

What did she pick?

Well, she picked a dad’s worst nightmare – a sleepover party with four of her best friends.

I do remember my knee-jerk reaction to her choice, which probably surprised her at first, as I left out a panicked yelp before putting my head between my knees to avoid fainting.  I wasn’t really sure how to react, hence the slight over reaction.

After a few minutes of clearing my head with heavy controlled breathing, I lifted my head and smiled, while uttering with a shaken voice “lovely idea!”.  Deep inside I was still screaming.  How were we meant to manage 5 hyper 10-year-old girls, all high on sugar, talking to the early morning?

We went all out with the food and snack, and attempted to bypass the high sugar items that would have caused a severe case of sugar rush.  Instead we agreed to have goodie backs, party whistles, pizza, excessive amounts of chips and of course a few gallons of ice cream.  I had even bought ear protection for myself, just in case the sugar rush went into overdrive.

As the girls arrived at the house, I quickly realised that they appeared to be polite and calm girls, who were just happy to see each other.  But, after about 14 minutes of calm, came the storm.  It must’ve been the first pack of sweets they annihilated that was kicking in, as the screams gradually increased in intensity as their favourite songs were blasting on the iPod.

Yes, dad and his computer was not cool enough to act as the resident DJ, so they shuffled songs on their Apple devices.  Listen, I was a DJ in the mid 80’s and I still know how to scratch and rap … almost!

The evening progressed with few incidents and any responsibilities relating to getting the girls to calm down and prepare for bed was handed elegantly to my lovely wife.  She controlled these girls as the girl scout leader, commanding them to obey or face the consequence of no movie or snack.

‘Frozen‘ was the movie of choice and the girls went into a sing along frenzy, screaming ‘let it go‘ and ‘snowman‘ for the next few hours.  It’s not that I have anything whatsoever against ‘Frozen’, but it does get a little worn when you’ve heard 508 times!

By 10.30pm the sugar rush started to wear off and the girls agreed to go to bed.  I was absolutely amazed and had to ask my wife to check on them several times to make sure they hadn’t just turned down the volume or perhaps even pre-recorded snoring.

I slumped into the sofa with a glass of moonshine to calm down and slowly nodded off myself, preparing to join forces with Jack Sparrow and Arnie in one of my awesome dreams.

At about 6.42am I was awoken to the noise of giggling girls, which would warn me that they were ready to replenish their sugar rush and they calmly started to demand pancakes.  So, at 6.44am I was standing half awake, fully dressed and with my apron preparing pancakes.  Not my ideal Saturday morning plan, but at least I was up and got something out of the day.

Thankfully the girls got picked up around 10am.  They had a blast and demanded to repeat the success … much to my fears.