Midnight Feast

“Can we have a midnight feast?” ask Emilia and her friend Libby, who was staying the night.

Are we either so lenient and approachable as parents that this is not an unreasonable request? i.e. they don’t fear us enough, or do they fear us so much that it is unthinkable they do something without our express permission? I can’t believe they are too goody- two- shoes for the latter, so it must be the former, but aren’t they missing the whole point of a midnight feast?

It is supposed to be secret, surreptitious and sneaky, an event with the added excitement and fear of being discovered.

“Don’t ask ” I reply “I don’t want to know what you are planning.”

The children had a cosy evening cuddled on the sofa in pjs watching a film with hot chocolate and mountains of popcorn. When it finished the girls and Patrick said “Can we get the food for our feast now?”

I block my ears, “No, no, you are not getting this, are you? You have to sneak food out of the kitchen when I am not looking, it is a secret....from me.”

I can say this, 'help yourself' bit, secure in the knowledge that we have nothing more exciting in than apples, bananas and mini bars of Soreen (and yogurts, I later discover.) Well, that they know about, or can find anyway.

They rush off and busy themselves hunting for snacks, whilst I pretend to occupy myself somewhere else in the house. Libby comes to find me, carrying small apple juice cartons. “Can we please have these for our midnight feast?” she asks.

I give up!

“Yes, whatever you like Libby, that is fine.”

I get them all settled in bed. I read them a story and Rachel falls asleep. (One down, four to go.) I take Rachel to another room and tell the others to go to sleep.

“Can we have a clock so we know when it is midnight?” they ask.

“What you need to do,” I confide “is to tap your head 12 times or gently bang it 12 times on your pillow before you go to sleep, and then you’ll be sure to wake up at midnight.”  I remember too late, this actually quite hurts, or the way I used to do it did.

I go and fetch them the clock, kissed them goodnight and turned out the light, confident that they’ll sleep all the way through past midnight until morning. After all, that is what always happened to me as a child.

I went downstairs and caught up with some admin on the computer. In the kitchen with the washing machine and dishwasher going loudly, I was blissfully unaware of any activity upstairs and assumed by about 10.30pm they’d be asleep.

I underestimated them. Fool I was, not to have just moved the clock forward a few hours.

Upstairs, I discovered lights blaring, cards and signs of other activity strewn across the bedroom and three children standing on beds and bunks and around the room, very much awake. No attempt whatsoever, was made to dive under the covers, snap off the light and pretend to be sleeping. They clearly didn’t hear me coming.

“Get back to bed, NOW!” I say, using my firm, but not so scary ‘aware we have guest children’ voice.

“We haven’t had our midnight feast yet” they wail “and it is nearly midnight”  Emilia points to the clock. (It is five to eleven, telling the time is not her strong point – but I don’t correct her.)

“I don’t care about that now,” I say “you weren’t supposed to stay awake until midnight, you are supposed to go to sleep and wake up for it. Just go to sleep now.”

I leave the room to get ready for bed myself. On the way out of the bathroom I meet Patrick on the landing carrying a packet of something.

“Can you just open this for me, Mummy?”

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It is not the sleepover I mind, it is the responsibility and guilt I feel for the resulting tiredness – not in my own children but in the visiting one. Overtired children are beastly and I hate to inflict that upon anyone, let alone their parents – whom I call my friends.

Actually, we seem to have got away with it so far and the kids have not been demonstrably overemotional. (Tomorrow will be the shocker probably.)

We had one dodgy moment – caused by me – on the way to my uncles’ house, when I brought up the fact I was surprised that Emilia had left the stuffed toy class mascot, Reggie at home. She has to write a diary of his weekend with us, and of course she had not meant to leave him behind, and was completely unaware that she had....until I pointed it out....Durrrrr!!!!  Tears ensued, but I managed to placate and distract and we got off fairly lightly. She incredibly, managed to leave this stuffed toy behind basically every time we were off to do something exciting, that weekend (swimming, tennis, boating and tractor driving!)...but at least he was there for the sleepover.