“C wants to come, but doesn’t want to spend the night…I think he wants to be able to sleep.  Is that OK?” one of the moms asks.

“Sure,” I reply.

C is one of five little boys coming to a sleepover for my son R.J.’s 10^th birthday party.  A first for us, as parents—the sleepover part, that is.  Apparently, R.J. already has a reputation for burning the midnight oil among his peers from other sleepover parties and Cub Scout campouts. 

Must be genetic, when I moved to Tehran as a child from London, where I was born, I had sleepovers with my best friend on a regular basis.  Azita and I always stayed up late, playing cards by flashlight under the covers.  Whenever the parents checked on us, she feigned perfect sleep, face upturned, arms spread wide, faux snores, while I lay flat on face, shaking like Elvis, biting on the pillow to prevent myself from exploding with laughter. 

I tend to laugh when nervous.

I have been laughing all day, cackling at bad jokes on the Today Show, snickering in the aisles at Safeway, howling when C changed his mind at the baseball game and decided to sleep over.  I am terrified because tonight is the night.  My husband Ron, thank goodness, is more practical than I am and a whole lot less hysterical.  First, he clears his guitars out of the basement, the officially designated Ground Zero.  Then he goes to Target and comes home with three enormous Tupperware boxes, which he proceeds to pack with keyboards, speakers, miscellaneous papers and anything deemed breakable.

Clean-up!  I perk up and get into the spirit of things, roll up my sleeves and help pack away.  I secretly hope some of this stuff will go “poof” after the party.  The basement looks great.  We ought to have sleepovers more often.  Due to rain, our plans of eating dinner outdoors at my son’s elementary school playground change.  I panic, then resign myself to fate.  Fate can be cruel. 

I have my Martha Stewart moment.  I set a beautiful table at home: a white linen-looking but plastic-lined tablecloth tied down with corner ribbons, six place settings of matching napkins and plates with an appropriate sports theme, color-coordinated balloons, a round cake designed like a baseball.  I pop a green tin of tulips in the middle and take some pictures.

“You could lose the tulips,” says Ron, teasing me, as he heads out the door to pick up Popeyes.

I quickly take some tabletop shots.

The kids arrive one after the other in quick succession, kick off their shoes—four pairs of black and white Adidas Sambas—and tumble into the basement.  The last pair walks in, another neighborhood kid.  P carries a torn piece of red sailcloth neatly folded about his PJs.

“Where’s your sleeping bag, P?” I ask.

“I didn’t bring one.  I’m going to sleep on the floor, like a hobo,” he says, proudly. 

I stuff his bindle into a trash bag, “There, you’re a hobo!  Now run home and bring your sleeping bag.”

“Aw,” he shrugs, returning soon with a sleeping bag that he rolls into the noisy basement.

There is an odd moment of silence from below and then frightening zinging sounds.  Penny fight!  Darn…I forgot to offload the piggy bank.  While I confiscate coins and shut the built-in that houses the flat screen TV, Ron shows up with dinner.  I put fried chicken on platters, my last attempt at civilization.  The hungry boys start to shovel and spill their food.  The Martha in me needs a martini.  I settle for a glass of wine and eavesdrop on the dinner conversation, flowing like sputum.

“R.J. once made ice cream come out of my nose,” says P.

“Stop you’re making me upchuck,” says C.

“I love chicken!” says S.

“Me too!” says the other P.

“Oh, look P’s going to regurgitate,” says A.

“Can I get you anything?” I ask rushing in with more drinks and extra napkins.

“A few barf bags!” says R.J. right on cue, while the rest crack up.

“Right,” I say.

 Back in the kitchen, I beg Ron to check the weather Doppler again and pray for a break in the weather, so he can take the boys to the playground to wear them out a bit.  I drain my dregs and carry in the lit cake.  The kids sing happy birthday to R.J. and make silly-face poses for the camera.  They devour the cake.  Lucky for all of us, the rains stops for a bit.

Ron loads the kids in the SUV, while I clean up.  When I get to the playground, the boys rampage shirtless on the slick blacktop, like windup toys on speeded-up-film, shouting in high-pitched voices, running in circles, playing an improvised Capture the Flag.  They do this for an hour.

“You should have seen them earlier,” says Ron.  “The minute I parked, they jumped out of the car, stripped off their t-shirts and wrapped them around their heads like turbans.  Instinctive, like lemmings.  Except A, he kept his shirt on.”

“He’s more modest,” I say, laughing. 

Back home, I half-jokingly tell the boys the clocks in the house are set an hour early.  P knowingly taps his wristwatch.  Then, the boys watch Mr. Bean, still shirtless, including A by now.  I pass out popcorn in bowls, tell them not to throw the corn (later I find kernels everywhere, next time, I will tell them not to throw the corn, the kernels or the bowls.)

“After popcorn, I’ll have them brush their teeth, then…,” I start.  I still cannot shake this unrealistic vision of six little boys with neatly combed hair, clean molars and matching PJs, all lined up in sleeping bags.

“This isn’t the anal retentive sleepover,” says Ron.  “Why don’t you go to bed and let me handle it.”

“OK!” I come to my senses and run upstairs as fast as I can go.  My only contribution from this point on is to throw 4-5 extra pillows at Ron from out of the attic at 10:00 PM.

I wake up the next morning to the smell of bacon.  Ron made a head start at breakfast, which includes chocolate chip pancakes.  He keeps everything warm in the oven.  Two of the boys are up, A and R.J.: A smartly slept on the daybed in the guestroom—the ‘safe house’—and I am not entirely sure if R.J. slept at all.  I banish them to my bedroom to watch cartoons and keep their voices down so as not to wake anyone else.  I intend to keep the remaining four asleep as long as I can.  I tiptoe into the basement to check on them, dismantling several alarm clocks set to ring by A and R.J along the way.  All is well.  The boys sleep like puppies in a cozy huddle.

At 9:00 AM, because pickup is at 10:00AM, A and R.J. have permission to rouse the others, which they do so with a microphone plugged into an amp, along with various percussion instruments, including a drum and a tambourine.  They eventually succeed.  S with his head of curls is the last to trudge upstairs.

Thanks to Ron’s impeccable planning and perfectly shaped pancakes, breakfast is effortless.  Pickup, even easier.  For the rest of the day, however, we are spent.  R.J. for staying up far too late, and Ron and I, well, do not forget we have only one child for a very good reason.

Happy Birthday, Son! 

Copyright Charlotte Safavi

Today was Mother’s Day: the American Mother’s Day, as opposed to the British one or the Iranian one.  (I am English by birth, Iranian by heritage, American by choice).  Iranians have a tendency to adopt the holidays of other cultures with surprising ease and unmatched zest, so my Facebook account was zinging with Happy Mother’s Day messages to and from my out-of-town Iranian family and friends.

Back home, my nine-year-old American-born son RJ made me a homemade card, but promptly went to his room for throwing it at me.  He had been watching a cartoon before being rudely interrupted by dad to give mom a card!  Meanwhile, my American husband Ron prepared my favorite breakfast of bacon, a soft-boiled egg with toast fingers, and coffee…lots of coffee.  (RJ joined us by then, set the table, repentant and forgiven.)  I did not even touch the dirty dishes or clean up the kitchen, which after Ron cooking may take the better part of a day. 

Instead, I went for my morning walk, fiddled around on the computer, trying to update my website (my sister in LA, a fashion and tech icon of sorts told me it was too nineties, like me, I suppose).  The morning flew by.  For lunch, we wolfed down Middle Eastern delights at a local Lebanese restaurant. 

Then my real mom’s day started.

RJ’s baseball practice and game ran from 1:00-4:00 at a City of Alexandria field that even the kids were calling “Alcatraz.”  Surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence (if it was not barbed, it should have been), Luckett Field had a single entrance and a sign that read, “Don’t feed the wildlife” or was that “Don’t mess the with jail birds!”  The field definitely did not live up to its name.  Un-Luckett or Lock-It would have been better fits.  Anyway, I sat in the front row in a comfortable seat, shaded by pretty parasols and fanned by palmettos, sipping champagne and nibbling canapés, NOT.

After that I raced home to pick up RJ’s skateboard and helmet, which I always carry in my car but which he had taken out and forgotten to put back in, so that he and his buddy could skateboard at the skating park, while I watched.  Lots of slips and slides later, RJ and I got home in time for dinner.  I threw together leftovers—complaints were silenced because it is Mother’s Day after all.

Tonight, I am contemplating adding the British and American Mother’s Days to the calendar.  You know, buy me some more time.  I am a lifer after all.

Copyright Charlotte Safavi