I Want My Mama!

Here I sit posting this at 12:45am for a very specific reason: to keep myself awake as I wait for Auntie Courtney to bring my little L home from an 'unsuccessful' slumber party. It was to be his first official sleepover somewhere else without Mama and Papa, and I was truly confident that there would be no problems at all. In fact, I said to my own mom this afternoon, "Of all the kids, he's the one I'm least worried about having a hard time with something like this!" Sweet Auntie 'Tor-tee' has been subtly prodding us to let the two older kids each have their own special slumber parties at her house over the past couple of months. A month ago, M was her first visitor...and they had a blast! They made cookies, watched a movie, read books, ate mac 'n cheese... when she called us to say goodnight, you would have thought she was a teenager checking in with her parents out of a quick obligation, so she could get back to having her fun! And when she came home the next day, she was actually a bit perturbed with us that she couldn't stay longer! Now, this is the same little girl who tends to be a little bit of a mama's girl, not liking me to leave her, and especially at night is quite the whiner when Mama leaves the room. She's been getting a lot better about it, fortunately (!), but I was pretty surprised at how well she did at her first sleepover. This past weekend, Auntie Courtney asked if she could have L over for his turn at a special evening and sleepover. So, we spent the day hanging out with her and then I left with M and C, leaving L to enjoy his special time with his Auntie. We said our goodbyes... no problem. We called him a few times... no problem. He was having a ball- went to the park, ate snacks, did puzzles, hung out with his Uncle Matt and Auntie Cami, played with his new cousin Baby Eoghan, watched movies.... no problem. Until, I'm sitting up checking my email and facebook, and up pops a little instant message from Auntie Courtney asking if I'm still up and saying that L was still up...I scolded Auntie for not getting him to bed much earlier than now (11:15pm!) She got 'offline' and tried putting him to bed, after 2 movies had evidently failed to 'conk him out'. I was sure I wouldn't hear from her again. But 5 minutes later another message pops up: "He is NOT happy at all now." She wrote "He's miserable and wants his mama!" Oh boy. I called her and could hear my boy sobbing in the back, "I want my mama!" It didn't take long for a decision to be made: he was coming home. Sweet Auntie Courtney drove him home and- as we both knew would happen- by the time she reached here he was completely and totally asleep! But hey- at least he'd wake up next to Mama in the morning! I did ask him the next morn what happened and why he didn't want to stay with Auntie Tor-tee. "I just not want to sweep with her, Mama! I just want to sweep wit you!" Well... how can a mama feel bad about that?! (Just FYI, Auntie Courtney- the next morning he did tell me about all the fun things you guys did, and he said, "I just wuv Auntie Tor-tee. She's so nice." Oh well! I guess we'll just have to try again later! (Post note: 3 days later, out of the blue, we were driving in the car somewhere and L said "Mama, I want to pway with Auntie Tor-tee and sleep with her...can I want to just do that now, pweeze?" Oh boy.