Around 10:30 Saturday morning, my husband and I decided to go run a couple errands. Okay, we were actually escaping from the teen girls who had descended on our house the night before. My youngest daughter had her 17th birthday party, which usually includes a sleepover with several of her closest friends.
For the most part, teen parties are pretty simple. No goodie bags to send home with the party-goers, no party games required, just throw food at them and they’re good to go.
But it’s a lot of teen for an adult psyche to handle. They aren’t problem children, but there are excessive amounts of squealing, laughing and general silliness. But aside from the food preparation, it doesn’t require a lot of work.
I make the food, set it on the table, announce its readiness and get out of the way. After dinner, I set out a spread of everything any teen girl would want on her ice cream sundae, then flattened myself against the wall as the stampede of teenage girls rumbled in like a herd of bulls in Spain.
Later we all sat outside and enjoyed the ambiance a nighttime campfire affords for about 10 minutes, until the kids drug out all the spare blankets from the house to the yard so they could star gaze.
As they all lay lined up next to each other with their faces pointed toward the sky, star gazing seemed a relative experience. Their cell phones and iPods were held in front of their faces, arms extended from their horizontal position, blocking the stars at which they claimed to be gazing as they attempted to downloaded “apps” onto their devices that told them what they were looking at.
Saturday morning I made pancakes, set out strawberries I prepared earlier in the week, whipped cream, syrup and peanut butter. My husband and I surreptitiously ate before I let the girls know breakfast was ready. It felt like the morning we got married and snuck off to a coffee shop for a bit of time alone before anyone missed us and the day’s activities began.
After I fed them, I gathered up all the socks, shoes, cell phones and other items they shed as they moved through the house. I picked up the bedding, threw the star-gazing blankets in the wash, put the computer/craft room back in order, unloaded and loaded the dishwasher for the third time, scrubbed a few pans, then found myself with nothing to do and no physical place to be because teenagers are everywhere.
So we left. It is truly the biggest advantage of having teenage birthday parties, we can leave them alone; as long as you trust them not to destroy the house while you’re gone.
We sat and ate inside a fast food restaurant, went to Home Depot and yes, preferred disagreeing over the best way to handle domestic repairs instead of being home. On the way back we stopped at every yard sale we happened across; all to avoid being at the house with a crowd of teenagers which seemed to get bigger with each meal tossed at them.
Even though I knew it would be over sooner than later, it was still difficult to return home, realizing they may not be gone yet. They weren’t, so I hid out in my bedroom until it seemed like a good time to suggest the party wrap up.
And just as quickly as they came, they were gone, my daughter driving them all home. No, there is nothing like a teen birthday party, or escaping from one.
