Adult parties when I was kid were fascinating. I remember being corralled up stairs in my flannel pj’s after a brief hello to their guests and subsequently scolded for sitting on the stairs to peer around the corner to see what adults do and talk about was titillating stuff.
Now, as we nail down the final tasks for a dinner party we are hosting tonight, one of the items on the checklist will be how to keep the boys from absconding the time we want to dedicate to our guests. Don’t get me wrong, I want the boys to pop down and interact with my friends for a spell, but as many of you know, it’s not like they sit cross legged and engage in scintillating conversation. Mostly my boys stay quiet and nod at the questions or squeak out one or two lines of response to the what grade are you in or do you like soccer questions.
They also tend to crave my attention at this point, thinking it’s funny to fake taking a sip of wine or crawl all over me while I am trying to have a conversation or need to attend to the spectacular menu we are serving.
So, while I love them so much it stings, at these times I just want them to slink away and fall asleep gently at a reasonable hour. Adult time is pretty precious nowadays and I want to drink, curse and flirt. In that order.
I do not want to have to lie down for a cuddle at 10pm. I do not want to see another episode of Smosh on YouTube. I do not want to want to help you into you pajamas. I want to talk to my friends and belly laugh at embarrassing stories. I want to guzzle big, nasty red wine to accompany the many other gorgeous flavours we hope work out tonight.
I get it. We, as adults, are exciting to our children. We get to do things they don’t and the moment the feel banished, the curiosity is amped up to 11 and sneaky stair sitting is pretty damn normal.
Just please let it be this tonight.
And not this.
When you are hosting an adult evening, are your kids invited or do you want the time for yourself?
When we entertain with our group of friends we have 8 adults and 8 kids…. the kids know that they can stay up late and play as long as they want, as long as they stay out from under our feet. We usually feed them first and then banish them to the basement play room. The kids stay up too late, we drink to much wine and all have fun! Good luck with your evening !
We’re just getting back into entertaining again, post-wee-baby stages, so we’ll see how it goes. Oftentimes, friends aren’t dropping in for dinner before 9ish anyway, so in the past, the small ones have been abed by the time guests arrive…
I do so relish my adult time, too. And there seems to be less and less of it these days. Le sigh.
I hope you enjoy a splendid evening! May sleep find your boys quickly tonight!!
Jase – your boys are postively gorgeous…especially when they are sleeping. lol Will they stay in a bedroom watching a movie (assuming there is a tv in a bedroom)?
Luka is hyper excited when friends are over for a visit and we have trouble getting him to bed. Should you find something that works tonight, please share.
Hope all is well with you! Love reading your blog.
(the other) JG
I remember being a little kid and my parents (or friends of my parents) had parties..well mah jong parties that would go from dusk till dawn. I don’t ever recall them banishing us at all. Funny that. I remember them just letting us doing whatever we wanted until we exhausted ourselves to the point of no return, sleeping wherever we finally lay our heads- and then waking up to find myself in my own bed.