The Lesson

This weekend was a crazy party weekend. Mark's best friend Sean turned 13, and celebrated with a 20-hour party.

Well, technically, it was a two-parter party. The first part was at a park, where the boys played Fear Factor, eating disgusting things like oysters and sardines (ironically, a container filled with bologna and jelly elicited more "ewwwwwws!" than the seafood).

After the park, it was on to Sean's house for a sleepover. My very brave friend Liz (aka Sean's mom) supervised a houseful of middle-school boys determined to stay awake all night long playing video games. They made it until 4 a.m., when, Josh told me, "My body literally shut down, and I fell asleep with my iTouch in my hands."

The boys (and Liz) didn't go completely sleepless--they did get 3 1/2 full hours of shut eye. And Mark was still going strong when I picked him up.

"We're going to another party in two hours," I reminded him. "Then Boy Scouts at 7. So nap if you need to when we get home, you've got two hours."

"I'm taking a shower when we get home," Mark told me. Of course, showering turned into playing with his kitten, which turned into, What do you mean it's time for Corban's party, why didn't you tell me???

Mark slept for 20 minutes on the way to the party. He made me promise we'd leave early, but of course, he had so much fun, I had to drag him outta there 45 minutes after the party officially ended. We got home just in time for him to shower, eat dinner, and change into his Boy Scout uniform.

And then, finally, he hit the wall.

"I'm sooooo tired," he whined on the way to Scouts. "Do I really have to go tonight?"

"Yep," I answered.

"I can't miss ONE WEEK?" he complained.

"You're missing next week," I said. "And the Memorial Day event. So yes, you can miss a week--just not this one."

He sunk into the seat.

"You knew about this before the party," I reminded him. "You made the choice to stay up playing video games all night, and that's fine. But you can't weasel out of your other commitments because of it."

He sighed. I could almost hear him silently asking, "Does EVERYTHING have to be a lesson?"

Yes, I answered silently. It does.

"Today's lesson is called 'sucking it up,'" I said out loud. "It's okay to have fun, it's okay to pull an all-nighter, but when your responsibilities come knocking the next day--"

"I have to suck it up," Mark finished.

"Yep," I said, turning in to the parking lot. "Have fun!"

Mark slammed the door and ran in to the meeting. When I checked on him later, his patrol was dragging. Three of the four boys were at the party, and were laying their heads on the table, fighting sleep.

At one point, the adrenaline kicked in, and they all jumped up to run around the table, completely inappropriate. I marched over to remind them to be respectful. But they were so slugnutty from not sleeping, it was like trying to tell a bunch of drunks to be quiet--it just made them louder.

Mark insisted he was not sleepy all the way home. He actually went the opposite direction, turning into a dancing, fast-talking maniac. He was fighting sleep deprivation with every fiber in him.

Five minutes after I sent him to his room, the house became eerily quiet. I tiptoed to Mark's room, and there he was, slumped on the floor. He was leaning against his bed, head back, glasses askew on his face, holding his pajamas. Dead asleep. I mean, he was out cold. I realized exactly what Josh meant when he said his body literally shut down.

"Come on, buddy, time for bed," I gently prodded Mark. He awoke with a start, put his pajamas on and crawled on top of the bed. He didn't even crawl under the covers, just slept on top, all the way through to this morning.

But hey, I've gotta give it to him. He grumbled a little, but in the end, he did suck it up.

Lesson learned!