the great face mask debacle of '08

Mary turned 9 in December and we had our first ever giant slumber party here to celebrate in January. It wasn't the Grigsby's in Tara giant, but it was a lot of kids. The good news is that they were mostly 9 year old girls who, while dramatic, are terribly sweet and fun. Mary is fortunate to have the sweetest group of little friends and it reminds me a lot of how we were as kids at St. James minus the mean teachers who smoked. There isn't really a Courtney in this group who is organizing the Pink Ladies and not letting me in. This is, of course, all as far as I know. I do like being blissfully ignorant but you can tell how they all are around each other that they are kind. Some are a little louder and bossier but thats just life.

We bought some tubes of face mask that were apparently mislabled as "soothing cucumber" but were, in reality, tubes of green hydrochloric acid. First it was the sweet little fair skinned ones who came running back into the bathroom, their faces red and eyes bulging under the heat of the skin searing green acid. I wiped it off as fast as I could, but then the darker skinned ones started coming back in too- it was all happening in skin-color coded order. Everyone seemed to recover except for the quietest, nicest girl at the party who had skin like I did when I was that age. White with little freckles and her eyes were getting swollen and red. I felt so horrible for her and we had to nurse her skin back to health all night long. She eventually went home- poor thing. She came over for an innocent slumber party only to have acid poured all over her face. Not a proud mom moment.

When we picked up the sleeping bags the next morning there was a soft layer of popcorn and sliced cucumbers covering the rug- I don't know where I thought the cucumbers had gone after this.....

I guess I assumed they ate them.

Overall it was really fun- It brought back lots of memories so I really go into it. Chuck was on the patio most of the night clutching his bberry all white knuckled. He totally can't walk the line...