Frances' Sleep Over

I was telling this story to my friend Stacey at work today and realized it is the kind of thing that made me start this blog in the first place and I had forgotten to write it down! As you already know, Frances had a friend from school spend the night last Thursday. She is in my class and had told her mom one afternoon that she was going to go home with me. I thought it would be fun so we invited her over a few nights later.
We had dinner together that evening and then decided to go for a walk. We typically walk around the cemetery that is near our house because it is a safe place with no traffic to worry about. One of Ken and Frances' favorite things to do at the cemetery is "bunny chasing." I don't remember exactly how it started, but when Frances was much smaller, Ken would see a bunny and ask her if she wanted to chase it. She would, of course, so then he would pick her up and sneak up on the bunny and then take off running as soon as it hopped away. Because the bunnies dart around so much when escaping, he would do the same. And Frances would squeal with delight the entire way.
Now, as she is older and faster; we look for the bunnies together and she chases them on her own. And last Thursday she took her friend from school. (Poor girl thought we would actually be catching the bunnies and was sorely disappointed to see that we would not!)
After several rounds of bunny chasing, the girls sat down for a rest and some funny faces. Ken could not resist sneaking up behind them and "boo-ing" them. They tried to return the scare, but he ran around the other way and scared them again. They LOVED it!!
We got home and got ready for bed. The girls and I put on our pajamas and then brushed our teeth together. I put toothpaste on their toothbrushes and they started brushing away. Frances' friend finished and spit into the sink. I gave her a cup of water and she rinsed and spit again. Then she took a sip of water and gargled it. I laughed-I thought it was cute. Then she leaned over and spit into the sink again. At this point Frances asks me to check her teeth. (Our dentist told me that a parent should "check/re-brush" a child's teeth until they were about 8 or so.) I did my little brushing and then gave Frances a cup of water as usual. Now I should tell you that Frances still uses fluoride-free toddler toothpaste and has never had to "rinse and spit." She has occasionally used "spitting toothpaste" but not very often or successfully. Well that night when I gave her the cup, instead of just taking a sip of water, she tried, very unsuccessfully, to spit it in the sink. She got her pajamas a little bit wet, but no big deal. BUT WAIT-THERE'S MORE! Since her friend had gargled, Frances decided she must try this new skill also. So she took another sip of water and opened her mouth and made that sound. Oh, wait! I forgot to put in the part where she tilted her head back...oh yeah-because she didn't!! She gargled water straight out of her mouth all over the floor and her nightgown. I tried to tell her to stop, but from a combination of laughing hysterically and having a mouth full of my own FOAMING toothpaste, there wasn't much I could do.
These stories are the reason I started my blog. Hopefully, one day when Frances is much older, her current boyfriend will "google" her and stumble upon this story. He will then decide that she is too kooky to date until she is 30. Then I will feel satisfied.