One might consider it some kind of perfect storm.

My son called me at work and asked if he could have a couple friends sleep over so they could work on a project for school. Let me get back to you, I told him.

Then my (younger) daughter called me and asked pretty much the same thing — could she have a friend sleep over? But your brother wants to have friends over, I told her.

That’s perfect, she said, and she was right. What’s one more mouth in the spaghetti pot?

So two mouths turned into three. And then three mouths turned into four — my daughter invited twin friends to sleep over. They’re small, though, don’t eat much.

My older daughter was herself away for the night, so there we were with three 13-14 boys and three 9-10 girls. The boys worked on their project and then scurried upstairs to instant-message their other friends. The girls listened to music for a while with all of the jumping around that seems to go with it.

Wifey and I watched some TV, caught up on our 30 Rock and Project Runway. Around 9:00, all was well. I’m going to bed, I told all of the kids.

The boys must have gone downstairs to the playroom to watch TV and sleep. That left the girls upstairs in my daughter’s room. And all was quiet enough. By 9:45, I think, I’d fallen asleep.

Whatever the boys were doing was totally quiet. But the girls were right next to our room and… not so quiet. Around midnight, the girls were making enough noise that they woke Wifey up, and so Wifey woke me up. Knock knock knock — would you girls keep it down, please? Which I guess they did.

Usually I’m up at 4:30, but I ended up sleeping in — 6:45 was the next thing I remember seeing on my alarm clock.

Was I crazy to let both kids have friends over? Maybe, but it’s better to get it over with on one night than to have it spread over two. But next time, I think the boys will stay in my son’s room and my daughter’s noisy entourage will be located as far from my room as possible.

In the barn, maybe? :)