Parenting by blog consensus...

Busy like a crazy motherfucker lately! What the hell has gotten into me and why am I working so much? It is very unlike me...and someone needs to get me sidetracked with a four hour IM conversation about nothing pretty soon to set the Universe back into order.

Did everyone enjoy the long weekend? Mine was very nice, even though the weather was good but not beach-nice. Bright and sunny but just a little too chilly to lay out (unless you had a sweatshirt on, in which case it was divine!) Big crowd at the beach house, which is always a good time...I am a firm proponent of "the more the merrier". I feel like there is a network effect to cooking out.

It was just too chilly to take the jet skis out, so my traditional Sunday morning ride with Munchkin will have to wait until at least this weekend. Actually, probably next weekend, for two reasons. One is that the weather is not supposed to be great, and the second to be discussed momentarily.

The little twerp is done with school on Friday, and I am obscenely jealous. Seriously...what could possibly be better than summer vacation? It sounds especially good in the midst of the monster amount of work I have been doing lately. But I am not really complaining, it has been interesting work.

OK...my issue for the day: parenting advice.

Munchkin is just finishing sixth grade. Because the school she goes to is so small, they hang out across age groups a lot, and many of her friends are older than her. As I have mentioned a couple of times (;-)), she is super-hot. Like really, really gorgeous. And boys like her. A lot. A lot of boys really like her a lot.

Every year, they have an eighth grade banquet to mark the move of the eighth graders from middle school to high school (it is more symbolic than anything...they are all in the same place). It is a sorta-fancy dance where the kids get all dressed up and have like a super scaled-down prom. And Munchkin has been invited by one of the fine, upstanding your lads in eighth grade.

So far, no problem. She had an eighth grade boyfriend in the fall which was a non-event, a couple of her good girl friends are in that class, and she is friendly with most of them. The issue is that many of the kids are going to one kid's house after the party and sleeping over. And Munchkin really wants to go, but I am not sure I like the idea that much.

I can't quite put my finger on why it bothers me, though. She has been to co-ed sleepovers before...one of the benefits of all of her friends being so disgustingly loaded is that they all have huge houses where children can be easily separated at night...lol. I think maybe I am a little edgy because the kids are a little older than many of her other friends.

But I also don't know what I am worried about. I already talked to the mother whose house it is...both she and her husband will be there the whole time. There will be six or seven other girls there, several or whom are good friends of hers (i.e., I am not worried about he being in a situation where she suddenly feels alone and under some kind of After School Special-style peer pressure.)

What's more, I just don't have any reason to worry about her. She isn't gonna be pressured into doing anything she doesn't want to, and I completely trust her judgement and decision making. She is a tough chick...much tougher than whatever poor sap of a boy is currently most smitten with her;-P. And while I think of these kids as being much older than her, they really aren't. She is old for her grade, and is probably about an average of a year and a half younger than the rest of them.

So, I dunno...any thoughts? Can someone give me a compelling reason not to let her go?