{"id":907,"date":"2013-02-28T12:50:07","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T19:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=907"},"modified":"2013-02-28T12:50:07","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T19:50:07","slug":"rules-of-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=907","title":{"rendered":"Rules of Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My son will be turning nine on Sunday.\u00a0 But tonight?\u00a0 He&#8217;ll be having a big birthday party\/sleep-over bash.\u00a0 Which is weird because after last year&#8217;s sleep-over party, I DISTINCTLY remember saying (ok, maybe in a loud, yell-y sort of way) that he was never, EVER going to have another sleep-over party again!<\/p>\n<p>But second verse, same as the first&#8230;a little bit louder.\u00a0 And a little bit worse.<\/p>\n<p>In my defense, I did give him the choice of having a birthday party&#8230;or&#8230;A HUNDRED DOLLARS!\u00a0 Knowing full well that he&#8217;d choose the hundred bucks and I&#8217;d actually come out ahead financially on the deal.<\/p>\n<p>This decision is apparently the &#8220;Sophie&#8217;s Choice&#8221; of the 10-and-under set.\u00a0 And he agonized over it for three weeks before finally deciding that he&#8217;d go with the party (after seeking clarification that he would still get breakfast-in-bed on his actual birthday.\u00a0 He LOVES that tradition and just wanted to make sure it wouldn&#8217;t go away.\u00a0 Ahhh.\u00a0 How cute is he?!\u00a0 Yes, Sweetie.\u00a0 You still get breakfast in bed if you want it.\u00a0 Even Mean Mommy can&#8217;t resist you,\u00a0you cute little\/big thing).<\/p>\n<p>But Gaaaaaaah!!! What have I gotten myself into?!?\u00a0 I thought for sure that he&#8217;d take the money.\u00a0 And NOW? I thought for sure everyone would be going away during the\u00a0long week-end and therefore wouldn&#8217;t be available to\u00a0attend a sleep-over party.\u00a0\u00a0 Rats!\u00a0 Foiled again!!!<\/p>\n<p>So as a last ditch effort to\u00a0keep my head from popping off,\u00a0Sonny has been &#8220;encouraged&#8221; to\u00a0come up\u00a0with\u00a0the Rules of Engagement for his birthday party which he will share with his friends when they arrive.\u00a0 He is still deciding whether to read them out loud\u00a0king&#8217;s-proclamation-style, or just post them somewhere obvious.\u00a0 But here they are verbatim:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Respect adults <em>[good]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t be too wacky<em> [very good]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>No breaking stuff <em>[yes!] <\/em><\/li>\n<li>No being too rough <em>[uh&#8230;ok]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Ian H. &#8211; don&#8217;t make weird meals out of your food <em>[slightly concerning that we had to have a specific rule for Ian H., but ok]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Go to bed when you&#8217;re told <em>[yes!\u00a0 And you&#8217;ll be told to go to bed at about 7 p.m]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t have too much cake <em>[excellent point!\u00a0 The sugar makes you wacky &#8211; back to rule #2]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>No trashing stuff <em>[wait!\u00a0 this seems like a combination of rules 1, 2, 3 AND 4 &#8211; but ok.\u00a0 It&#8217;s worth saying it in a slightly different way]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>No annoying people when they&#8217;re sleeping <em>[seems like someone is now speaking from experience?]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>No bugging my sister<em> [always a problem and it&#8217;s good to mention it]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>No bugging my mom <em>[YES!\u00a0 Absolutely!\u00a0 What he said!!!]<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Some other ones I can&#8217;t think of right now <em>[which in job description terms would be &#8220;other duties as assigned&#8221;]<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In spite of the Rules of Engagement, the night is guaranteed to be horrific.\u00a0 With my son being the ring-leader of all of the rule breaking going on.\u00a0 He may not live to see his 9th birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My son will be turning nine on Sunday.\u00a0 But tonight?\u00a0 He&#8217;ll be having a big birthday party\/sleep-over bash.\u00a0 Which is weird because after last year&#8217;s sleep-over party, I DISTINCTLY remember saying (ok, maybe in a loud, yell-y sort of way) that he was never, EVER going to have another sleep-over party again! But second verse, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}