On Saturday night I put money in the sleepover bank.

Each time we host one of Daisy's friends for a sleepover, it becomes more likely that the friend's family will host Daisy for a night some other time. This is what we in the parenting business (which, by the way, is a woefully unprofitable business) refer to as a good deal.

This sleepover actually went pretty smoothly, but they can vary in difficulty. The first one we ever hosted seem to go pretty well until I was woken by one of my least favorite sounds, that of someone else's five year-old puking in my sleeping bag. You know that retchy-squishy sound? That one. I spent a good part of the next hour debarfifying my daughter's room and the puker's hair. The next morning, the kid's mom, who was my sister up until that point, apologized profusely for sending a sick kid to our house and assured us that her daughter rarely pukes.

Crap, where are my manners? If you're squeamish about puke, skip that last paragraph.

Another sleepover was problem-free until around 5:20am, when the visiting child started relentless trips to the toilet. We have a small house with squeaky floors and thin walls, so if someone is making a trip the bathroom, we're all peeing vicariously through them. She went about 3 times in the next hour. All of this after we had practically wrung the urine out of her bladder the previous night before bedtime.

You just never really know what you're going to get with someone else's kid. When they try to wriggle out of eating dinner, and you encourage them to have one more bite of veggies, are you being a good guardian, or are you just upsetting their fragile tummy? Magic eight ball of parenting says.....Puke Again Later.

My daughter is so delighted to have someone sleeping in her room, it would be worthwhile even if we didn't get a quid pro quo mommy-and-daddy date night. Although most of the time her friends conk out and fall asleep long before Daisy is ready to call it quits, every once in a while she lands a chatter. Then we can hear the murmurs and giggles of audacious six year-old plans deep into the evening, as they carefully plot a lifetime of playing by the glow of the nightlight. Although we like to keep Daisy to a regular schedule, this seems like a good reason to stay up late.

But last night's sleepover went perfectly. They went to sleep at a reasonable time and they didn't get up until 7:30 this morning. After breakfast, while Hank and I read the paper and drank coffee, the kids went into the backyard to pick flowers and lemons. Norman Rockwell, eat your heart out.