Kathy's Chaos: High-Tech Sleepovers

Not only has this been the summer of sleepovers, it’s been the summer of “Mrs. Yevchak, can I have your wifi password?”

“Umm, sure. Let me find out what it is.”

Huh? How did this happen?

First of all, the summer of sleepovers.

You may recall a column of mine from last summer in which I described my oldest daughter’s trepidation about sleepovers. Well, she has turned a complete 360 this summer. It’s as if we have a revolving door around here.

Every time we see one of her friends:

“Mom, can we have a sleepover?”

Sometimes I say no if I am too tired or if we’ve had too many sleepovers in a row.

But it’s usually fine with me. I like having the kids’ friends over. And by this point in the summer, it’s become so frequent that I keep the air mattress inflated and no longer serve up my best breakfast for our guests. For the first few, I made pancakes and bacon or homemade waffles. 

Now, when they ask what’s for breakfast, instead of whipping up a gourmet meal, I simply point to the cabinet, “The cereal is in there.” No one seems to mind at all.

Note to friends for next summer: Come over in June and you are more likely to get a good breakfast.

And then there’s the wifi password.

It seems that all of my daughter’s friends arrive with their iPods, iTouches, wireless devices, tablets and whatnot. People need to borrow chargers, need outlets for chargers and need wifi passwords.

They want to be able to Draw Something and ooVoo with each other. You know, instead of talking to each other.

I think the first person to ask for the wifi password was my nephew who was here visiting. (Note: He will never forgive me if I don’t clarify that he was not playing Draw Something, but actually working on homework for a college class.)

I had to go onto my laptop and “show characters” under the network properties window to figure out what it was. I couldn’t remember from when I set up my laptop and no one had asked for it until this summer.

Since then, several more house guests have requested it. I finally wrote it on an index card and taped it to the kitchen cabinet.

Now, I can just point to it as I do the breakfast. I should make a recording to play when sleepover guests arrive:

“Welcome to our home. Our breakfast items are located in the cabinet to the right of the refrigerator. On your left, for your convenience we have posted our wifi password. Remember to place dirty dishes in the sink. Also, please remember to brush your teeth. If there’s anything else I can do to make your stay more comfortable, you can find me in the recliner. We hope you enjoy your stay.”