For the past four months I’ve been promising to take my favorite munchkins to see High School Musical 3 as soon as it was in theaters, and with its big screen debut this past weekend, it was time to collect on my promises.  I picked the girls up Friday evening for our sleepover, and after a gourmet dinner of McDonald’s Happy Meals (their choice, not mine… now I totally know why my dad used to get so agitated when we’d order vanilla ice cream at Baskin Robbins), we headed to my apartment for Disney Channel therapy.  Somehow I was conned into letting them watch Eddie Murphy’s Haunted House and was scared to death not of the movie but of the plotline and acting.  Eddie, what happened to you? But, the girls were happy, and that was enough reason for me to endure such a cinematic torture.

Finally, at almost midnight, they were tucked in and tuckered out, and I headed to my own bed with the promise that we could watch cartoons in the morning.  Little did I know that they would wake up at 5:45am and come to crawl in bed with me.  I’m not a mom.  I’m not practiced in cold feet and early Saturday morning cartoons.  I was tired… disoriented… and did what I thought was the least chimo thing possible that could still keep the peace.  I let the stay as long as they curled up with their own blankets that were on top of mine, and I fell back asleep.  They were as good as gold as long as they were able to watch cartoons, and somewhere amidst my continuing slumber, this camera phone shot was taken with my awesome bedhead and day-old makeup. (Love it when the kids are tech whiz kids.)

Eventually, I woke up at a normal hour and we headed off to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and WalMart for Halloween costume shopping.  Of course, they were well-behaved angels until they decided to introduce me to everyone we came in contact with as their mom.  Not a huge deal until we ran into a work acquaintance who was quite confused that I had children.  Even when I tried to deny/explain M was joking, the lil stinker refused to back down from her baby mama claim.  Awkward!

Finally, HSM3 showtime rolled around, and we packed up and headed to the theater.  For 2pm on a Saturday, the place was packed with kids and their parents.  Lauren and I kept our fingers crossed that everyone would think we were just chaperoning the girls and not adults who were at a Disney movie.  Thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure we blew our cover within the first five minutes of the movie by singing along to every musical number.  Oh well, we had a blast, and the girls were tickled pink.  Almost 24 hours after I had kidnapped them from their home, I returned two exhausted lil girls to their parents.  Somehow I feel like I’m learning what it’s like to be a grandparent.  Borrow ‘em.  Spoil ‘em.  Return ‘em. I’ve got the easy job.