24 Comments
Dec 18, 2023Liked by James Breakwell

You are a master of one-liners! Very fun read.

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Those were fun days!! Now?... I have to go take a nap, just reading this story.

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author

I have no idea how they keep going without collapsing. If you could harness kid energy, you could power the world.

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Power the world!!

So true.

Or at least stay awake past 8:00pm!

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founding

Wasn‘t that sort of the plot for Monsters, Inc. at the end? Harness the power of children‘s laughter (especially volume)!

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And you JUST posted you were proud that you never had sleepovers at your house. The girls must read these and think “heh, so he THINKS”! Personally I would have hidden in my room upstairs all day/night. If they can’t find you, you can’t drive them anywhere.

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author

It was approved by a higher authority (Lola). If they came to me in the planning stages, it never would have happened.

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It's very impressive your kids can stay up all night - when I was their age I tried it a few times, but always gave up around 3 a. m.

I remember only one time we had lots of McNuggets. It was years ago on a family party thrown by my aunt for my two oldest cousins, me and one of my brothers. She organised it to give us some relax after the other three returned from representing our school in a skiing competition while I on the same day had been representing school in the final stage of Kraków's municipal knowledge contest abouth the city's history. We had over eighty nuggets for the four of us (and each got large fries and cola too), so still pretty decent portion per person.

"Betsy and her friends stayed up ridiculously late but woke up refreshed like they had a full night’s sleep." - Few of my friends during lockdowns did League of Legends sessions every day that way. One of them said to me that if he can hear birds outside "it's a sign [for him] not to go to bed, because the night is over anyway."

About clothing appropriately for outdoor conditions. There was a time older of my two younger brothers did something similar to Betsy & co. He claimed he was feeling warm, so it was common to see him wearing light clothes during winter. One time however he went to school in just t-shirt and shorts, when outside it was negative few degrees Celsius. That day he had health talks with not only our parents, but also his class teacher and school nurse. He defended his outfit saying he felt warm & fashionable and started putting warmer clothes only under threat of grounding and lowering grades for behaviour.

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author

I'm glad to hear McNuggets are available in Poland. Otherwise, it would be worth crossing some borders to get them, especially if you have some hot sauce at home to go with them. I can't imagine staying up like that to play League of Legends. If we're up past 11 playing Halo, I sometimes fall asleep in the middle of games.

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I can say McDonald's here has a very rich menu, in which everybody in my family has their go-to favourites (and tonns of EU regulations makes it not too unhealthy). Mum loves having fries only, for Dad finest is The Luberjack Burger (a seasonal burger available in Winter that's exclusive in PL), brothers like best respectively McRoyal and nuggets. Right now I love the same as my siblings, but I can't regret the O'Fish was withdrawn, because it was the only sandwich I could eat on Fridays without remorse. All of that has made, as people call it here, "chodzenie do Maka" [going to McD's] became our default meal break during trips with school and family. Plus in my parents' eyes it's also, along Coca-Cola, considered since their arrival one of the symbols that the communism had fallen (although the latter was present long before the events of 1989).

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Dec 18, 2023·edited Dec 19, 2023

Sounds like a great weekend and you all survived, so that's what counts. Ok, well, it was a long time ago when I was transporting kids back and forth to sleepovers and dances and everything in between, so I may have forgotten a few details but I thought they were fun. I loved hearing a house full of happy kids, no matter how loud it got. I also remember my girlfriends and I in my youth always having to get ready for any dance/prom at one of our houses. I mean, c'mon, Mom always said I looked beautiful and I wanted the truth as only girlfriends can give.

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author

I fear girls today have gained too much power in the beauty department. YouTube makeup tutorials have made them unstoppable.

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And now you can look forward to the day when all 4 girls are attending dances! (I know; I'm mean.)

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author

Oh no, it's shockingly close. And next thing you know, it will be weddings. My head...

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You know I’m having McNuggets and fries for lunch now, don’t you? This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? This was really a paid posting for McDonald’s?

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author

I wish they were paying me kickbacks. I could have made pennies today.

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All this McNuggets talk is making me hungry. Ordering a 20 pack of those in college was one of many choices I always regretted

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author

Regretted because it wasn't enough? Always go with forty or more just in case.

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McNuggets have a magic spell! I once had a quarentinenparty with my neighbors (my bubble) and i had food for grownups but forgot the kids. I ordered 3 mcnugget 20’s packs and to try to impress people i tossed the first 20 in a nicr bowl. To my surprise kids were not happy with my “secret mom recepie nuggets” jajaja they demanded mcdonalds. So I went to the kitchen played dumb ans 12 min later appeared with 6 boxes of 10 nuggets and instantly became thr best mom in the world (yes, i took the 2 boxes out of the trash but to be fair they werw in the recycling bags by themselves). The lesson is: Nuggets are a parents best friend... always!

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author

Nice save! It's all about that McDonald's branding.

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"Finest breaded bird chunks" is now the colloquial term

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I am so glad I had boys, they tend to have 1 or 2 friends and the ones my sons picked have parents stricter than me, so it was great. My youngest goes to college next year (he took a gap year, because he found out his full ride would still be good and he was on burn-out) and then I will no longer have any idea of the month or day LOL

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Sleepovers were the joy of my childhood. It didn't seem nearly as delightful for my children, so I am happy to read that some kids still have great times with those potentially magical times.

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author

Surprisingly, they left them alone, though I did bust them for trying to circumvent their own bedtime.

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