I invited thirteen kids to my house for a movie night. The parents told me I was a little unhinged. The kids thought it was the coolest invitation they had ever received. The kids won. Ten said yes. With my own, that made eleven small bodies in pajamas, eleven blankets dragged from eleven other living rooms, eleven sets of stuffies clutched at the door.

Before they came I moved the coffee table out of the way and washed every blanket we own. I built a cozy pad on the floor in front of the couch and threw the stuffies on top of it. I blew up balloons until I was lightheaded. I scattered glow sticks across the pad. I hung twinkle lights below the TV because I am, apparently, that kind of woman now. The kind who hangs twinkle lights for other people's children.

I set up a drink station with nine cute summer cups, lemonade, ginger ale, nine popcorn bowls, and a bowl of candy I knew would be empty by the opening credits.

When the door opened, they came in like a small weather system. PJs, blankets, stuffies, the smell of someone else's laundry detergent. I closed the door behind the last one and gave them the rules. Once that door is shut, nobody leaves until your parents come get you. Everybody is four houses or fewer from home, so that part was easy. The movie is PG. Have fun.

They had fun.

For most of the ninety-three minutes, they were calm. Cuddled up two and three to a stuffie. Quiet the way kids only get when a screen is doing the work. Then somewhere in the third act, a balloon escaped someone's hands and the keep-away game began. A blue balloon specifically, blocking the screen in a blaze of glory while the kids who actually wanted to watch the movie shrieked in protest. Two others fought over the last sour worm and called it a draw by tearing it in half.

Lemonade went into the blankets. Popcorn went into the floor. A candy wrapper found a permanent home in the cushion of the sofa. Plastic shards from a popped balloon hid themselves in the folds of someone's stuffy, where I would find them later, like little archaeological gifts.

When the parents came and the door opened and closed and opened and closed and the house was finally quiet, I started the breakdown. Every blanket back into the wash, the second cycle of the day. Coffee table back to its post. Spills wiped, dishes done, the last of the glow sticks rounded up off the floor.

Somewhere in there I noticed the dog. He had been working the wreckage the whole time, hoovering up dropped popcorn, abandoned sour worms, the corner of a candy wrapper. We paid for it for two days. He would do it again.

My daughter loves people. She loves being in the middle of them. For ninety-three minutes she bounced between the older kids who pulled her into their laps and the younger ones fighting over the closest balloon. She was held. She was elbowed. She was laughed at and laughed with. A whole house full of her people, all at once.

By most accounts, eleven kids and one adult is not a thing parents sign up for. And every one of them said yes. Sent their kid over in pajamas with a blanket and a stuffy under one arm. Trusted me with their child for the length of a movie. That part still surprises me. That part is the whole thing.

Eleven small bodies of joy is not too much work for one evening. Not when my daughter felt the weight of community settle around her like one of those blankets I washed twice.

Yes, lemonade was spilt on the blanket fort. Yes, there was popcorn on the door. Yes, the dog had the runs. Yes, I would do it again.