Girly bonding time

When I was in high school I had a lot of girly nights in with my friends. One of my friends had a mother who worked in the evenings so we'd have the house to ourselves. A group of us would gather around at her house with our sleeping bags and snacks, make fudge, gossip, and watch Nightmare on Elm Street videos with the sleeping bags pulled up to our eyeballs. 

I don't think I ever actually enjoyed the movies, particularly the time when a friend and myself decided to go to the actual movie theatre and watch three horror movies in succession on the big screen, for over six hours. Our eyeballs were numb and our brains were fried by the time it was over. Why did we think that was a good use of our time? I don't know. We were teenagers. We did dumb things pretty much on a daily basis. It was practically the rule to do dumb things.

But I really enjoyed the get-togethers with the girls. It was great fun. Even if we couldn't sleep a wink afterwards (I remember that the mantra in all the Nightmare on Elm Street movies was don't fall asleep or you are dooooomed!) as we lay in our beds half expecting them to turn into giant insinkeraters and munch us up – the fate that befell the delicious Johnny Depp in one of the movies. Yeah, what are the chances, but teenage girls are very suggestible.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, the girls nights in were a lot of fun, regardless of the movie choice. They sort of petered out as we left school and eventually got boyfriends and sort of went our separate ways. 

But now, 20 years later (did I just say 20 years have gone by since high school? Eeek.) I now have another regular companion for girls nights in. My daughter is now old enough (at six) to sit up with me for a while and watch some TV or a suitable movie on the weekend. We are thankfully well past the Dora the Explorer and Little People stage these days (except when she is feeling retro and nostalgic for the viewing choices of her wild youth) Nevertheless the choice of viewing is obviously somewhat different these days from those old horror movies of my teenage years.

We watch Australian Idol which is one of the very few shows on after 8.30pm that I consider is okay for a six year old to view. Tonight we went to the supermarket and each got some treats to eat. We got into our PJs and watched the show together until she fell asleep on me at about 9.30. We talked about the contestants and who we thought would win. It was nice, girly bonding time, and a respite from a stressful week. I'm looking forward to continuing to do this on a regular weekend basis with her.

Some things I guess you never grow out of. I certainly grew out of horror movies (wild horses couldn't drag me to a horror flick these days) but I never grew out of girly bonding time.