It starts...

I walked out to the corner this afternoon to meet the Fries after school.

Medium and Large raced over to the crosswalk, and when I saw that the unusually heavy traffic was stopping for them, I waved them across.

It took another minute for Small to arrive...holding hands with a small, bespectacled, blond girl.

*facepalm*  I already know where this is heading.

"Who is that, honey, and why is she with you?" I called.

"She's gonna sleep over!" Small shouted back.

Oh, brother.

I crossed the street, tossing apologetic looks to the patient drivers who were backed up on either side of the crosswalk.

"Honey," I said, "she needs to ask her mom before she can sleep over."

"She did!" Small insisted.

"Well, her mom didn't talk to me."  I smiled at the little girl.  "You need to go home your usual way, honey," I said, and waved her back toward the school and the line of buses.  I felt bad for the mild confusion on her face, but I was not going to be the cause of another mom's panic.

I ushered Small back across the street to our house.  "Who was that?" I asked her.

"Quora."  Ah.  One of her classmates, and a name I hear often.  It wasn't until Valentine's Day that I realized the little girl I'd thought of as Cora was a victim of Creative Spelling by Parents.

"There are no sleepovers on school nights," I informed Small Fry. "And Quora can't sleep over unless I talk with her mom first, and I haven't."

Yikes.

I don't know that I ever expected that one of my kids would just drag a friend along after school, since we live so close, but I know this: Small is the one that didn't surprise me in doing so first.