December 2008. That’s the last time Hubby and I were out to dinner…together… alone.
The girlies have been going to bed at 7:30 for many months now. We still haven’t braved leaving them with a sitter, but why we didn’t act on the “house sitter” idea sooner, I have no idea.
Friday evening, we got the girls to bed on their usual schedule. I tried to be very careful not to let on that I was anxious for them to retire for the evening. Nothing to see here, Girls!
But as soon as they were down, I broke out of my yoga pants into a carefully-planned outfit and high heels. (I say "carefully planned" because I tried on quite a few ensembles before deciding what to wear. I have a closetful of clothes, but the majority of them haven’t been worn in the past couple of years. It was like going shopping in my own house, except I didn’t have someone to hang up the clothes I didn’t want.) (And I note "high heels" because at 5’2”, I LOVE wearing high heels. That’s perhaps what I miss most about my pre-kiddo days [relatively speaking, anyway].)
Hubby and I had 8:00 dinner reservations at one of our favorite restaurants downtown. I had been planning for days what I would order. I didn’t exactly need to look at the menu, but I did, anyway…very leisurely.
And speaking of leisurely, we sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed ourselves.
We enjoyed an appetizer. We enjoyed drinks. We enjoyed salads. We enjoyed the fresh-baked bread (and I’ll admit to requesting a couple of refills on the bread basket). Hubby enjoyed a stuffed pork chop, and I had my first medium rare (leaning towards rare) steak since before I got pregnant. An almost-mooing piece of meat has never tasted so good.
And we would have enjoyed dessert had we not both been so full we could barely move.
Leading up to our dinner out, I kept thinking about some old sitcom episode, where the parents of a new baby go out for the first time. They separately keep excusing themselves, and they sneak around the corner to the pay phone (it’s an old sitcom) to call the sitter to check on the baby. And the only thing they can talk about over dinner is the baby.
I am happy to say that our evening did not resemble that plot at all. We propped our feet up and enjoyed ourselves. I figured if the sitter needed us, she would call. And while we didn’t avoid the topic of the kiddos, we had plenty more topics of conversation to discuss. In that way, it was like old times.
One thing that wasn’t like old times, at least for me, is that I ate every last morsel on my plate. I have never done that before! I certainly wasn’t that hungry, but I just wanted to appreciate every bite.
And another thing that wasn’t like old times was getting to come home to the sweet sounds of two sleeping babies.
And that’s well worth 17 months of no dinner dates.
Ticker
6 comments:
Yaaaayyyy!!! What an awesome night! I love moo-ing steaks! What a nice relaxing enjoyable night...I'm jealous!
Hooray! I'm so glad you had a nice time. Lucas and I went out last night. The trick to fitting in dessert? Go to the theatre between courses. :)
Make those date nights more often. It will do you, your marriage and the kiddos good.
Savor every bite.
Sounds like a wonderful evening. I'll confess that we have yet to have a date night since the kids were born, but to be honest, we didn't go out a ton before they were born either. Still, when I read posts like theses, I feel like we might need to start planning something like that for ourselves. It just sounds so very, very nice.
I'm so glad you got to have a great evening out with your husband. It sounds like you are doing a fantastic job of balancing "Mandy" and "Mommy". Your post is making me crave a date night (and a good steak).
I remember my firs date night post kids - it was better than any date-night we had pre-kids. So glad you got to have a night out and wish you many many more.
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