This post was originally published July 17, 2012, and is being republished as a reminder that I desperately need a date night.
(disclaimer: this post has been approved by my husband who would like another night out with his amazing wife…)
To say that the week had been rough would be an understatement {I’m talking the kind of understatement that makes one question the speaker’s sanity}. From the five days without childcare to the slice and dice hairdo to the twenty-four hour sojourn in the wilds of Appalachia, it was the kind of week that can break a person, driving them to eat an entire candy bar in one sitting or stare at the computer screen, paralyzed and unable to do anything more than listen to Heavy D and dream of a simpler time when the only thing on the to-do list was deciding what to do now that we’d found love.
But the worst moment of the entire debacle that was my final moments of June came when my husband did something he will probably allow me to call idiotic that made me mad in an “again? really?” kind of way (which we all know is the worst kind of mad that that there is).
Here is the thing about being angry with your spouse during what even your governor admits is a state of emergency. You have to talk to him anyway. Granted, the change in sleeping arrangements brought about by the power outage and escape to a power source was convenient because it placed my snuggly six year old next to me each night instead of the offender, but still there was much that had to be discussed. How many days should we try to ride it out with no power? If we flee, where should we go? Do we want to stop at Cracker Barrel or T.G.I.Friday’s for lunch during the drive north?
So we made it through the end of the crazy as pleasantly as possible with me occasionally and calmly reminding him not to mistake my agreeable and uncharacteristically cooperative demeanor for forgiveness, and when the power returned, we carried on with our pre-storm lives, dropping the kids at camp, focusing on work, returning to the daily grind.
Only the “again? really?” lingered in my house. It threw me into a funk that even Salt-n-Pepa couldn’t drag me out of no matter how many times they insisted that I push it good (push it real good). That’s when I opened a new tab, typed the F that alerted my browser to tap into my Facebook addiction, and saw a friend’s status update: “It’s datenight!”
It’s what? Because I *think* it’s Tuesday and I *think* we are all eating mac and cheese tonight with our kids like everyone else in America. And then I let out a deep sigh that surprised even me. And I realized that desperate times call for desperate measures, and surely as I sat there with my sadly bandaged finger and my overwhelmingly full inbox and Snap! telling me I’ve Got the Power!, it was time to do something. Anything.
It was time to find our first babysitter.
Now before you gasp and proclaim the insanity of waiting until my kids were six and eight before hiring some bubbly neighborhood teen to sit at my house, let me explain that my husband and I have had date nights. However, those date nights have really just been the two of us going out to eat and returning immediately home where my parents have been hanging out with the kids eating wacky macs. Did I mention that my parents live nearly four hours away? That means that our date nights have in the past required overnight houseguests. I love my parents and enjoy when they visit, but for those of you who are visual learners, let me help you out:
This graphic clearly illustrates how needing to host houseguests in order to have a night out with your spouse is diametrically opposed to actually reducing stress through said evening out.
That is when I turned to my often monitored but rarely used neighborhood Yahoo! group and posted something a bit more sensibly written than this that essentially said:
“May kill my husband (stop) Please send help (stop) NOW (stop)”
Within minutes the other listserv stalkers were responding, and my inbox began to fill up with messages that all resembled the following:
“My child babysits, has never maimed or killed a child, and needs to come to your house as soon and as often as possible because should she roll her eyes or ask me for money one more time, I may need to be medicated.”
And with that I had a babysitter booked for two nights later.
I texted my husband to let him know what I had done, and his questions regarding why and for what purpose simply solidified how desperate the need. Thursday arrived and as I opened the door to a smiling sixteen year old, I realized that I didn’t even know this child’s name. I knew her mom’s name, because we had arranged for this bouncy savior to appear at my door. I knew her rates because my husband confirmed that he had the thirty bucks it would cost for us to escape. I knew she was a camp counselor by day, neighborhood childcare provider by night. But I had no idea what to call her.
So I introduced myself. And then I left her in charge of my children for the next three hours.
And it was glorious.
My husband and I ate filet mignon at a restaurant seven minutes from our house. We took little bites and chewed slowly and didn’t stop once to fill someone’s glass because the gallon of milk was still fairly full and therefore too heavy. And at no point during the meal did we remind anyone to sit properly on their seat or risk falling to certain stitches on the tile floor. We used words like contract negotiation and Yemen and making out. We didn’t make out because we were in a restaurant seven minutes from our house, but I swear to you, the words were said.
And when we were finished with our meal, we over-tipped the amazing creature who brought the food to us and refilled our glasses without being asked. Then we walked around Home Goods picking out pillowcases for the kids to tie-dye the next day at camp and choosing fake flowers to put in our will-never-be-painted-or-decorated-but-finally-has-furniture living room. It was absolutely amazing.
We returned to happy children who had crafted and played and talked to someone for three hours who had never heard their little voices before and didn’t know their kooky stories. They had eaten pizza and helped clean up and could have cared less that we were gone. I thanked the babysitter, trying to hide the frightening level of gratitude in my voice and promised to call her again soon, but not too soon. We don’t need her to know we’re desperate.
If you have never walked out of your home with your spouse next to you and your children left behind, plan it now. But don’t over-plan it, and don’t wait for a nationwide newsworthy storm. Don’t even ask your husband if he’s on board. Just make it happen and then go. Leave. Enjoy each other…alone.
Then come back here and tell me what you did (while you were out, not after you returned home).
You’re welcome.