Date Night Fail

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date night failDate night is not my favorite term. In fact, it is a term that grates on my nerves a bit. Some people don’t like “moist” or “panties”. I will take either over “date night”. Nonetheless, my husband and I decided some form of “us time” was required so we could remember how to have a conversation without the 101 interruptions of our sweet but chatty 5 year old.

We have been married almost 16 years but only since our son came along has there been a need to plan such a thing. When we had no children, we could go out any night of the week and it didn’t require a degree in project management to make it happen. Some would even call it spontaneous, a word that fled my vocabulary before we brought the baby home from the hospital.

So we decided to make a plan. We picked a date on the calendar and got the ball rolling. First, child care. We are lucky as my mother loves to watch my son and is happy to do so almost anytime. I made plans to drop him off and have him spend the night so I could sleep past 6:15AM the next day.

Next, we decided we shouldn’t waste this opportunity to eat a hot and leisurely meal that neither of us prepared. The idea of being waited on is always attractive so we discussed all the new restaurants we wanted to try. Yelp reviews, restaurant lists and city websites were reviewed to create a list of possible choices. But this quickly turned into us telling each other “whatever sounds good to you” with no actual decision.

We talked about where we would go and what we would do. Maybe an escape room. Maybe a double date with our friends. Maybe laser tag. The closer the day came, the more detailed the conversation but by the time D-day arrived, we had made no concrete plans and so settled on dinner and a movie.

Finally, the day arrived and I drove my son to my mother’s for the day and night. I was going to spend the day working from home and then we would get ready and go out. We had picked the movie and the time and were going to wing dinner since a 30 minute wait for a table is no big deal sans kids. By the time I returned to my house/office, the weather was looking less than ideal. Snow was coming down; it was starting to stick to roads and the city went on accident alert status. As a Colorado native, a little snow is not a deal breaker per se, but I don’t love running around on frozen streets after dark for “fun”. Before lunchtime the plan had devolved. Maybe we would go out and get movies from Redbox and pick up dinner to eat at home.

Fast forward to the end of the work day. Both of us are exhausted either from work or from the constant date night debate. We were no closer to an actual decision or set time to leave which was ok because we were both too tired to go out and deal with the traffic and the crowds anyway. There was way too much effort required at this point. In the end, we ordered pizza delivery online and spent the next 2 hours trying to choose a movie from the on-demand menu. Frustrated and completely over the concept of date night, we were in bed asleep by 9:30 PM.

Better luck next time!

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Becky
Becky is a Colorado native who lives on the east side of the Springs with her 4 year old son Sam, her husband Matt, and 3 dogs and 1 cat. She has been married for 15 years. She has worked in healthcare management for her entire working life and transitioned to working for herself from her home office 4 years ago. She is grateful for the flexibility that self-employment offers but still wishes for more hours in a day to get everything done. Becky has trouble saying no and loves to be involved with a cause or a purpose. If you need someone for a committee or to get things done, she is your girl. She still makes the time to be there for friends and family. When she is not caught up in the busy-ness of her life, she loves to cook, bake, read, craft, watch movies and, of course, write. She is obsessed with cooking shows and loves to try new recipes. Her husband is her willing guinea pig for her creations.