Mom & Dad date night

Happy Birthday Richard!

Dating is hard.

And it doesn't get any easier once you're married.  When you get married the dynamics of dating just change.  Sure you don't have to worry about making the right first impressions, but you do have to worry about continuing to endear yourself to your spouse; making him/her think you are still the most adorable creature on the face of the planet even when they wake up to your scary bed head, horrid morning breath, and ruddy, no make-up face every morning.

I am sure it is for this very reason we have been counseled to date even after marriage.  Once a week we should take a timeout from mom and dad duties to go out and get away, where we can try to be the cute and charming selves we once were; to reconnect, and remind our spouse why they fell in love with us in the first place. Right? Well, I'm sure that is what they intended when they suggested having a date every week, but in our real world- it does not work. 

You know it has a lot to do with budgets and other boring stuff, that I won't get into, but I will just say that hiring a sitter to watch 4 kids while we go away for an hour or two, let alone the 3 plus it takes to do dinner and a movie (cha-CHING!),  is not feasible.  So we have improvised.

Friday night is Movie Party with the kids and Saturday Night is Mom & Dad date night.  Every Saturday between 8:00 and 8:30 the kids are banished to the upstairs and we take our places on the loveseat, him on the left, me on the right and we begin our date.  Most often with an accompanying bowl of popcorn or plate of nachos, we catch up with our DVR. Like any other parent who has children with homework and extracurricular activities, there is not time to watch live TV, so we record our favorites like Ghost Hunters, Psych, Monk, & the Mentalist to watch on Saturday night. Sometimes we watch a movie. Other times, like tonight, we sit each with a laptop occupying our lap and we blog side by side. Yes, we still interact; we read each other's work, he gives me suggestions at things I can improve on, and I admire the way he can write. I share fun or thought inspiring blogs I read throughout the week and he catches me up on the news and most things political.  We may sound like nerds, but it works for us.

Well, kind of.

See the problem is that the kids never stay in bed, or upstairs for that matter, like they are supposed to. There is always the need for one more drink, a bedtime snack, or one last plea to lay with them. By the time they are settled it is usually near 10:00 and with Richard being a night owl and me being more of a morning person, by 10:30 or 11:00 I have trouble holding my eyes open and I usually fall sound asleep missing the end of whatever we were watching.

I am such an exciting date.

For this reason I decided to surprise Richard for his birthday, which was the last week in October, by taking him out on a real date. I figured it was time that I put a deposit in the proverbial "relationship account" and that really he deserved to go out and not have his date fall asleep on him. 

I really love when we do get to go out. Eating somewhere new where I haven't had to fix the meal and going fun places where the only one I have to take to the washroom is myself, is a major draw for me, so I was pretty excited about my little plan. I hired a sitter and when Richard came home on his birthday he was completely surprised to find me dressed up and ready to go out. I wish I could say he was excited about it, but it had been a long day at work, he was bordering on a headache, and I think he really would have rather just stayed home. But he went and did say it was nice to have time with just me.

Since it was his birthday, I told him we could eat out wherever he wanted to, but for a man that travels a lot this is not music to his ears, as it is mine. He determined that since restaurants hold no allure for him, we should just eat in the mall food court since we had decided to see a movie after dinner. So he had a chicken quesadilla and I had Panda Express. Maybe it was not the fanciest of birthday dinners, but it fulfilled its purpose by filling our stomachs, and we headed off to enjoy the movie.

But "enjoy" is not the right word to describe our experience with the movie 'The Invention of Lying'... "excruciating" is probably more appropriate.  We both loved Ricky Gervais in 'Ghost Town' and the trailers made the story of 'Invention' look intriguing, so we thought it was a good pick. But from the disgusting opening scene, which thankfully we were spared visually because of a film malfunction, but not audibly, we should have known we were wrong. Richard walked out of the movie more disgusted than he did when we saw 'Happy Feet'.

It was an agenda driven movie basically saying that God is a lie and that religion is just the rules made up to perpetuate that lie.  Even if you didn't catch that theme while watching the movie, which I'm not sure how you couldn't, I don't know how any Christian person could not be offended by the end.

I don't recommend it.

So we went home and paid the sitter for an evening of crap (sorry, about the language- sometimes you have to call it what it is) being pushed down our throats, enjoyed Richard's birthday treat of brownies (instead of cake) and tapioca (instead of ice cream), and after the kids were in bed we took our usual places on the loveseat where the usual activities ensued, including watching another movie.  And do you know what? I stayed awake until 1am without nodding off once. And even though the rest of the date was a flop, I think that definitely counts as a mini deposit in the 'relationship account' and I should get some credit for at least trying, don't you?

You may be wondering why I am posting this now, after all it is Monday, and no longer Saturday night, well... that's because... you guessed it- I fell asleep.