i’m back.
oh, what? you didn’t notice i was gone? well, neither did anybody else, so don’ t feel bad.
wednesday night, my husband informed me that i need a break from the kids, and that he arranged to have MIL pick them up on Saturday night, and spend the night at her house so we could go out together.
naturally, i flipped my lid. not only would they be spending the night away from home, but they were with MIL. recently, she had severely broken my trust in her by getting married to a man she had been dating for 1 month. not only did she marry him, but she didn’t tell us about the wedding until 3 days after it happened. he is her 8th marriage. i wasn’t comfortable with her breach of trust OR this strange man i had only met once. since then my husband and i have been around them a little more, and my husband says that Strange Guy seems to be a pretty good guy… but i’m not naturally trusting. i know the story of the BTK killer.
like i said.
i flipped my lid, but i agreed to it anyways.
why?
i have to trust someone with my kids sometime. MIL may be an idiot with men, but she is extremely protective of the kids. she’s also very good with kids, etc. other than her recent breach of trust (which she feels totally justified in doing) there was no reason not to allow this to happen, especially after my husband measured up Strange guy, and found him to be okay.
besides, the last time i was alone with my husband was when we saw the second Batman movie in the theaters. i was pregnant with my now-almost-two-year-old-daughter. it’s been a long time since my husband and i have gone on a date, and he’d been bugging me for months to find a reasonable alternative to MIL if i trust her so little. of course, i don’t have a reasonable alternative. the one person i know who i would trust with my kids has her own household full of ‘em to worry about. so there you go. we haven’t been out together in over 2 years.
i agreed, because as my husband stated, we really needed some time alone. i pouted for a day and a half before we re-worked the plan to us dropping the kids off Saturday afternoon and getting them settled in before leaving them over night.
that seemed to be the “right” thing to do, because i felt much, much better with those plans. my gut instinct was screaming “NONONO” at me anymore. i still wasn’t happy, but my marriage is very important to me. i may be slightly insane, but i know enough to be able to tell when i *might* be acting unreasonable, or over protective.
SO. we dropped the kids off on Saturday, and stayed for an hour or so to get them settled in and the pack n play set up. they did fine- MIL bought them a whole slew of toys the day before to keep them occupied. within minutes, they didn’t even notice we were there, let alone when we left.
upon leaving, we were a little lost. what the heck to couples do when they go out? we thought about going to see a movie, but the only movie that even looks good (that my husband hadn’t already seen with a friend of his) was Dragons. obviously, we weren’t going to see that without the kids.
originally, i thought about going to a movie, then finding someplace to hang out with drinks, and maybe a little pool, but we were both sick. oh, forgot to mention that? yeah, we both developed head colds the night before. we considered going to some sort of show, but again… with the head colds, we just weren’t up to it. (oh, and it was also raining, and had been so for the last 2 days)
we ended up going to a higher end mall that we don’t usually go to because the prices of all the stores are way out of our range.
we got ice cream, browsed pretty items that we [surprisingly] weren’t tempted to buy and just had fun being together. i had on my favorite pair of 4 inch heels that made me almost as tall as my husband, and we managed to act like a giddy, young couple for a little while. i even went into the Godiva store to get my traditional Raspberry Cordial. [when we were young, and i was still pregnant with my son, we used to go to a local mall all the time. we’d always splurge on 1 raspberry cordial for me… it was our treat and tradition, until we moved away) the experience was made even better, when the store clerk told me that if i just gave them my e-mail address and signed up for their rewards program, i’d get a piece of chocolate for free every month. of course, i’m always game for free chocolate, so i signed up, and my Raspberry Cordial was FREE. the only thing better than a Raspberry Cordial, is a FREE Raspberry Cordial.
while exploring the mall, i discovered that i have a love of Fossil purses (much more so than all the other name brands) and that i don’t enjoy clothes shopping as much as i used to. i discovered that i could actually walk in a pair of 4 inch sandals, and that as long as my husband was with me, it didn’t matter that my face was terribly broken out from the stress leading up to leaving my children with someone else- i still felt pretty while on his arm. 
after we left the mall, we decided to just go to Walmart and find a movie and something small to eat. we weren’t up for a restaurant, and neither of us like the Saturday dinner crowd anyways. especially while sick.
we went to a Walmart we had never been to… and turns out it’s one of the few Walmarts left in existence that doesn’t carry food. we browsed the movies, and didn’t see anything. what a wasted trip. no- not a wasted trip. as we were walking by one of the employees, my husband made a fart noise with his mouth that turned the employees face ten shades of red, and made me nearly pee my pants from laughing so hard. my man is the biggest goof ball sometimes.
on the way home, we ended up going to a local gourmet grocery store to splurge on fresh deli roast beef, applewood smoked provolone, and sweet hawaiian bread to make a gourmet sandwich. we also picked up some kettle cooked Lays potato chips, (my FAVORITE!) strawberries, chocolate, drinks, pink champagne, Milano cookies, and a few other items to complete our night of debauchery and indulgence.
we changed into our comfortable pajamas, and spent the night making sandwiches, dipping various tasty foodstuffs in chocolate, and drinking champagne. we decided to run an Indiana Jones marathon, (minus the last film. i won’t burn my retinas with that shit ever again) and took a…. break… after the first movie. we tried to get into the second film, but 7 years of running on your kid’s schedule can’t be erased in one night, so we were in bed at 10:30.
the next morning, i had coffee and milanos and the rest of Indiana for breakfast. oh, we also took another “break” that’s gonna have me walking like a Cowgirl for the next few days. 
i got to have the rest of our tasty sandwich for lunch, and another chocolate covered strawberry for desert.
it was absolutely wonderful.
i forgot how good it feels to be a woman, wife and a lover instead of just “mom”.
i still worried sick about my kids, but my husband was right on time about calling to check on them before i could even suggest it.
today, when they showed up on my front doorstep, i was thrilled to see them… my son had an awesome time (i knew he would) and my daughter slept through the night. (they all camped out in the living room) they had fun, and she didn’t show any separation anxiety at all.
until she came home.
she saw dada, and yelled “DADADADA!” she saw me, and jumped into my arms, but as soon as we crossed the threshold into our house, she burst into inconsolable tears for the next 30 minutes at least. after she calmed down, she kept giving me dirty looks, and proceeded to talk on her phone for ten minutes straight. dada shared a banana with her, and when i smiled at her she rolled her eyes and looked away.
yeah, that hurt a little bit. i know she’s just mad at me, though… she treats me like that on a daily basis, so i don’t know why it hurt so much then. i let her have her way around the house, getting used to all her toys again, and eventually, for the first time ever, she asked me for a hug.
it was like she was saying she’s sorry for being forced to be mad at me for leaving her.
i gave her a hug, and all was right with the world. she’s back to her usual bubbly cheerful self, with a few tantrums thrown in.
i’ve already done a couple loads of laundry, changed a dirty diaper, washed dishes, and contemplated vacuuming.i’ve turned my computer back on for the first time since yesterday morning, and already gone through facebook, e-mail and my google reader. back to the grind.
the joy of cooking together, comfortable conversation, good movies, body worship, and uninterrupted sleep.
for my first date in over two years, it was pretty damn good.
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