The eyebrows of the visiting neighborhood girls shot up as they responded, "Wow, that's great!," before turning to me with twinkling eyes. "Yeah," I responded with a lackluster grin. My husband had just asked me to join him for wings at the corner pub and I was tired but determined to see this through as I had turned down his last three "30 cent wing night" invites. When I whispered "Daddy and I are going on a date," to my youngest it was more with the incentive of hurrying her through her nighttime routine of jammies, teeth brushing, prayers, and story time. She took my announcement as the epitome of every princess and prince story time and...well...ran with it- straight to my closet to pick out the fanciest of fancies for me to wear on our "date."
 |
| Fancy! |
I kid you not, my pipsqueak, little blondie was starry eyed as she dove into the array of coat hangers and literally held up sequins and ruffles. I countered with comfy hopefuls of denim capris and t-shirts. She developed a system of giving me thumbs half-way up or even thumbs down. At one point her thumbs down was so vehement that I asked if I should donate the colorful tank I halfheartedly held up. She responded, "nah, you don't have to get rid of it...I might grow used to it...one day." Aaand, into the donate bag it went.
"Ummmm...how bout we try something that matches a bit more?," I weakly offered. She could deal with options, "Sure Mom, show me what you got!" "Wellll...," I tried to buy time as I rummaged around and came up with two safe choices. I bravely held out #550 SAND in one hand and with a flourish attempted to impress her with No-name option 2 which could have been named SAND with a mere hint of glimmer. Her obvious lack of enthusiasm was immediately on display as she lowered her eyelids halfway to convey her boredom and asked, "So...they're the same?"
 |
| BOOOORING! |
This night was destined to be a teacher from the get-go...I can barely admit that I had attempted to reward my sixteen year-old son's hard work at the house by inviting him to come with us. To say my husband lacked enthusiasm with eyelids half lowered would be a gross understatement. He was looking forward to "date-night" as well. Turns out all this effort was to open my tired eyes to see how deep I had dug into the trenches of Mommy-hood. In the end, well- actually before we began, we were asked to leave the wing establishment because of our son's age. We had no idea they had recently changed their rules to prevent anyone under 21 to be seated after 9 p.m- even at the outside patio that had drawn us on previous summer nights.
Ironically, my six-year old daughter was my "wing-man" that night...having my back and giving me a lot to think about in terms of dating my husband.
All's well that ends well. On my next invite to date-night you can bet I found a happy medium somewhere between sequins and denim...and even broke out the curling iron and brighter pallets that left SAND in the dust. My husband and I eventually enjoyed a night out, held hands, giggled at brave karaoke participants, and reveled in that sweet feeling of 17 years and going strong. Casual or frilly, I'm looking forward to dating my hubby for years to come!
