Date Nights

Back when Dave and I were only talking about having babies (for, like, 3.2 seconds before we then had one, I know--patience has never been my strong suit), we agreed that we would absolutely make sure to have a date night every week because it was important to keep our relationship strong, blah blah blah.

OK, so it is important to keep our relationship strong, but date nights require a few things that can't always be finagled, for instance:

• a baby who is not sick and thus destined to get sicker or give someone else his cold
• a mom who is equally not sick
• a dad who doesn't get stuck in meetings and then holiday traffic every night of the week
• free baby-sitting for the strapped-for-cash among us
• the will to do something "for fun" when the baby's not with us as opposed to the urge to get our tasks on the to-do list done fast, hurry, faster, we've only got an hour left, now the timer's down to 0:59:55, will you please fix the stupid changing table already?

...and so on. But the stars have been aligned the last few nights, and we have managed a date night to see Four Christmases while my parents baby-sat, a night out with Lauren for me, a brothers-in-law date to see the new Bond movie for Dave and Ben, and tonight Dave is out with Christian to cheer on the Celts. Whew! I don't know how long we can keep it up, but it's fun to have a bit of a social life again for as long as it lasts.

Happy December, everyone.