amenopausalmom.com

Date nights have changed over the years, haven’t they married/single/divorced mothers?

Face it: Gone are the gropings in the back of the car. The steamy windows. The underpanties draped over the rear view mirror. The only time any of this happens is when I’m trying to change my daughters’ clothes after a long day at the beach, and I’m generally screaming at the top of the lungs in an angry voice while doing this.

No, date nights have changed now that we have two young kids.

Dinner out doesn’t happen, unless the two are in tow. When we do go out, we chug our wine so that the girls don’t accidentally spill it as they grab bread and salad and other food from the table as soon as the waitress sets it down. (You’d think they never eat, but my grocery bill can prove otherwise!)

The movies? Please! The last time my husband and I saw a movie alone was right before the birth of the second daughter. That night lasted five hours (movie AND dinner!). We had to rush home to not surpass that fifth hour since the babysitter cost $12 per hour and we were already well over $100 for the dinner, movie and sitter that night.

Last night my husband and i had date night. It went something like this:

1. Cheap but good bottle of Cabernet
2. Our swing out in the backyard

It started out slowly, as though it was our first date ever. We chatted about silly things, like how our garden was doing, and whether or not the cantaloupe plant would survive.

Then the wine loosened our tongues, and suddenly there we were, all alone on the swing, the wine warming our throats.

Funny how you can be in one place physically but in another place altogether on another level.

We weren’t in our swing in our backyard. We were in a tropical paradise, the two of us, with no worries in the world. We were laughing and joking about things that didn’t have the words kids, temper tantrum, diapers or bills in the sentences. We joked about when we first started dating. We laughed about my husband’s old roommates, all of whom were crazy. We talked about the long commute we used to have just to see each other, when we were both finishing up graduate school and living an hour away from one another.

Suddenly, our life was just about us, the two of us, right there and right then on that backyard swing.

The bottle of wine gone, we climbed into bed. It was almost 11. Late for us. You know, we have kids; we always have to get up early these days.

And early it was. At 4 AM the baby let us know that she needed something. What, we weren’t sure, so she ended up in bed between us, her little fingers and toes seeking our warm bodies, bringing us together. As I lay there trying to get back to sleep I realized this:

Date nights have changed, as have our lives. Those carefree days are gone. Now we are inundated with responsibilities and burdens so heavy that sometimes our backs feel as they are about to break.

And yet, these are the best of times.

I would so much rather spend the evening talking on the swing than groping in the backseat of the car.

I would so much rather get woken up by a precious, delicious little baby each morning, even if it is only 4 AM, than sleep until noon and wake up alone.

Menopausal Mom may sometimes complain about temper tantrums, poopy diapers, seemingly unsurmountable bills and other atrocities that being a grown up brings (not counting wrinkles, C section scars and flab!), but this time, this backyard swing time, this wake up at 4 AM to a crying baby time, is the best time in her life.

And she wouldn’t have it any other way.