Date night!

I am so excited about today!!! I am getting one of my favorite Christmas presents...a date night.

I've asked for this since Andrew was born. So that's not too long, just 3 Christmases. This year, I got a huge box under the tree. It was really heavy, and I had no idea what it could be. It seems there are consequences for inviting my father to participate in our family Christmas...his weirdo wrapping habits are contagious! He and Jeff went upstairs to wrap gifts the day before Christmas, and THIS is what I get. They had wrapped up box inside box, and some of the boxes were full of books from my bookshelf upstairs! Anyway, I finally got to 2 tickets to the Cincinnati Symphony! And dinner to my favorite restaurant! And my mom and dad are going to watch Andrew! Then a few weeks ago I added the idea of staying in a hotel after the concert, so we are doing that too!!!

Can you tell by all the exclamation marks that I don't get out much???!!!

So last night Jeff and I are playing with Andrew. Actually, I had just changed a MONSTER diaper. Seriously. You know you are in trouble when your kid doesn't go for 2 days, but you can never be truly prepared for the end result. After thinking about how long it had been, I was seriously putting Andrew on the potty every couple of hours. No can do. He hunkered down in front of the refrigerator magnets and pooped out Rhode Island. But his Luvs held it all in! Go Luvs! Cheaper than those other diapers, but do the job just as well! What was Jeff doing while I had toxic duty? Changing light bulbs. We had 8 bulbs out around the house (not normal light bulbs, but chandelier bulbs, flood bulbs,etc). I make Jeff live in the cold, but I figured we could at least have light, right? So our exciting Friday night outing was to Lowes. Woo-hoo. So how could I ask Jeff to change Andrew when he was restoring light to the world?

What was my point? Oh yes, hanging out with Andrew. So I went ahead and put him in his pj's and we spent some time singing "Fuzzy and Blue", because Andrew was...well..., fuzzy and blue. Jeff came into Andrew's room with an aura around his body. Okay, it really was just that there was so much light in the hallway, it seemed like he was coming out of heaven. We start tickling Andrew and singing with him, etc etc. I told him that tomorrow we would go see Memere and Pepere. He replied "Go Flyers!" and "Go Bengals!" (my parents have different allegiances for different seasons). He was very excited. I continued that Mommy and Daddy were going to go on a date and he would get to stay with Memere and Pepere. Maybe they would take him out for ice cream. And Jeff proceeded to teach him to chant "UDF...UDF...UDF" (United Dairy Farmers). Andrew was laughing and chanting along. Then he got stone serious and said, "Andrew go on dating too?"

Poor kid. He just doesn't get it. I remember my parents leaving us behind and never understanding how they could have any fun without us. Ah, how parenthood explains things.

So what did I tell him? What can you say when your sweet 2 year old asks earnestly to go on a date too? I told him that he would have to wait 14 years to go on a date. Or if he is like his father, 17.

To which I got tickled mercilessly by Jeff. As I'm writhing in tickles on Andrew's floor, pinned down by my husband, Andrew stands over me and shouts, "Mommy not being nice."

Hmmmm, I thought I had this kid to help me gang up on Jeff. I guess the tides have turned. It's time to have a girl and make this balance even!