Date Night

Our beloved Alex came last night to babysit so that Braydon and I could go out for dinner for a long overdue date night. We try to do date nights pretty regularly -- and always have -- but for the past few months Little Miss has been cramping our style. So we were especially happy to get out together alone. And K & O were very happy to have Alex come last night. When I first announced the plan to them, however, they were pretty perturbed. They were annoyed that Mommy and Papi were going out to a restaurant without them (since they love restaurants so much). I explained (like I always do) that Mommy and Papi love each other very much and we need to be able to have some "alone time" together every once in a while, just us, nobody else. "Plus," I said, "we're going to a Grown Up Restaurant." I had never tagged that part on the end before and it caught their attention. "Oh!" said Kyle, "a Grown Up Restaurant? Only grown ups are allowed there?" "That's right," I said. "They don't let kids go there?" asked Owen. "Not really," I said. (We were going to our favorite wintertime date night restaurant, Blue, and it genuinely is not a kid-friendly restaurant). This concept -- of a "Grown Up Restaurant" -- seemed to make the whole idea of us going out without them more palatable. Pondering this new idea, Kyle asked, "What do they have there?" [meaning what kind of food] But before I could answer he quickly jumped in, "Wait, I know, it is a caffeine restaurant, right Mama? They have caffeine there." Owen chimed right in: "Yes! That's right Kyle, it is a caffeine restaurant! Caffeine and wine. Right Mommy?" I said, "Yup!" And that was it. From that point on there was no complaining about us going out without them. By the time Alex arrived they were waving us out the door to go get our caffeine and wine. ;0