Saint Brooke

It has happened. For the last seven, nearly eight, years, RxMan and I have never really had a babysitter that we could leave Her Highness and, now, The Conqueror with in the evening so we can go places. But, twice now, we have managed to do that and Friday evening was the second time. Can you imagine??? For those of you who have always had this luxury, you cannot understand the elation to be able to leave your home in the twilight hours kidless. It is truly a remarkable experience. I didn't have to be concerned that HH and TC were going to be overly tired and ruin my meal. I knew that they were at home, sleeping and watching High School Musical, 2.

It's not that we didn't ever want to go out without our children. We did. Sometimes desperately so. We, however, didn't have anyone to leave them with. My parents would watch HH (before TC was born) but they go to sleep at 9PM so that makes it difficult to do anything very late and, until the last year or so, HH didn't sleep over anywhere without us.

I know, I know. That is my fault. I took the attachment parenting to the extreme with her. It is not like she slept with us but I couldn't bear the idea of her not being home any more than she could bear being away. This is probably going to be a bit of a problem with TC because he nurses to go to sleep (again, I know that is not good but I'd like to know how not to do this, seiously.) but already he is sleeping much better than HH and he goes down around 7 and sleeps until 4-5AM. He is a good nighttime sleeper.

So, RxMan and I got TC down and left HH with Brooke, a sixteen year old granddaughter of my mom's friend. She is smart, a good student, responsible (has a job at a clothing store) and super nice. We went to dinner and then, fighting sleep, went to Kohl's to kill time before coming home. Yeah, exciting, right? Well, no, but it was nice just to be out amongst adults without our little ones. We don't do bars anymore. Been there done that. And our town doesn't have much of a nightlife outside of that.

I found it rather great just to know we have the ability and option to be able to foray out into the non-kid world. What an adventure! I am postively rubbing my hands together with excitement at the prospect of going out again.