Date Night, Part the Third

We went out last night in honor of Bill's birthday.  We had a new babysitter who hasn't watched Nathan at our house before, but she has watched him over at his friend's house.

I think we're getting better at the whole date night thing.  Or at least, I personally am coming around enough that I can at least see that the benefits of the date night might outweigh of the hassles of preparing for a babysitter. 

The first hassle was the procurement of dinner/snacks for the babysitter.  I went with a DiGiorno pizza this time.  I figured it was the meal that said "I made something specifically for you" without having to actually go out and buy something from a restaurant.  I bought chips and popcorn so Nathan could have a special snack, and then I got the fixin's for (microwave) s'mores, which he is always begging me to make.

(Bill doesn't understand my obsession with getting good food for a babysitter, but that's because he wasn't the avid babysitter that I was as a teenager.  The food availability at a particular house was a Big Deal when I was babysitting.  No doubt the husbands and wives who hired me to babysit in the mid-90s had the exact same argument about the importance of food provision for babysitters.) 

Next we had to clean our house like nobody's business.  The thing about a babysitter is, her job necessitates being in certain areas of your home that you might not clean for your average guests.  So I had to clean all the bedrooms and bathrooms.

Next I:

• Typed up the babysitter instructions, which, okay, only took like 5 minutes because I already had a document saved from a previous babysitter experience.  
• Set a bunch of stuff out so they would be easily locatable for the babysitter (the labeled s'more fixin's, bedtime stories, Nathan's toothbrush, and so on).  
• Prepared meals for the babysitter and Nathan.  
• Gave Nathan a bath because I have a hard time letting a babysitter do it.  
• Took a shower myself because I was cleaning all afternoon, and, I don't know if I mentioned this in the last five minutes, but we still haven't gotten our effing AC fixed. 

 At 5:00 the babysitter arrived, and I gave her the whole house tour.  This is this room, this is that thing, I am going to undermine your intelligence by suggesting you don't know how to operate a light switch, etc.  Plus we had to go through the detailed "this is how you use our TV remote," which, seriously, is becoming ridiculously complicated.  Remote control operation was already getting complicated when I was babysitting in the mid-90s, and it just keeps getting worse.

Let me say one more thing about babysitting in the era of weird remote controls.  I recall many a late night in my babysitting days when I was forced to pop in the least obnoxious children's/family videotape the people had, just because I couldn't figure out how to switch back to regular TV mode.  The parents would come home to find me watching Beauty and the Beast or some such Disney film.  So every time a babysitter comes, I insist that we leave the big TV in TV mode, and that Nathan can watch a DVD in the other room.  Bill wants Nathan to watch his DVD on the big TV, and inevitably we end up having an argument in front of the babysitter, where I wind up implying that the babysitter is not smart enough to figure out our TV. 

"I can probably figure it out," the poor babysitter interjects.

"Oh, I can't," I say, hanging my head in shame.

Look, the whole remote control operation thing seems easy when somebody's giving you the tutorial.  But then three hours later, you're staring at 6 identical remotes, and you can't remember whether you're supposed to hit ModeOpt or AuxCont first, and just when you think you've figured it out you realize you're watching the picture of regular TV with the audio from a Backyardigans DVD. 

Anyway.

Nathan was oddly clingy when we left, and he cried a lot, which is unusual for him.  Bill is a much bigger softie than I am, because he was trying to console Nathan before we left, whereas I usually just wait until Nathan isn't looking and bolt out the door.  I stick by my methods.  It's what mothers have been doing for centuries, and as far as I know it hasn't scarred anybody for life.

So, by the time we got through the house tour, the six-part remote control tutorial, and the consolation of the crying child, we didn't get out the door until 5:45.  Now, we didn't know what we wanted for dinner, but our plan for after dinner was to see X-Men: First Class.  Unfortunately every single local theater was showing the movie at either 7:00 or 9:00.  Seriously, why no 8:00 showing?  Movie theaters are so not babysitter-friendly.  There might have been a time in our lives when we would have said, "Oh, okay, let's shoot for the 9:00, and we can just kill time until it starts."  But when you have a babysitter on the clock at $12/hour, there is no killing time.  That's just one of the many realities of parenting that I still haven't come to accept. 

Bottom line, when all was said and done, we had like 20 minutes to eat.  So our big romantic dinner was at Five Guys, which, I'm sorry to say, is vastly superior to In-N-Out.  Vastly.  I attempted to look at our fast-food date night as romantic and cute--you know, the whole "anything is fun as long as we're together" kind of thing.  Plus their food is really, really good, and I cheated on Weight Watchers big-time, and also they have one of those new-fangled drink dispensers that has the touch-screen and lets you pick from like 100 different types of sodas. 

We made it to the movie in time, and I was kind of insistent on getting popcorn.  I wasn't always a movie popcorn person, but when you get out as seldom as I do, I figure you can splurge.

And even though the movie was Bill's choice, I ended up really liking it.  Largely because James McAvoy is now my new boyfriend:

"Please, Shannon, stop staring into my piercing blue eyes and pay attention to your husband.  Remember, I also played Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia, and he was a half-goat-man.  What are you, some kind of freak who's into beastiality?"

Ahem.  

The movie was good. 

During the movie, I felt a sense of I enjoy going to the movies.  I enjoy acting like a grown-up.  I enjoy my husband. 

So I guess date night is worth all the hassle, which is what others have been saying all along. I do not enjoy when other people are right.  That is like one of my least favorite things. 

And back at home, all was well with the babysitter.  Nathan went to bed fine, which as you know is not one of his strengths, and the house was still spotless.

And, in reality, I guess we have to clean the house anyway, and we have to buy groceries anyway, so some of the babysitter preparation isn't adding any additional work to our lives.  

Which means, in the end, I guess date night is worth it.  I guess we'll go out again sometime.  Once we've saved up enough money to pay the babysitter, of course.