Sunday, February 13, 2011

Our Valentines Date....a "love" story


The grandparents did us a huge favour and took our lovely children for sleepover so my darling and I could spend the night alone, celebrating Valentines day a bit early I suppose. When they made the offer last week I immediately started stressing, "where should we make reservations?" "Should we go see a movie?" Spending time just the two of us is so completely RARE that I panicked with the opportunity. I left the reservation making till the last minute therefore didn't get the restaurant of choice, but alas, we got a reservation at a nice restaurant. We arrived at the restaurant with super early, parent kind of reservations, 5:30 p.m. to be exact. We are so accustomed to eating early because of the kids, it just seemed right. We settled in to our table and excitedly looked over the menu, so happy to just be alone.


Dining at restaurants with children is a nightmare most times, where we end up shoving the food in our mouths so fast we don't even enjoy it just to get out of there. We took the kids for suishi a couple of weeks ago and it was the most embarassing and stressful dinner of both of our lives. Chopsticks were being used for weapons, soy sauce was Ruby's "weapon" of choice as she loving dumped her "silly" sauce all over her rice until it resembled a silly sauce rice soup. We threatened bedtime as soon as we get home, we threatened no ice cream for dessert, we threatened "I'm going to take you out to the car if you don't stop!" All the while in this cozy, tables too close together restaurant, other patrons gawking at us like we were freaks...lol. We got home and Alex announced to the kids they "weren't allowed suishi again till they were 18", like they cared.


So here we are alone without kids at a nice restaurant, we ordered a seared tuna to start, served with this delicious wasabi drizzle we took each bite and looked into each others eyes like we were falling in love all over again!! I'm not sure if the love was for eachother or the tuna...either way, we were feeling the love. The conversation was easy and the silences I realized were easy too. The silence was enjoyable and comfortable, after so many years and having two children we didn't feel the need to clutter up silence with forced chit chat, and that to me is love. Our entrees arrived, chicken and lobster pasta for me, which i only gave a 3.5 out of 5. Alex ordered a bison steak which he only gave about the same. The food was not amazing but hell, better than wolfing down pizza at pizza hut with the kids.


We finished up dinner and it was only 6:45! What did we want to do to fill our time, I suggested we hit up Loblaw to grab some coffee for tomorrow morning so here we were on our date night at loblaw. We cruised Joe Fresh for kids clothes and I felt happy but there was a voice inside my head that nagged, "this is not romantic" "shouldn't we be at home under the sheets?" "Have we lost that lovin feelin?" I decided to stay in the moment. We didn't need to force any romance, we just needed to be enjoying eachother's company.


Now as many of you know, and some of you might not, I am nearly 18 weeks pregnant. So I generally start yawning at 7:30 p.m. Especially with a belly filled with pasta, i started thinking about crawling under the sheets but not for any other reason than sleep. We headed home and curled up on the couch together, watching first "housewives of Atlanta" and then one of our favourites "chopped" on the food network. We snuggled and I laughed so hard I literally cried my makeup all down my face. Not necessarily the kind of romance that would have been happening in our "pre-kid" days. However, it was comfortable and fun and to me, love is being able to be yourself and love is when you laugh so hard your mascara runs down your face and makes you look like a scary monster, and he still loves you just the same.

4 comments:

  1. Tammy: What a beautiful post! You are so right. "Love is being able to be yourself and love is when you laugh so hard your mascara runs down your face and makes you look like a scary monster, and he still loves you just the same."

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  2. Tammy, i love this post... it was refreshing to hear someone else admit they have "dinners from hell" while taking kids out for dinner... always nice to know you aren't alone... we have often found ourselves at the superstore or walmart on our date nights... :)

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  3. Well, it's good to know we are not alone Melinda!

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