Two Days of Work and a Hot Date

Unfortunately, maternity leave doesn't last forever, and my six weeks are up.  I can still take 6 weeks of unpaid bonding time anytime before Bug's first birthday, but we figured that we'd take full advantage of our relatives while Bug is new and exciting.  My six weeks ran out two days before spring break, so I gladly agreed to come in for those two days and am now enjoying the hell out of my two week spring break.

After spring break, we have an extensive schedule of relatives coming in, one week at a time, to provide in home daycare for us for the 9 weeks until summer vacation comes and I can't wait.  Somehow, spending time with other people's children doesn't seem quite as important now as it did pre-Bug.

Luckily I had a BIG present waiting for me when I got back to my classroom.  One of mind boggling realities of working in public education is that money allocated for one thing can't be used for anything else.  So, my school laid off one of our 10 teachers last week, and the district pink slipped 90 elementary teachers after pink slipping 270 teachers last year, but my school got 2 SMART Boards.  One of them was mine.

Now, my kids are not little and cute as the little buggers in that video, but I'm sure you can imagine the implications for a high school science classroom.  I didn't even have an overhead projector before I left on break so this new toy was not only practical, but proved to be a good distraction.  I spent 2 days figuring out how to use it so that I can spend my spring "break" rewriting all of my lessons so that I can use it.

DH took the two days off of work to be with Bug.  This was the first time that Bug spent the day with him, or anyone but me for that matter, so I didn't expect that it would go well.  But when I got home, the house was clean, the laundry was done and Bug was happily snoozing in her daddy's arms.  She didn't even look happy to see me.  I have no idea what was going on ten minutes earlier... but I was very impressed.

DH spent quite a bit of time muttering something about how he'd set the bar to the appropriate level, but I reminded him that I was still responsible for all of the night nursing and that I'd spent days pumping ahead of time and several hours the night before I went back to work pre-measuring bottles and setting him up for success, but still... kind of amazing.

I decided that he we really needed a night out, and since I'd been cleared for take-off at my 6-week a few days before, we called my youngest sister... now known as Auntie KIA (Know It All... I'll explain later) and asked if she'd mind watching the baby for the evening.  She was thrilled, but since this was a last minute plan, she couldn't get to our house to pick up the baby until 7 that evening.

Maybe you can see where this is going.

I'd purchase movie tickets from Fandango through a  LivingSocial deal that we hadn't used yet (of course), so I let DH pick a movie for our dinner and a movie hot date.  My sister told us to take as much time as we needed, so there was no rush to get back.

He chose a 7:50 showing of Battle: Los Angeles, not giving to eat before the movie.   Oh well... we'd be done by ten and have plenty of time for a quick dinner, a drink and who knew what else.  It didn't matter... as much as I missed Bug, DH and I needed time to reconnect.

I vowed long before I got pregnant that I wouldn't allow a baby to come between me and my time with the hubs... and I definitely wasn't going to be one of those anxious moms that called the sitter 3,000 times on the first night out.

Now, let me tell you a secret.  I knew Battle: LA was going to be a suck fest, but DH rates movies based on the number of bullets that are fired and that meant he'd love it.  So, I could grin and bear it.  But for the record, it was pretty damn terrible.  The dialogue, which thankfully was limited to the seconds between attacks, was beyond painful.  It unfortunately wasn't entertaining enough to keep my mind off of my phone, which I checked 3,000 times, but didn't make a single phone call.  DH didn't seem to notice as the bullet count was among the highest of any movie we'd ever seen.

The movie let out at 10:30... how did that happen?  We agreed that it was too late to squeeze in some private mommy and daddy time and it would make sense to grab a quick bite at a restaurant near Auntie KIA's house.  Unfortunately, Auntie KIA lives in a college town, and on Saturday night all of the restaurants are filled to the brim with drunken college kids.  Not my idea of a romantic evening and finding a table would be next to impossible.  How did we not think of that?

We were at Auntie KIA's by 11 and by the time we had Bug packed and ready to go our dining options were limited to the BK (yuck!) drive through.  Thus, our evening ended not with a BANG (don't be a pervert!), but a whimper.

Being a parents definitely changes things.  It was still a nice to just be alone with DH, even if it was brief.  Next time, we'll plan a little better and make it happen more often.