One of our favorite things to do every other week was to go to P.F. Chang's and a movie or some other date-night type activity.
The key purpose was to escape our children for a night and talk to each other. Talking without a child interrupting you for ketchup or the eighteenth glass of juice, is unheard of. Starting a sentence and finishing it, all in less than two minutes, is a foreign concept at this point. If you start to tell a really good story, you are bound to lose your audience on the third time you leave the room to break up a fight or pull Noah off the ceiling. Talking to your spouse in complete thoughts is really a good thing, if you can make it happen--- we highly recommend it.
Leaving the mission campus for any sort of romance is basically out of the question.
First, there are not many choices for romantic getaways. Second, we really cannot leave our children. Third, you are not supposed to go out after dark. Fourth, you are always sweaty and who feels attractive or romantic when sweat is dripping down their back? Fifth and lastly, if you leave La Digue clean and dry, no matter where you are going, you will end up soaked and dirty to start your date. Nothing can be done about it. The truck has plastic seats and minimal air-conditioning. The roads are dirt.
SOOOOO-
Lately, at about nine pm, we talk Britt into stopping the chatter and heading to her room. By 10 she actually listens. The other four are also in bed by this time.
If the energy level allows for a date, here is what we have come up with:
1. Start with a walk under the stars to go turn the generator on. Romantic?
2. Find our coolest P.J's, apply mosquito repellent and crank up some fans. Romantic?
3. Get the laptop set up and watch an episode of "The Office" in bed, which we know is not romantic ... but is hilarious. Crude, uncomfortable and hilarious. Romantic? Not really.
Eighteen minutes in, Troy is laughing so hard that he disturbs my slumber. Romantic?
End of date.
Pity party over. Gripe session over. The world has real problems, I know this.
~Tara
