A spontaneous date! Does it get any better than that?

Sometimes doing what you don't feel like doing turns out to be the best thing you can do for yourself.

Hadn't seen my Gram in almost 2 weeks so I knew I better get myself and, more importantly to her, the kids up to her house yesterday or I'd be in for a serious guilt trip.  Nobody lays it on like Flo but I really didn't feel like going.  I was tired and cranky from the furniture craziness of the previous evening, not to mention poleaxed by the pile of baby blankets and bibs I found shoved in a storage tote in the back of the guest room closet.  All those unexpected blue and pink slips of fabric and the promise attached to them were too much for me which is why they are in the back of the van, ready to go to Goodwill so they don't catch me by surprise again.

At any rate, I was in no mood for dragging the kids up I-95 to a house chock full of glass tables and knickknacks but I knew I had to go.  Misery loves company so I lured Tom along with the promise of a trip to Chickie and Pete's, our favorite crab restaurant back home.  When we got to Gram's, my Mom and my Aunt Joan were there as well.  I told my Mom that we planned to go to Chickie's while we were in Philadelphia.  She said, "Oh, really?  Without the kids?"  Ummm, no, that wasn't the plan but hot damn!  If that's an offer then I am so picking up what you are throwing down!

The kids went down the basement to color and do puzzles (which is an extra slice of awesome.  I know puzzles are good for their brains but I hate the fricking mess!) and we snuck out.  For a date.  Just Tom and me.  In the middle of the day.  AWESOME!!!

I love my children.  Anyone who knows me knows how much I love them within 5 minutes of meeting me.   I delight in spending the bulk of my time with them and have never regretted the changes I had to make for them to be the focus of my life.  The thing is, I love Tom, too, and I don't get to spend nearly enough time focusing on him these days.  That's just the way it is with young children.  Tom and I know that it won't always be this way so we grab whatever stolen moments alone we can and enjoy the hell out of them.  That's what made yesterday so great -- we got to be together like the old days, the kids were happy to play with some of their favorite people and I didn't have to plan like a madwoman to make it all happen.

Tom got a Dos Equis in honor of Cinco de Mayo.  I had a glorious sugary, caffeinated Coke.  Okay, 3 actually but whatever.  It's a celebration, bitches.  We split crab fries and 2 lbs of snow crab legs.  Hot wings for him, mozzarella sticks for me.  It was fattening, greasy, decadent and wonderful.  We watched the Phillies game, talked about kid stuff, talked about non-kid stuff and had a wonderful hour spending time as Christy and Tom, not Mama and Daddy.  It's not that it's hard to take the kids to a restaurant -- they are excellent when we take them out and we often get compliments from the waitstaff and/or fellow diners.  It was just nice to eat the food while it was hot without a squirmy toddler on my lap.  There weren't 12 trips to the bathroom.  I didn't have to convince Jack that the crabs wouldn't crawl across the table to bite him or coax Madam into another nibble of food.  Glorious freedom which reminded me why I fell in love with my funny, silly, wonderful husband 8 years ago and how lucky I am to have 2 kids who act like the sun just burst through the clouds when I return home to them.