Jerilee offered Brady and I a date night this week, and we took her up on it yesterday. It was SO generous, and felt like a good chance to refresh together a little bit. I halfway planned it, but Brady reminded me that we always used to come up with the right thing to do on the fly. So we made a dinner reservation but nothing else concrete.
I got the buzzed side of my hair touched up around noon, which turned out to be perfectly timed, because my hair looked all nice and fresh for our date. Not like fresh fresh, but done, haha! I went home after my appointment and did my makeup. I was nervous to do my face up, honestly. The last time I put on makeup was 12 days ago, I spent the day crying it off, and I haven’t reapplied it, because I’ve spent a lot of time crying these days. But I risked it, and it was so fun to be reminded how much I enjoy doing makeup! It felt like a treat.
Jerilee arrived around 3:00 and Brady and I took off just a few minutes later. We ran some errands first, which sounds lame, but was actually good. We picked up the few things Dekker still needed for school, some vitamins for myself, some jeans for Laela, etc. We did the few things that weren’t pressing but weren’t ideal to do with the kids. We took our time, held hands, changed plans when we wanted, and relaxed.
For supper, we went to the Keg, which we almost never ever do. Its SUCH a treat to go there! We went one week before we were married, and we went there for a date when I was pregnant with Rowan. Our server was nice, and efficient, and we both ordered a bacon wrapped blue cheese filet with a twice baked potato and asparagus. The only difference was that he drank a Stella and I drank sangria. Yes, one small pro of not being pregnant anymore is that I can drink alcohol. I love a good red sangria, but I’d give that up forever if it made any difference.
Our food was amazing, and we opted for a walk by the river afterwards. An old standby of our younger dating years. We didn’t make it too far before we ran into an outdoor dance class. We didn’t join, but we sat and watched and rested. My body is embarrassingly tired these days, and I hated feeling that way on our date. But the rest was nice, and entertaining.
We had thought we’d stop by the ice cream bus by the river and get dessert, but we decided to go big instead, and go for yet another old standby from our younger dating years. We drove back across the city to Moxie’s for a white chocolate brownie. We sat on the patio and enjoyed our dessert and coffee, all the while making fun of the music playing. It was good laugh, and reminisce, and heckle a little. It felt good to feel just a little bit more normal than we have in a while.
Operation Brady and Hailey Hang Out has commenced. We need to date more. Not because our marriage is falling apart, or because we can’t stand our kids, or anything like that. We just need to refresh sometimes, just us, together. Especially during these times of sorrow and frustration and just SO much emotion, we are limping through the days and crashing in the evenings, and we need those times to refresh, however long or short they end up being. I think it needs to jump up on the priority list. We have another errand that we need to run one day soon, and we need to run it together, without the kids. Maybe next week I’ll fish around for a babysitter to come sit in my house for an hour after the kids go down. I just need to start looking around and asking and accepting people’s offers. Time to accept some change, I think. Good changes.