Dinner Date

Last night, my almost-sister-in-law offered to babysit so that the husband and I could go out to dinner for Valentine's day.

It was the first time in at least 7.5 months that we went out to dinner together / alone.

At first, it felt very odd to be in the car with the husband but not with the baby. It was odd to be talking and not have whatever it is she is doing buzzing along in the back of my head (of course, I did spend most of the night wondering what she was up to and I may have sent off a text just to check!). But it was lovely - we had dinner, we wandered through Kmart and we went to see a movie.

It was also only the fifth time that we went out at night without her - we've been to a wedding, a 30th dinner, a movie and a dinner for one of the husband's sports teams.

It was funny - although it's such a cliche, I did feel like a little piece of me is missing. If she's not in my arms, she's usually in my sights. It's just me and her a lot of the time, and so I am used to being aware of what she is doing. It's like I'm a computer with a 'baby' task always running in the background.

From all reports, she was pretty well behaved. She had a jar of food for dinner, did a big sloppy poo, grappled with wanting a drink but not liking the taste of formula, and then a bit of whinging. When we got home it was nice to be able to just duck in and see her sleeping peacefully.

I guess I should also try to do it a bit more, so that she doesn't get used to having me there almost all the time (and it would probably be good for the husband and I to have that time together too!).