Date Night, crazy anxious mom style

Remember this creepy book?



That's my life now. In all the childbirth/newborn classes we took they emphasized seeking help if you resent your child or are afraid you will harm your child. They did not touch on the problem of being way too obsessed with your child.

Several people suggested sending Dalton to daycare a few days this week while we have off. No. It makes sense, but I'd rather just give her my hard earned money and snuggle him all day.

I'm not sending him anywhere.

Last night, we went on our first date night since entering the wild world of parenthood. We have been out together twice before, once in the afternoon, and once for a happy hour while my mom was visiting. Never at night together (I went out to meet friends for drinks once after bedtime).

For Christmas, I got Eric Wicked tickets. We are kind of obsessed. We had already been three times.

2009 in NYC

I bought them back in the newborn days when time had no meaning and just looked for when I could get the most for my money seat-wise. Now, here we are and the show was at 8, meaning we would have to leave right at bedtime.



I had anxiety for weeks over this and seriously considered just telling Eric to find another date. I had assumed, when I bought the tickets, that in six months I would be more comfortable leaving him. I was wrong.

If you try to use logic, my anxiety made no sense for a variety of reasons.

1. My good friend Kristin was generously coming over to babysit. She has two wonderful teenage daughters that she raised single handedly, so clearly watching one baby for a few hours was nothing she couldn't handle. She also watched Dalton on our first outing to one of those wine/paint parties and has hung out with him plenty of times beyond that.
2. We leave him EVERY DAY to go to work.
3. It was only for a few hours.
4. We were only going maybe 10 miles away.
5. I love seeing Wicked and should have been looking forward to the show.
6. It's probably good to focus on your marriage here and there even after having a kid.

But none of that crap matters with crazy mommy love/hormones/whatever it is, and I honestly wasn't looking forward to it at all, more like dreading it. It was bad enough I had to leave that morning to get my first haircut since September, although luckily that coincided with naptime.

Kristin and her daughter came over for dinner and playtime, and the bedtime routine.

I'll try to make him laugh ALL DAY and then I'll breathe funny and he will crack up.

We ended up being able to put him to bed before we even left.

This girl is not even 13 and a baby whisperer!

I was having serious terrors over someone else putting him down. I can just picture myself reading that sentence like a year ago and being like w.t.f. lady. But when you pop that kid out you turn insane, at least in my experience, and the fear is real.

Then we got fancy and left. I wore a non-nursing bra for the first time since I was pregnant. And heels!

Beautiful backdrop of medals, toys, and Fenugreek.

We got to the theater and I had some wine and totally relaxed and all was well.

HA. If you know me at all, you know that wasn't the case. I was still a bundle of nerves the whole time that Dalton would wake up and be devastated to find his parents weren't there. The fear of leaving, for me, has nothing to do with the competency of the babysitter, and everything to do with feeling like I'm being selfish and upsetting him just so I can die with happiness during Defying Gravity. The guilt is real. Maybe unjustified, but real.

Luckily Kristin does know me very well and sent me tons of updates, which were 99% some variation of "still sleeping" (and one that he woke up and went back down quickly). So it was all fine, and we took off the second the show ended and curtain calls began. Eric obviously wasn't a psycho like me, but he was eager to get home too.

In the end, everyone survived and Dalton probably had no clue we were even gone, and I don't want to do that again anytime soon. Yup, I'm that mom. Maybe it seems pathetic but I leave him ~50 hours a week to earn a living, and that's so much more than enough. I enjoyed nights out pretty much every weekend throughout my entire 20s, and now I want to stay home with my baby. Even if it's just fooling around on the internet while he sleeps in his bedroom, I want to be there in case he wakes up. For both of our sakes. If I still feel this way in 13 years, I will seek help, I promise.

(But can you believe that jerk had the audacity to wake up at the normal time this morning? Um, hello, we were out past 11 last night, can we get a snooze button on this thing please?) ~SARCASM~

Totally unrelated but 5 days OMGOMGOMG. 

Finally some proof he is my child.

Jon Snow is on Kelly and Michael right now and he is afraid of needles JUST LIKE ME life complete I never want spring break to end but also CANNOT WAIT FOR SUNDAY.