New Mummy Blog: Date Night - Expectation Versus Reality

We've been offered the rarest of treats, something we haven't dared to dream of for some time. A night out. A night off. A night free of children.

With a newborn baby, a toddler and no family near by, we're not exactly inundated with babysitting offers. It's rare we get any time to ourselves and even rarer that we get time together. Tonight was going to be different. It's date night.

I've been looking forward to it all day and had planned to make the most of it. I'd start with a luxurious soak in the tub, then take my time getting dolled up and ready for our big night out.

We've got a dinner reservation, but we'll head out early to have a drink in the sun before dinner. And don't expect us home before, oh, at least midnight.

Except things aren't exactly going to plan, and we're not even out the door yet.

My children, who usually love their bath, book, bed routine and happily settle down to sleep with the minimum of fuss at the stroke of 7pm, are playing up.

Perhaps the palpable excitement of their parents is infectious, but it's fast approaching time for us to leave and the toddler is tearing around naked and the baby is bright eyed showing no signs of impending sleep.

It seems they didn't get the memo. We should be off duty by now. Okay, so I'll scrap the plan for a bath. A quick shower will suffice.

More time passes. The shower will have to go, too. But I should still have time to make an effort with my hair and make up. Perhaps not. A quick hair brush will have to do. And we can scrap the pre-dinner drink. If we leave in the next five minutes we should still be just in time for our table.

The toddler is finally asleep. But I forgot to take the clothes I was planning to wear out of there first (worn so rarely, they've been relegated to the spare wardrobe in her room).

But now the baby was woken up again and is crying. He wants to feed. I hand responsibility, and a bottle, over to our willing babysitter, my mum, who is staying with us for a week.

Henry is not happy about this. He stares at me, incredulous, and juts out his bottom lip. Even after my mum coaxes the bottle in (he can never resist the lure of food for long) his eyes follow me, accusingly, around the room, his gulps intermingling with sobs.

I leave the room and the sobs become wails. I waiver. I can't leave my mum with him like this, he'll never settle. My husband sees me hesitate and marches me out the door. At last, our night begins.

By the time we get there, I'm positively giddy. 'There' is only our local pub. But it could be a Michelin star restaurant, I'm so excited. I'm totally overdressed, even in my second choice outfit, but I don't care.

We overshare with the manager as we sit down. It's just us! No kids! He nods kindly - with three under eight himself, he understands. I want to shout it from the rooftops that were out. But I settle for social media. Look! We do have a life!

But there's no phone coverage. This doesn't thwart me. It's such a novelty that I post it when we get home. No bad thing if it looks like we're still out. Never mind that my mum is sitting next to me and now liking the picture.

But back to the beginning of the evening. We'd better get our order in quick, says my husband, as we watch a large party traipse past us to their table. Oh wait, no we don't. We're in no rush. We don't have children to entertain through the meal, buying another five minutes of civility with the promise of ice cream.

We can eat what we want, not what we think she'd like a bit of or what can be eaten with one hand while we bounce him on our knee. The wine comes. We sit back and sigh. We're determined not to talk about the kids all night. We talk about the kids all night.

I start to feel lightheaded after one glass of wine. I'm exhausted after two. I have to stop there anyway - one, because I'm breastfeeding and don't want a baby pickled by alcohol and two, because a hangover these days is death by small child.

It's time to go and it's only ten to ten.

And oh it's nice to be home.

[New Mummy Blog: Surviving The Night Feeds (Barely)]

[New Mummy Blog: The Trick To Eating Out With Small Children]