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Date Night 2013: May

Before Isaac and I had kids, we occasionally pulled out the bed in our sleeper-sofa and slept in the living room. We don't have a TV in our room, and very, very rarely stay in hotels, so to me it feels like the ultimate luxury to be able to watch a movie while lying in bed.

I knew May would be busy, and that our primary babysitter (Isaac's mom) would be out of town for half the month, and therefore getting in an out-of-the-house date night would be tricky. So, I invited Isaac to sleepover in our living room! (The linked idea is from the Dating Divas, but I merely used the printable invitation and did not do the other things she did.) I included a $10 Kroger gift card in the envelope (leftover from a previous P&G diaper study) so that we could stock up on snacks without hurting the grocery budget.

On Friday afternoon, we stopped by Kroger on our way to a graduation party and picked out our snacks. Back at home, I set up the sleeper couch while he put the boys to bed. Then, of course, real life stepped in: it took 20 minutes to agree on a movie, then the kitchen had to be cleaned, then the boys (all hyped up from long naps and a cupcake) wouldn't settle down . . . These are the cons of date night at home!

The loot: white cheddar popcorn and petit ecolier dark chocolate cookies for both of us, 
Raisinets for me, Junior Mints for him. :)


It recently became possible to stream Amazon prime videos through the Wii, and I had an Amazon gift code hanging around from completing some online surveys, so we had even more options than Netflix usually provides. We watched The Pursuit of Happyness, because who can resist a Will Smith drama? Isaac found it somewhat inspirational, and we had a good chat afterwards about life and work and the future.

It turns out that the hard mattress of the sleeper is particularly unforgiving on my pregnant hips; Silas woke up at 4:30am and it took me over an hour to figure it was a new-tooth issue and medicate appropriately; the summer morning sun is much brighter downstairs than in our room . . . it was not a terribly restful night of sleep. Even so, it still feels luxurious to me to snack and watch movies in bed, and the whole evening (after the kitchen was clean and the boys settled down) was a pleasant change of routine. Hooray for free dates!

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