{First Night Out}

Chat and I had our first night away from both kids last night since before Ben was born.  It was waaaaaaaaaay overdue.  It was the first time it was with a true "babysitter" -- not just a grandparent -- that took care of both boys.  It was a big step for me.  I always say that I want more opportunities to go out and spend time with just Chat but when it comes time to do it, I have trouble.  I feel like it needs to be me, especially since having Ben and he has trouble with the bottle.  But I knew it was time. 

So I got a recommendation from a fellow mom of a girl who is newly married who is living in Houston while her husband attends medical school.  In a nutshell, she is fabulous and I instantly knew I felt comfortable leaving the boys with her.

We had a very busy day, but got home and settled to make our date night.  I was trying to freshen up while Ben was taking a nap.  He wakes up and it is time to nurse him since he hadn't eaten in almost 5 hours which is just unheard for Ben.  I try to nurse and nothing.  He doesn't want to eat.

What?!?!

I quietly freak out to myself since I know something is wrong.  Is he getting sick?  First Luke, then me, now Ben? 

He didn't have a fever and acted somewhat okay so we continued on with our plan.  The babysitter got here and I let her know the deal about Ben and that I think he may not be feeling his best.  I am worried he won't take a bottle from her.  He isn't good at it to begin with and the fact that he wouldn't even nurse is just a recipe for disaster.  But we continue.

Luke is great with her which surprises the heck out of me.  I love that kid, but he struggles a lot when Chat or I leave him, but he was doing very well with her, so we quietly leave.

Chat and I head to dinner and eat and drink our way through the night.  Okay, it actually was just maybe an hour and 15 minutes.  But it felt like eternity though since we weren't shoveling our food in our mouths while cutting up Luke's food and bouncing Ben on our lap.  We talked and had a great time catching up as a married couple rather than parents.  Gosh...it felt so good.  I actually started to feel at ease with the kids at home with a babysitter.  Since we finished rather early, we headed to another place just for another drink since we still had about an hour before we had to head home.

After the drink, we head home and joke about whether or not we think Ben is up.  We joke.  Hmmm...maybe we shouldn't have done that.  We are walking up to the door and I see the babysitter holding a crying Ben.  My heart sinks.  I bring Ben to his room to try to nurse him back to sleep and Chat pays and sends her home.

We head to bed and within an hour Ben has me up with over 101 degree temperature.  The rest of the night was a blurr.  The poor boy was sick.  He moaned and cried out.  I brought him in bed with me at times.  We got him on tylenol which helped.  But all in all, we had a rough night.  Especially when trying to do it with lots of wine in my system.  Score one for me.  But I rally just as any mom would do with a sick child. 

I felt so bad.  For Ben.  For the babysitter.  I knew in my gut he was off, but we had gotten so far with actually possibly having a night out, that I just went with it.  I know it was okay to do, but hindsight is 20/20 right?  Next time I will go with my gut and stay home.

But we did have a great time and will definitely use her again when everyone is well! 

Today Ben seems to be doing a bit better and Luke is almost 100% now and was able to go to school.  So we decided to head to the backyard this afternoon and do some swinging...