Many things change as we age. Our hair gets slightly thinner, our skin gets slightly slacker, our faces get slightly wrinklier and our minds get slightly more confused. These are all things I’ve already come to terms with and am ready to accept. But what happened this weekend is unacceptable and I am unsure how to proceed from here.
I have a fairly large family by today’s standards. And we all live in the same neighborhood. Literally. There are but two streets that separate any of us. We’re a little commune minus the prairie dresses and braided hair. Weird for some but it definitely works for us.
I have an older sister with three kids, ages 13, 10 and 8 years old and a twin brother with two kids ages 10 and 7. Along with my own two, ages 7 and 3, my parents are the proud grandparents of 3 boys and 4 girls. They decided to have a girl’s night and take the little ladies out to dinner and then on to Build-a-Bear for a little retail therapy. The boys were going to convene at my house where my 13 year-old nephew would hold down the fort.
Time for a grownup night out. (Way) back in the day…before my kids were ever a little speck in my fallopian tubes…I enjoyed a night out like no other. I could spend hours in a club, dancing my much smaller behind off, until the wee hours of the morning. After what was essentially a power nap I could bounce out of bed, relatively unaffected, ready to face the day.
So, it should come as no surprise that I was anxious for a little time away from the kidlets. My sister and brother-in-law, brother and sister-in-law, the hubby and I set out for a night out on the town, starting with dinner at a local brewery. We were all reminded how nice it is to go out for a meal that does not include multiple trips under the table locating dropped crayons, cleaning up spilled drinks and refereeing “he’s touching me” feuds. To sit and actually taste the food one is ingesting is such a novelty and I will never take it for granted.
After dinner, none of us quite ready to call it a night, we headed towards a phenomenal bakery for a little sweet noshing. We sat over eclairs and peanut butter nanaimo bars laughing and teasing each other relentlessly. If there’s one area in which my family is particularly gifted it is in teasing and playfully exploiting the weak spot in our fellow members. Not necessarily something to be proud of but, hey, it’s our thing.
Following our dessert course my brother-in-law decided we needed to liven things up a bit and head to a Mexican restaurant cantina for drinks. “Heck ya,” we all answered, eager to channel our inner ‘younger selves’. We filed into the bar and huddled around a table, snatching up the drink menu. Two ChiChi’s, a couple of rounds of beer and a whole lot of laughs later we were ready to call it a night.
Jer and I stumbled home, exhausted, tummies full of delicious food and great drinks, satisfied with a full night out reminiscient of days long gone by. We were ready for bed.
Needing to pay my nephew for his mad babysitting skills I stole a glance at the clock to figure out how much I owed.
Wait. Are you freakin’ kidding me?
Our huge night out netted a return time of 9:30 p.m.. We managed to linger over dinner, enjoy dessert and imbibe in several drinks in approximately three and a half hours. Wow.
Folks, Jer and I are officially losing our youth. This one caught me slightly off guard as I’ve been actively ignoring this particular rite of passage into mid-life. If our pathetic 9:30 curfew didn’t make this glaringly obvious, the pillow creases etched into my puffy face the following morning most certainly did.
Yes. Times…they are definitely a’ changing.
Mindy
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Brandy
It does creep up on us. My problem is I work nights so I’m not even alert until about 9pm. Nobody understand why I dont want to go anywhere or do anything until after 7pm and 2 drinks make me fall asleep now.
Adulthood sucks sometimes! We’re like that, too. Now, that we are free to go about our way, we go out early and get home early…never would hae predicted this twenty years ago!
Oh yes, the pain…
My teenagers are up surfing, reading, noodling on guitars while my husband and I are nearly incoherent at quarter to ten. They are physiologically oblivious to the consequences of “staying up late on a school night,” where I now orient my entire life around making sure I don’t need to stay up late on a work night.
And don’t get me started on how we never, ever consider a movie that gets out after 11. Because it’s really just pathetic.
Also, I can’t help but notice that two glasses of wine now makes my tomorrow rather grueling. I’m sorry? Two glasses of wine? I remember polishing off my fourth rum and coke before hitting the dance at the dorm and still making it to breakfast the next day and cramming in a 16 page term paper by Monday.
I’ll just fill out my AARP membership form now. Want a copy?
I feel your pain. It seems to take longer and longer to recover as well. Before ordering more than one drink now, I weigh what I have to do the next day with how long it will take the effects of my evening to wear off. And staying up past midnight, definitely only a once or twice a year thing!!
♥Spot
isn’t that funny? i went out over the weekend and stayed up and out past 2am and was so impressed with myself!
granted I was a zombie sunday – tuesday…..(recovery just isn’t what it used to be) it was worth it!
sounds like you all had a smashing time and maybe next time you can make it until 10 or 11?
Hey, I was pushing for Annie’s and no one was in!
I’m sooo disappointed. Y’all had your shot and you blew it! LOL!
I actually like early nights. I am scared of drunk drivers. You know ones like me when I was younger. I never hit anyone, but I don’t want to take any chances.
Changes indeed!
I knew it was over when hubby and I went to a New Year’s party at my friends house and I fell asleep on their couch at 10, like I did every night. I couldn’t even push myself an extra two hours!
Well at least you had a good night out, even if it didn’t last into the wee hours.
Hey, you’ve had years of getting up at 6 am to get little ones ready for school or breakfast or whatever. Add to that the insanity of meals with little ones around. That translates into a 9:30 pm return being more like midnight. You’re just way more efficient now!
Ha! And I bet you were exhausted the next morning.
LMAO Girl, that is TOO funny! I couldn’t wait till my step-daughters were old enough to babysit, so the adults could go out and have fun. It was even more rewarding that I’d just met my (now) best friend, and she had kids a year older than each of mine. So babysitting was an overnight deal. We didn’t typically leave the house until 10p, and returned well after the bars closed at 2a (and a quick stop at a convenience store for a hoagie to quench our case of the munchies). The best part … babysitting was pretty much free! We did this at least once a month, for a couple of years. Now, I can’t remember the last time I had a drink of alcohol, much less a night out with Bill. I’m jealous!