And then they had ice cream for diner: The story of a fourth date that never happened

Yay for long titles! New fun fact abut me: I hate to leave my kids. I have left them very few times for anything other than going to work. We also really don’t have any family nearby, so don’t have any readily available babysitters waiting in the wings. Because of this, my husband and I have only been out three times together kid-free since Princess Rapunzel was born in July of 2010. Crazy, I know!!

So it all started with a phone call from daycare on a Thursday letting me know that Princess Rapunzel wasn’t feeling well. She had been coughing all day and seemed like she might need her inhaler. Our original plan was to go away on a mini weekend getaway the next day with the girls to a family-friendly hotel with an indoor pool that looked like a lot of fun. We quickly decided that travel was not a good idea if either of the girls was getting sick. Then it dawned on us… If they both seemed fine in the morning we could drop the girls off at daycare and spend the day together, just the two of us! Maybe see a movie and go out to lunch; a day date! Our fourth date in three plus years.

Things quickly unraveled from there. I will spare you all the details, but know this: the night consisted of four baths, three changes of sheets, hours of crying, countless times asking each other “should we go to the hospital?”, and finally ended with getting Princess Rapunzel to sleep at around 8 am which was just in time for her sister to wake up for the day. So much for our day date. Our movie theater plans turned into watching Monsters, Inc. on the couch with the kids while being serenaded by the gentle whir of the nebulizer. And our quiet lunch out? I don’t think either one of us even remembered to eat lunch. We had two sick girls on no sleep, neither one of them napped, they barely ate or drank anything all day long, and one had a fever hit 101 degrees. Instead of enjoying some quiet time together, we were just focused on surviving the day with two little sickies. And then they had ice cream for dinner. Because sometimes when you have had no sleep and your child has had nothing to eat all day, you will say yes to things that some may find less than ideal. And that is all that I could get them to agree to eat. Better than nothing, right?

And that, my friends, is the story of a fourth date that never happened. But we have now gone a full twenty-four hours without needing to do laundry. You gotta take a win wherever you can find it!

Mint chocolate chip – dinner of champions!