November 12th, 2003 - Wednesday

Date Night

Yesterday was a surprisingly wonderful day.

We had to go and pick up Hayley's new glasses (her prescription is no longer as strong as it was before the surgery so we ordered new lenses). George's sister Elsa is in town but his parents had to go out all day so she asked to come with us. It took a little over an hour for the guy to grind the lenses down to fit the frames but Hayley never fussed once because Elsa carried her all around the store trying on all the frames.

Then when we were finally leaving, George decided that he was in the mood for a Chinese buffet. The four of us were going to go have a late lunch/early supper since it was about 3:00 by then.

Unfortunately every single buffet restaurant that we went to, Chinese or a mish mash of food types, was temporarily closed. It turns out that we were hitting them all right in between the lunch buffet and the supper buffet so they were closed to clean up and cook fresh batches of food.

By then we were discouraged because we were really hungry and also we had been hoping to catch the less expensive daytime buffet price which is usually about $6.95 at most places. Since we were going to be stuck with the dinner buffet, it would run about $12.95 which we didn't really want to pay. Elsa asked us to stop by a bank and offered to pay for some of it. Once we had the extra money we went by George's parents' house to pass the time until the restaurant opened again at five o'clock.

However, once we were there, Elsa decided to stay home and have dinner with her parents instead. Then they asked if we wanted to take Hayley with us or leave her with them. My initial choice was to take her with us because she's usually really well behaved when we go out anywhere (I'd better enjoy THAT while I still can!) and it had been part of the original plan. Then I said we'd leave her. George and I have been out for dinner a couple of times with other people but it has been well over a year since we've gone out to eat anywhere, just the two of us.

A date! Imagine that!

I quickly nursed Hayley to make sure that she was well topped off. George's mom had made a skillet meal that I often make at home as well so it was something that Hayley had already eaten, so supper was no problem. She barely even noticed that we were leaving, giving each of us a big kiss and then heading down to the basement with her grandfather so that she could partake in her favorite activity - climbing the stairs over and over again.

It was so weird. Because Hayley still faces backwards in her car seat, I sit in the back with her all the time, so even getting into the front seat was strange.

It was really great though. We actually managed to talk about all kinds of other things besides Hayley which was a surprise, and George made just one quick call to see if she was having fun or not. The food was really good too. I tend to be a bit of a Chinese food snob. I spent three years practically living in Chinatown, so I'm pretty used to more authentic Chinese food. However, this place had great dishes and God knows I love a buffet. I had all kinds of noodles, rice, duck, sushi (well, the vegetarian kind), vegetables, and won ton soup. We shared a pitcher of beer and enjoyed the massive dessert buffet.

We were only gone for about an hour and a half, but it was just so nice to go out as a couple for a change and I really enjoyed it. It helped to know that Hayley wasn't exactly sitting around screaming and crying while we were gone. When we went to pick her up, she barely even acknowledged our presence. Hmph!

After her full day and her evening full of fun (and stair climbing), she was very tired and after a short but enthusiastic bath, she was asleep by 9 pm, woke up for ten seconds at 1 am before settling back to sleep until 6 this morning.

It was such a good day. I could handle something like that again. Especially the date night part of it. Maybe we should have one night a month where we just go out somewhere. I can live with that!

Hayley munching on an apple last night before her bath.

On this day (more or less):

2002: All my November 2002 entries are lost. :(
2001: Sometimes I just want to be a housewife and forget all of it anyway.
2000: I think I've shared this fact before, but answering phones is one of the few things in the world that makes me want to stab myself in the head, just to end it all.
1999: Now, as I have mentioned in the past, the biggest shock regarding the fact that Joanne and I are such good friends is because her sister happens to be George's last ex-girlfriend.