As I sit here reveling in a glorious half hour all to my sweet self, my thoughts turn to my impending “Date Day” with my husband. How did I score 30 whole minutes, you ask? My mother is working again this morning, so he offered again to take Miss O for a stroll. He really wants this date day. This time, I took my own advice and planted my bum firmly on this couch.

So…back to Date Day #2.

Since we still do not have a sitter at home, I brazenly asked my mother if she’d mind watching Miss O for an afternoon while we flit off to see a movie. This is not the first time we’ve done this, but they are admittedly few and far between. I have no idea why I was so nervous to ask. My mother would most likely give her left kidney to have Miss O all to herself for any length of time. Me asking my mother to watch her is probably the biggest mothering validation I could give her. I might as well have said, “Take her. I trust you not to let her light herself on fire and dance naked under the full moon with raisins stuck up her nose.” If you’ve met my daughter, you know that all of that is, in fact, highly likely.

Because we were unsure of Miss O’s reaction to not having at least one of her parents home for her bedtime, which BTW, has never happened before, I felt we should be home in time to manage bedtime and told my mother as much when I asked her.

My mother’s response was filled with no less sarcasm than I expected.

“It will be a huge burden to watch my granddaughter one afternoon…I might even be able to put her to bed…who knows…but I will try to get through it……”

Touché, mother.

My husband, downright giddy and bursting at every possible seam with hope, turned directly to his laptop to find what marvelous film would be showing in my apparently highly restrictive timeframe of “after lunch and before bedtime.” Folks, that translates to about 1:00 PM – 7:30 PM. That’s a 6 and ½ hour window. If you can’t find a movie playing in some theater in that timeframe, there is nothing playing worth your time.

In truth, there really wasn’t much showing we were interested in. Hubs had already seen 22 Jump Street on one of his man-dates with our brother-in-law. We are one week too soon for the opening of Guardians of the Galaxy, which we are both totally up for, so hellfire, what’s left?!

Snowpiercer. BOOM. postapocalyptic society confined to a train with resulting socioeconomic caste system and all the heavy-handed commentary that goes along with it.

Yes, we are those people. Hubs’ background in film, my background in sociology and our mutual love of all things sci-fi and dystopian will provide fodder for angsty discussions for weeks. If it doesn’t spark at least one argument on the way out of the theater, it wasn’t worth the Twizzlers I’ll be making, um…asking, my date to buy.

I will, of course, let all y’all know how it goes. Most important is the fact that we found a way to have a little bit of time to ourselves. Thankfully it’s only costing a million dollars for the movie ticket, although YAY! for matinée pricing! and we don’t have to pay my mother a sitter fee. The point is, it’s a simple way to get a little mommy and daddy time and give a little trust to my mother. It’ a win-win, and isn’t that what we’re shooting for?