Date Night: Unchained

 Before we had Animal, the Hubby and I spent a lot of time together. We had many many date nights.  As any parent can attest, no matter what promises were made, how many wholehearted agreements had, to keep romance and date nights a part of your new families life, it is much easier said than done. 

Between the exhaustion, the frustration, the new found parental responsibilities and financial restraints date nights (and your "US") easily fall through the cracks. 

Christmas day the hubby and I had hoped to go see a movie and have a little "us" time.

One of the things that we have always had in common, is our love of movies, a film nerd the hubby likes to call himself. We love so many genres, including  foreign, Indy and heavy documentaries.

Pre baby we were known to see as many as 3 movies in theaters on a single day. We hosted themed movie nights, when we watched 3 O'clock High, we served a "hot" lunch dinner, including chocolate milk cartons and apple juice. When we showed There Will Be Blood, we served whiskey, and milk shakes. On my girls only movie day, we watched  Gone With The Wind and had southern food. 

Our go to sitter is my mom. I hate to ask her to watch Animal any time it's not for work. She already watches him almost 50 hrs a week. Our son is a handful and before we had him we agreed that the only people we BOTH felt comfortable watching him until he could speak (yeah we got trust issues up in this bitch) was my mom, and my nieces parents. We have spent so much of my nieces life with her and her parents and know that our parenting styles are so similar. My niece (who we lovingly call The Baby as she was our first) is an awesome kid, if Animal turns out like her we would be lucky.

My mom as it turns out headed to Mexico with my dad so they could visit their moms over the rest of the holidays. So it seemed that our dream of a movie night was over before it got of the ground. 

Christmas day as we watched our kids open there gifts the hubby commented to the Tall Guy about our date night hopes being dashed and he said, "What if I come back after bedtime? You guys could go, and I'll stay here". 

To any parent this is like finding a glass of water after being stranded in a desert. We gladly accepted.

As promised he came back just before I walked out my son's room. Even though Animal hasn't cried in weeks, even when I've left him awake in his room. He cried this night. We NEVER go back in. He always stops and goes to sleep. But it felt horrible. The hubby was ready to call it quits, but the Tall Guy said "Kids always know. It's OK, Go."  So we left, and headed for the theaters, feeling guilty but determined to have a little break. 

When we got to the theater the movie was sold out. We drove across town to get to a show that started in an hour, just as we arrived it sold out. We text the Tall Guy that the only show we could catch started at 10, was he OK with that? He gave us the go ahead and so we did. Just before 8, we bought our tickets for 10.

We ate dinner, and talked. Stood in line and talked. Sat in a theater waiting for trailers and talked. It was wonderful. 

The Movie Review: Django: Unchained; A Quentin Tarantino film takes place two years before the civil war. Django Unchained is a remake of an older western, I have to admit this is one of my least favorite genres, but some are good and this one is by far my favorite. It is a graphic movie, and the R rating as in all of Tarantino's movies is well deserved. There were some scenes that were terribly hard to watch, but you know what? A lot of shit that went on in those days that rightly turn our stomachs now were common place then, so I don't think it was too much. It only added to the authenticity of the story. The dialogue as usual was wonderful, often funny and poignant. It was also a love story. The acting by the three male leads and Samuel Jackson was superb. If you can wrangle yourself a sitter I say it's a must see.

Thank you Tall Guy, and sorry that it turned into such long night.