"The booking is for 8pm".
My eyes drooped and I yawned. "Tell me you're joking..." He shook his head. No.
Instead of a big party for my thirtieth, I had chosen to do two things: have a lunch with friends on the actual day, and go out for dinner with Steve on the Saturday night.
Any parents may understand the novelty factor here - having dinner alone! - and, for us, it was an extra exciting prospect given that Abbey would be having her first ever sleepover. Not only could we enjoy a night out together, we wouldn't have to rush home in fear of feeling guilty keeping a babysitter up too late AND we could sleep in the next morning.
Now that is a birthday treat.
Steve and I had decided to go somewhere really, really nice for dinner. We desperately wanted to avoid anywhere that we could have gone with Abbey - we wanted a very child-unfriendly restaurant - so we looked up various restaurants run by celebrity chefs and some top-name places (we're spoiled for choice in Melbourne), eventually settling on a well-known French restaurant in an inner suburb.
Steve rang to make the booking and, two weeks ahead of time they were already pushed to fit us in. They only had one time left. 8pm.
We are early eaters. 6pm is our dinnertime of choice. You might say that we have to eat earlier now that we have a child, but the truth is we always ate early. It's just something we like to do.
So, although I was looking forward to a night out, I was dreading eating at such a grown-up hour. I just hoped my stomach wouldn't rumble too loudly when we arrived.
In the end, 8pm was a perfect time. It gave us a chance to take Abbey to my parents' house, sit and have a chat, then come home and get ready without rushing. I might actually do dinner at 8pm again. One day.
Megan
5 comments:
Glad you enjoyed your kid-free meal! We've got to do it every now and then to remind ourselves that we were a couple before we were parents.
Ha ha ha...! You and Steve sound like my PARENTS!
Whenever they would come to stay, I could tell by 7pm they were thinking...'When are we gonna eat?!'
Hubby and I always eat around 7-7.30pm, and when we eat out, we always book for 8pm. Otherwise, dinner is done and dusted too early!
If you're hungry, you could always do a drink and some nibblies first. Still book the babysitter for 6pm, then head out for a pre-dinner cocktail. YAY!
xx
I'm an early eater too! Luckily all my friends are as well, so we always book for 6-630 when we eat out. Boring, I know, but I find that when I do eat late, I end up feeling so so stuffed.
Glad to hear you enjoyed your grown-up dinner! x
Early eaters here too!
The kids eat around 5 and we eat not long after that!!
On the about 2 times we've eaten out kid free we've booked for 8 as well and I've usually eaten the kids leftovers and snacked so I'm not even hungry at the restaurant...but I eat anyway!
We are late eaters around here! Probably because I like to get Riley to bed before we eat - more relaxing that way. Over time our dinner has morphed from 7pm to more like 8:30pm. I didn't notice until my mum was staying and she kept saying 'aren't you hungry?!'
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