Tag: date night

  • Your Own Oxygen Mask

    You know the maxim. Put your own mask on first.

    Often, though, that’s easier said than done. Because the other mask is needed so urgently, and so persistently, that it’s easy to forget that you even have one of your own, much less a need for it.

    So people say “Oh, you and Mr. Sandwich need time together. You need to MAKE time. It’s important.” And we know. But it’s also hard in ways that they don’t understand, because they are thinking of their own situation.

    When Baguette was a baby, family members could come over and take care of her for a few hours while we went to a movie or out to dinner. But after a very few years, that option no longer worked, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes her day care would have Friday evening babysitting. If she knew the teachers who were there that night, we’d plan to pick her up a couple of hours later than usual. She was with familiar people in a familiar setting–and she was already there, not getting dropped off–so it was comfortable for her.

    We learned that she was delighted to stay longer at day care, but only until 8 p.m. That’s when she would start to realize that she hadn’t seen us in a very long time, and would start to get sad. Sad was not our goal.

    So by the time we got home, and in the time before we needed to pick her up, it wasn’t really possible to see a movie. We generally would get takeout and watch things from the DVR. And that was fine, because it was time we were spending together as a couple. We don’t need to be in a restaurant or movie theater to do that.

    But over time, the teachers she knew weren’t the ones providing extended hours. One of her teachers left the day care for another position and therefore was able to come to our house to babysit–but she soon moved home to her family, who lived out of state.

    And then there was no one.

    This is common, by the way. Finding babysitters was a snap when I was a kid, but apparently tweens and teens aren’t babysitting in those numbers any more, and there definitely has been pressure on parents to be more selective.

    Finding a caregiver with experience with autistic children? We’re in a big city, and Care.com exists–but we’re easily talking $20 an hour, not counting dinner or the movie or whathaveyou. I don’t in any way think that’s unreasonable as a charge, but that’s a lot of money for an evening out. Plus, for Baguette to be comfortable with the person, we’d have to have them over at least weekly most of the time. It would add up fast.

    Add to that the fact that Baguette developed the loudest, most piercing case of separation anxiety known to humanity, and we just weren’t willing to ask someone to deal with that.

    But then there was “Hamilton.”

    Colonial and revolutionary America is my era. I’ve studied it formally and informally most of my life, since visiting Colonial Williamsburg when I was six. And I love Broadway musicals. So when “Hamilton” was in its D.C. tryouts and a promotional video was released, I was instantly hooked. Everything about the production was incredible; the music, the backstory, the creators, the performers, the social media genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the #Ham4Ham mini-performances for people trying to get tickets by lottery. I got the soundtrack and listened to it for months during my commute. Mr. Sandwich got me the Hamiltome for Christmas, and I read the entire thing in a day and a half.

    So here’s how this works. To get respite care–an aide in a day care program, or in your home–you have to be registered with the Regional Center. That process, with its forms and evaluations and assessments, takes more than half a year. We made it just in time for Baguette to get an aide to go with her to summer camp. And then when school started again, the director of the after-school program at her school refused to admit her. (This is a whole different post, and I don’t know if I want to write it at all, but I certainly don’t want to get into it right now.) We found ways to handle that, at great cost to ourselves (and mostly to Mr. Sandwich, who was the key player). We got another aide for summer. And then, at her new school, the after-school program was happy to admit her.

    Once we got Baguette used to staying at school after the last bell, we focused on in-home respite. We were able to get the two women who were providing her after-school care, so they were known quantities to her. We had them over and did not leave, to get her used to having them in the house. We left for short trips, to the drug store or to buy groceries. And then the day came for us to see “Hamilton.”

    Within 30 minutes of our departure, she had thrown her tablet across the room and shattered it.

    You know what? The show was worth it.

    Still, we went back to Square One. We stayed there for so many weekends that the aide told us to go out. We started, again, with short errands. And then the aide ghosted us, and we were back at Square One.

    We’ve been through several aides, but Baguette is more accustomed to the idea of being home with someone who isn’t us. We usually have one at-home session and then go out for the second.

    What this means is that we’ve had (nearly) weekly childcare for a year, and in that time we have been able to have lunch maybe half a dozen times.

    Two weeks ago, we went out for dinner for Mr. Sandwich’s birthday. It was the first time we’d gone to a restaurant, just the two of us, in five or six years.

    And last night we got to have dinner with friends. That? I don’t think we’ve done that since before Baguette was born.

    We went to an area pub with Bestie’s parents. We ate delicious, bad-for-you food. I drank this Smithwick’s.

    pint glass of Smithwick's ale
    It, too, was delicious.

    And you know what? We talked nonstop, but we didn’t talk about our kids the whole time.

    It was incredible. It was rare. I had such a good time.

  • How Was Your Weekend?

    Ours started a day early, kind of. On Friday, Baguette’s cast came off (huzzah!). What was her response to this development?

    Sock all gone. I got a foot!

    At the moment she walks with that foot turned out, and she still has a bit of a peg-leg pirate walk, but she’s rapidly getting back to her normal gait–and activity.

    Since she’s Baguette, that activity includes not sleeping. We were up at midnight, driving around Los Angeles and environs at midnight. (You think I’m kidding? I’m not. We’re talking at least 20 miles of driving, and not all of it in town.)

    Since we’re the Sandwiches, Saturday did not mean sleeping in early. Quite the opposite: we got up at 3:30, because Mr. Sandwich was entered in the Nautica Malibu Triathlon. He did quite well, finishing in the top 1/3 of his age division, and Baguette got to spend the morning on the beach. Let me tell you, this is one fearless toddler. And that means that when you’re her parent, and she won’t stop rushing toward the waves, you are definitely not fearless.

    An early morning and extensive beach time did not mean that she had a good nap. No, she slept for about 30 minutes and then was awake for the entire afternoon.

    Awake and tantrum-y.

    But eventually even her strength of will could not overcome her exhaustion, and at 6:30 p.m. (6:30!)she passed out on my lap. We carefully moved her into the bed and settled in for a night of streaming video. That’s right, it was Date Night, Sandwich Edition. What did we watch? Captain America, of course (Avengers not being available yet, and both of us feeling that Thor would be ruined–ruined, I tell you!–by the presence of Natalie Portman). Now, Cap has never been my favorite superhero, and I had some issues with the movie–but it was fun, and we really enjoyed the chance to curl up on the couch and watch something of our own choosing while endlessly petting the dog’s stomach (Wicket is indifferent to TV as long as she is getting petted).

    We made it to bed at about 11, which meant that when Baguette woke up at 3:30, I really, really hoped we’d be able to get her back to sleep. We couldn’t. But that’s okay, because we would have been getting up too soon anyhow: shortly after 5, I left for the ER, where it was determined that yes, I had another kidney stone.

    Some Dilaudid and several hours of fitful sleep later, Mr. Sandwich and Baguette arrived to pick me up. We went out for breakfast and picked up some groceries, and then went home so that Baguette and I could nap. Which we both did, successfully. Our evening was low-key, and we made it to bed at about 9. Everyone slept through the night, and Baguette woke up on her own at 6, which (combined with the night before) tells me that, barring teething or broken legs, her tendency is to sleep for 9 hours at night.

    Meanwhile, I’m still tired. You?

    Captain America Shield

    Photo by abuckingham, via Flickr.

  • Date Night?

    Do you go on regular Date Nights? We don’t.

    The last movie Mr. Sandwich and I saw in the theater was True Grit.

    Hey, it could be worse. It could have been the John Wayne version. Now that would have been a long time since Date Night.

    And that was our last movie, not our last evening out. We did go out to dinner for our anniversary in March, and had a wonderful time. That dinner, by the way, was something we’d been talking about doing since Mr. Sandwich’s birthday. In 2010.

    Do I think that parents need to connect with each other in ways that aren’t focused on their children? Yes, absolutely. Do I think that we need to have Date Night to do that? No, not in the slightest.

    When Mr. Sandwich and I started dating, he traveled to meet my parents. (This was our third date. It didn’t indicate anything about our relationship, it’s just how things went.) They showed him around town, and at one point, he said, “I feel bad leaving your parents in the car.” I said, “Oh, don’t worry about them. For them, retirement is one big date.”

    Mr. Sandwich took that to heart. We have what we call “Home Depot dates.” What do we do? We go to Home Depot. To us, spending time together is a date, no matter who else is there, or where we are.

    Our entire relationship was long-distance. What that meant was that when we actually managed to be together, what we wanted to do was be together. One of us would fly across the country. We’d spend the day meeting friends and touring the local area. In the evening, we’d go back to the apartment and eat pizza or Chinese food while watching TV shows we both liked, and talking about them.

    Exciting? Maybe not to some, but it suited us, and it still does.

    We like to go to the movies. We don’t get there as often as we’d like–we missed Bridesmaids and Captain America and The Hunger Games, and it’s looking like we’re going to miss The Avengers, which is really disappointing.

    But at some point, no doubt, Amazon Prime streaming will come to our rescue, and we’ll catch up on what we’ve missed. It won’t be the same as the big screen, but we’ll see them together and talk about them.

    Sounds like the perfect Date Night to me.