Oh the Iron…y

So something very amusing and slightly unexpected has happened this week. I had a date last night. And I realize that this blog is about my adventures in raising my children, but somewhere along the way dating has entered the realm of things I have to/get to do as a single parent.  

So last night as I'm getting ready I had an amazingly amusing comparison to getting ready for a date when I was 22 versus getting ready for a date when I am 32.

So when I was 22, getting ready for a date was often more fun than the actual date itself. I would spend days thinking about what I would wear, sometimes even buying a new outfit for the occasion. The day of I'd usually pluck my eyebrows and use some sort of fancy facemask so I could appear "fresh faced" and young. (HA!) I'd probably take a nap at some point so I'd be well rested for our dinner that probably had reservations sometime after 8pm. If I had the money I'd get a mani/pedi, but at the very least I'd do an at home mani/pedi and put a fresh coat of paint on the tootsies.

I'd probably take a bath, shave my legs, and use all sorts of crazy exfoliating stuff. Arms, elbows, knees, feet. You get the picture. There is a good chance I'd straighten my hair which is another 90 minutes tacked on. Finally I'd get dressed in the outfit I'd picked out 3 days ago and be off to my date.

Last night as Amelia and I were showering together because I literally did not have time to bathe her and myself before I went out, I chuckled to myself at the differences between my date night rituals from then and now.

Getting ready for a date at 32 looks something like this… After getting up and taking both kids to school, I came home and had 15 meetings on my schedule at work. After a good cry and trying to figure out how to actually perform any work while participating in 15 meetings, I had to grocery shop for a family in need that JA sponsors. Picked my kids up from their respective after school programs and rushed home. Had Braden do his homework partially in the car and shoved some food into both of them while making lunches for the next day. Braden was whisked away to a school meeting by a friend, so Amelia and I were free to jump in the shower. Obviously at this point in the day I have missed the fancy face masks, the plucking of the eyebrows, and more importantly, the nap!

As the tiny human keeps yelling at my for taking HER water (really? You have your own shower. Go there next time) I am trying to shave my legs and not fall down. I see some Mary Kay hand exfoliator stuff so I put some on mine and Amelia's hands. Which obviously leads to a fit complete with convulsions on the shower floor because she didn't like that on her hands. Trying to stick with my 10 years ago date night rituals I spy some carrot face cream that I try to rub on my face. Drop most of it on the floor while trying to answer 20 questions about why they put carrots in there and being very emphatically told that "I don't like carrots.". I know kid. I know!

So finally we're out of the shower. I realize at this point that I am supposed to meet this guy in 45 minutes and my hair is sopping wet and between work and the kids I haven't had a chance to think about what I'll wear tonight. Deep breath. Go into the closet. Find something clean. Wrinkled, but clean. Now this next step is probably more of the 22 year old self than what most 32 year olds would do, but I'm lazy and irons scare me. Wet the shirt and threw it in the dryer hoping it would get the wrinkles out by the time my sitter got there.

So at this point I'm mostly dressed (and praying my sitter is not early) and throw on a light dusting of makeup and run some mousse through my hair. It occurs to me that it is now 30 minutes before I'm due at the restaurant and I send up another prayer that not only will my shirt be dry but my hair also. All the while Amelia "needs some, too", so I'm trying to let her get ready like mommy without totally undoing the cleaning in the shower that she just got.

I realize that I have not addressed the mani/pedi situation so I look down. Hands are almost beyond help at this point so I move on. My toes are in worse shape and they've got peeling polish on them so I do a quick calculation and figure out that the best I'm going to get at this point is to remove the polish all together and just go bare. So I sit down and after getting the polish off of exactly one toe I run out of polish remover. Moment of panic while I try to figure out if I have enough time to repaint everything (answer is still no), and finally settle on just leaving the one toe naked and tucking it in my back pocket as a potential topic of conversation. Don't judge me. The only things I do these days are work, kids, and baseball so unfortunately on bad dates my lack of polish on one toenail might have made for interesting conversation.

Babysitter is late, but that is ok because I still have no shirt on. Check the shirt. Praise Jesus it's dry. Take one final look in my mirror and realize that this is as good as it gets these days and head out. Call a friend for a pep talk on the way there while trying to file my nails and the rest…well, that's for another day =)