The Saturday Outing: Take II

Take II?

That doesn't look like a Saturday outing.

Here we are Saturday early evening. Dinner was mac'n'cheese, fish sticks, broccoli. It was a little early. And, there was lots of bribing going on in our house that night. If you eat your dinner, we'll watch Iron Man. If you go potty, we'll watch Iron Man. One more thing, we need to get in your jammies. I know, and then we'll watch Iron Man. Here brush your teeth. If you brush your teeth, we'll watch Iron Man. Ring the Bell! Let's pick up our toys so we can watch Iron Man!

Okay, so we can still get away with delayed bribing in our house. And finally, we all set up to watch Iron Man. Alida was obviously on the edge of her seat.

And then a wonderful thing happened called Charity.

Charity rang our bell. The kids were beside themselves although a bit confused at why their teacher was at our house. And he and I slipped out the door into the darkness for an entire evening of adult time. I cannot explain how odd it is to be in a car after dark. I cannot explain how odd it is to be out of my house without children and without a child's errand to run.

We gleefully counted past one hand onto the second hand the number of times in more than four years we've been out for adult time as a couple. We now have Charity to thank for one more, although she's not nearly as charitable as her name suggests since she doesn't hang around just for fun. Thankfully, we have Emily's parents/grandma to thank for the lion's share of those outings, which are always charitable.

(Four years? Iraq.)