“We should all go out for drinks sometime!”
Amazing how simple an idea this would have been before children. Friends who enjoyed each other’s company during the day deciding that a girls’ night out would be great fun indeed. They would have made a plan for an upcoming weekend, gone out and had a great time.
But the idea gets complicated once kids are involved. Oh, we all know that moms need to get out and play, and of course absolutely deserve the time. But what happens when life keeps getting in the way? I’ll tell you what happens. In a year and a half, these friends made it out for drinks as a group ONCE. And even then, one ended up arriving late and leaving early as she juggled the near-constant needs of a two month old baby.
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Did I just hear you gasp? It’s crazy but true. The moms in this story were like most others, with full and busy lives and six kids between them juggling for priority. Add in one husband working shifts, one mom travelling to the US regularly for work, and one very tiny babe and plans have a way of slipping through fingers. Never mind trying to foist bedtimes onto husbands and hoping very young kids wouldn’t be upset as mom left in heels at 7 pm.
Then one mom had a brilliant idea. We all lived in the same neighbourhood. A Facebook message appeared: “Hi! Tomorrow night hubby has a business dinner. My kids will be asleep by about 8:30. I’ll be drinking wine…anyone want to join me? I’ll text when the kids are asleep, just sneak in.”
And the whine, wine and cheese nights were born. Come as you are, bring what you have, don’t fuss over the details but just show up. We drank wine, ate simple but delicious food, vented and talked and at times laughed ourselves silly. We giggled to hear each other using language that never appeared during play dates. We managed our wine nights when kids were sick and when invariably one husband was working or another away. We had them when there were teeny babies in the house who might need feeding, and once, when one of us was 8 days overdue with her second child. (Inexplicably, that evening lasted the longest, until 2:30 a.m. Yes, the pregnant one was me. And yes, I had permission to go into labour at my friend’s house.) And the clincher? Walking home afterwards, not a single one of us getting behind the wheel of a car.
So what’s the moral of the story? Yes, it’s fabulous to get dressed up and go out on the town. But when what you’re really craving is a break from it all or time with your girlfriends, and circumstances keep getting in the way - be creative. Find a way to make it easier, and you’ll find yourself doing it much more often. And really, isn’t that the point?
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