Date Night

Date night. A glorious tradition that has fallen by the wayside since the arrival of the latest addition to our family. For months now, what once used to be a nice dinner out followed by -you guessed it- the Thursday night NBC line-up has been replaced with tag team dinners and naps. Well, tonight we gave date night one more try. We went bowling.
Yes, we did have a sort of third wheel along with us, but who is lucky enough to have a third wheel that sleeps through most of the date and can't talk yet??
We arrived at the bowling alley, Charlie in his Saturday Night Fever T-Shirt and me in another one of Charlie's shirts and a pair of baggy shorts.
Poor innocent bowlers had to look at my pasty legs for the better part of an hour.
We set up the game and went to town. Bowling Town.
Wow, do we suck at bowling. I won the first round with a whopping score of 58 (To Charlie's 37...that's right....37) Charlie won the next round and actually got above the hundred mark...I held to my mid-50s score for round two. My low point was definitely chasing the bowling ball down the isle after I dropped it behind me and it rolled away in the other direction. Charlie's was a combination of nothing bowls, deteriorating high fives and what looked like a sort of deranged tap dance every time he took a turn. The Avril Levign album playing in the background only helped with the ambiance.
As I looked around me half way through the game, I saw all of these young cute girls. I knew their tans were fake because it's been raining all summer. So skinny and stylish, so much energy. I remember being that age and trying so hard. Wanting to be noticed.
I looked down at my white legs and baggy shorts, my husband's T-shirt and my newly purchased black anklets (I didn't remember to bring socks with me from the house) and I thought, "This is the most fun I've ever had bowling." How lucky am I that I don't have to try to get noticed anymore? The pressure's off. I have a cute husband who only cares that we're out having fun. I have a sweet baby who's puking just a little bit on her T-shirt, but who has been smiling and happy since we left the house.
All of that time in high school and college wanting to get noticed.... so that I could have exactly what I had tonight.
I may still have a ton of baby weight to lose, I may be the pastiest woman in Massachusetts, I may not be sexy or sassy or eighteen anymore. But tonight I feel like I have arrived.