Mamas' Night Out

Last night the weirdest thing happened. I went out. On a weeknight. With four other mama-friends. And there wasn't a kid in sight. I don't know how we all managed to find babysitters and a night when one of us (or one of our babies) wasn't sick, but we did, and we had two-and-a-half hours to ourselves of drinks, dessert and uninterrupted conversation.

We all met through a new moms' group two years ago, when our babies were just a couple of months old, and we've gotten together every few months ever since. Together, we've watched our babies grow from colicky, sleepless infants, to talking, potty-training toddlers, and it's been such a help to me--who doesn't have other friends with little babies--that they've been going through everything I have at every step along the way. If one of us was having trouble with teething or introducing solids or finding a daycare spot, chances are someone had already been through it and was happy to share their knowledge. And if no one had yet figured out a solution--such as how to curtail defiance in two-year-olds--well, at least we could all commiserate.

Oddly enough, the impetus to our night on-the-town was a comment one of the mamas recently made on Facebook lamenting the fact that her life used to be so much more interesting before she had kids. Maybe it was the bad weather or the darkness of February or the terrible twos, but we had all been feeling the same thing pretty much simultaneously. By the end of the day, we had scheduled our night out.

But you know what? I don't think these mamas have boring lives at all. For once, when our conversation wasn't all about babies (and wasn't being constantly interrupted by said babies), we got to hear about one another's interests and hobbies and histories and careers, and I know I'm bias but I thought it was pretty interesting stuff. So I guess, in the end, the real question is not how we managed to have such a night out but why we've never done it before--and when we'll do it again.

Our babes in the early days.