Parents' Night Out or Our Life Before The Child

Last Friday night we went to the movies. That's right, to the movies, like in a movie theater. We didn't get a DVD from the library or watch Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason for the 10th time on TBS, we went to the movies. It was the old "us" (which includes a 30-something brunette and a 40-something New Zealander) , not the new "us" (which includes a little baby that we just can't seem to shake). Before that, it had been exactly 7 weeks and 2 days since we had been to the movies, a fact that my husband, the King of Clever, had pointed out to me just a few times. We last went to the movies the day before Jack's due date and saw The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (highly recommended glimpse into geekdom - appealing to geeks and non-geeks alike).

If you haven't spent a lot of time with my husband (or maybe even a moderate or little amount of time), you have no idea how important going to the movies is to him. Here are a few things that will give you a clue:
1. In addition to being the King of Clever, he is also the King of Pop Culture, reading Entertainment Weekly cover to cover each week. (When the summer and fall movie issues are on the newsstands, he checks the mailbox obsessively to see if his subscription has come yet.)
2. He was praying that his son wouldn't be born before August 3rd because then he wouldn't get to see The Bourne Ultimatum the first night that it was in wide release. Luckily, his son wasn't born before August 3rd and we went to The Bourne Ultimatum on opening night. Despite the fact that the theater was about 90 degrees and I was 9 months pregnant and about to pass out, I lasted through the movie because I didn't want to let him down by asking to leave. (Full disclosure: I also really wanted to see the movie and I never told Nick that I was feeling so hot, although I was fanning myself with whatever random items I could find in my purse and I wiggled out of the tank top which was under my shirt while sitting in my movie theater seat.)
3. His surefire conversation starter is "what movies have you seen lately" followed by a recitation of the slew of the movies that he has seen lately. If people respond that they can't remember when they last saw a movie, but it has been a long time, he responds, yeah, the last movie I saw was a few weeks ago.
4. He doesn't trust anyone that hasn't seen a movie for more than six months on DVD, or a year in the theater.
5. He LOVES Roger Ebert. We once went to the University Bookstore in Madison to hear Roger Ebert talk about movies. He checks Roger Ebert's website every week to read Ebert's latest reviews. When Roger Ebert was offline because of complications surrounding his cancer, Nick was genuinely concerned.

This outing came about because my 2nd cousin some number removed Katie had volunteered to babysit for us. I wasn't quite sure if we were ready to leave our baby home without us, but decided that we should give it a shot. Katie offered to babysit for dinner and a movie, but that seemed like too much on the test run, so she brought us dinner instead and ate with us. (Thanks, Katie! Yum.)

It had been so long since we had been to the movies that the CK (Clever King) had a difficult time selecting which movie was worthy of our attendance. The movie that we saw was Michael Clayton. It was a great movie, made even better by that eye candy, George Clooney (whom the CK bears some resemblance to).

We don't typically buy refreshments at the movies. Since we go to the movies so often, this has saved us a lot of money over the years. We also had a bad experience early on when we were dating where I choked on a piece of popcorn while watching the movie Traffic and had to go to the emergency room to have it checked out because it felt like something was stuck in there. (After looking down my throat by putting a camera up my nose, it was determined that everything was fine.) This time, I bought a bottle of water (for $3.75!) only because as a nursing mother you are supposed to stay well-hydrated and I didn't want to duplicate the Bourne experience again.

We arrived plenty early, as we always do, to allow the CK to select the optimum seats. I felt proud to stay awake through the previews (no, it wasn't a midnight or even 9pm movie, it started at 7:10pm) and really struggled to keep my eyes open during the first 20 minutes or so of the feature. Then, I kept thinking, baby thoughts. Was he okay? Would Katie call us if something was wrong? Did he miss us? Did he understand that we hadn't deserted him forever? Would he decide he liked Katie better than us?

Despite those initial thoughts, for about 40 minutes at the end of the movie, I forgot that we are Mommy and Daddy. I forgot that I was still wearing maternity jeans and that, prior to that night, I had been in record setting mode for how long it had been since I had worn makeup or shoes with a heel. We were Amy and Nick (formerly Kit Kat and Moondog), and they do this every couple of weeks. Sometimes they even go out to a 9pm movie. Sometimes they go out to dinner after 6:30pm. Sometimes they go to dinner AND a movie in the same night. Baby? They have no baby. Just a rather large tabby cat named Hank who thinks he is a baby.

On the way home, we both agreed that we had a fun time, but we missed Jack. We decided that it was a good thing to get out and that we are lucky to have Katie (and others) who are willing to babysit for us, as our immediate families are not in town. The CK said we should make a point to go out every couple of weeks or every week. "Every week?" I said. "We do have a new baby you know."

I was just testing you, said the CK, and you passed the test. But maybe we could go out once a month or so.

I agreed to consider it. After all, we are approaching the holidays and that is when all the best movies come out. And I don't want the King of Pop Culture to lose his edge in movie trivia.

Amy, Jack, and babysitter Katie