So we finally did it. At six months, we finally let go enough to go away for a night, and leave Dashiell with someone else! It didn’t exactly go according to plan…
The trip was intended to be a surprise. My wife set everything up surreptitiously, so I would have no idea it was happening. Her execution was flawless… except for the minor detail that in order to make it happen, she had to tell a couple of other people, one of whom let the cat out of the bag two days beforehand! Since I’m not a big surprise person, I found this much more amusing than anything else, and by the way, I pretty much have the best wife ever!
The plan was for a party night and a stay away from home, to get completely out of our routine and responsibilities for a little while. Some friends were holding a private party at a club, and we had a hotel suite nearby to stay the night for afterward. We’d have some fun, dance, maybe even drink a little, and then get a whole night’s sleep without our usual 4 AM wake-up call. It was a wonderful plan.
And it started out wonderfully. We dropped Dash off with our friend without incident, and almost entirely without last-minute re-considerations. We made good time on the trip, checked in without event, and Sabrina even had time to go for a swim while I ordered our room-service dinner and unpacked. The food was surprisingly good, and we were fresh and ready to go to the club in plenty of time.
We found the club without incident, after which we made two discoveries. First, it was a strip-club, and second, it wasn’t actually a private party (our friends didn’t quite get that point across to my wife). So things were a little weird. It wasn’t a bad party. We had some fun, danced and drank a little, and talked to some friends, but we left early because it was a little uncomfortable being mixed in with the regular patrons and being accosted by teenagers who wanted to give us “private dances”.
We went back to the hotel, had a nightcap, and settled in, excited by the prospect of having a long, satisfying night’s sleep. Which came to an abrupt conclusion at our usual 4 AM when the fire alarm went off! This was no momentary concern, either. We were literally driven out of the hotel for an hour and a half while four fire-engines and countless police cars swarmed the joint (which, it turned out, was at least not actually on fire, so we didn’t lose anything). At least we got a yummy pre-breakfast at the Denny’s next door while we waited!
Needless to say, the reality of the trip was a tad less satisfying (or restful!) than our expectations might have prepared us for, but hey, at least we finally just did it, tore off the bandage, and endured our first separation from our son! (Who was perfectly fine by the way, and seemed a little miffed that he had to go back to these boring “parents” people!)
[ADDENDUM]
Because my wife tried so hard on this, the next weekend I begged our amazing friend Karen to take Dash overnight again, and made plans to stay at a local hotel and go to a local club as a do-over. This time, things went swimmingly, although the fire-alarm did briefly go off in both the club *and* the hotel while we were there (we may be cursed). We got the party we’d been looking for, got a somewhat shorter than planned but utterly uninterrupted night’s sleep, and generally made everything better!
