Mommy’s Night Out
A mommy friend of mine had recently written a blog about her experience of going out on the town now versus back in the day. I found myself laughing out loud to her comparisons and comments only to discover the very same reality check when I went out recently with a few of my girlfriends.
When we were in our 20’s we would venture down to the city about once a month to either a club or bar and party until the early morning hours, wake up exhausted and hungover, down some fast food and be ready to do it all over again.
Fast forward about five years: all of us are now in our 30’s and three out of the four of us are mommies.
The plan: to go downtown dancing to celebrate our friends 30th birthday. We thought we would do it up just like we did pre-babies. Staying in a hotel, pre-drinking, cabbing it to a club, dancing all night and partying. That’s what we used to do.
Reality check. Here’s how the night panned out:
- Pre-Drinks: On a positive note, one big difference I noticed is that our tastes have matured along with our age. In our 20’s we would to start the night off with a cheap 1.5 litre bottle of zinfandel and some chips. In our 30’s we’ve now traded in the zinfandel for a nice bottle (or two) of red wine and an assortment of soft cheeses and dips.
- The Dinner: We started the night at a tapas restaurant. First off…I had no clue what tapas meant prior to arrival. Yes the food was delicious but if I can buy a family size pre-made lasagna for the same price as a handful of tapas-style cheese puffs (albeit delicious) then we’ve got a problem.
- Next Up: After a few bottles of wine and some great girl talk our 20-something-year-old-selves were fighting to come out. So we did what any sensible mothers would do… “Let’s hit the bar!”
- The Bar: Since when did it become the hip thing to hang out in the lobby of a hotel? Anytime I’ve had a drink in a hotel lobby it’s because I’ve had time to kill while staying in that same hotel, not because I get dressed up and choose to go there for a night of partying. Apparently I’m very out of the loop because this ‘bar’ was packed.
- What Followed: I’ve always hated partying in the winter, reason being, two words: Coat Check. Ugh, that hasn’t changed. Once that was out of the way we made our way to the busy bar and ordered our drinks, and that’s when my jaw nearly hit the floor! A vodka and club soda came to $11! Excuse me? What type of vodka is that? And when did the cost of club soda quadruple? I can buy an entire bottle at the grocery store for 89 cents on sale!
- And Then: While sipping on our drinks that cost roughly the same amount as a new 3-piece outfit for the kids we heard the words that no woman wants to hear (well maybe some do, but we didn’t). A 20-something-year old guy decked out in his best gold chain called us ‘Cougars.’ Yep. We thought maybe we heard him wrong, but sure enough for a second time he leaned over to his young, long-legged, short-dressed, giggly lady friend and referred to us using the C word. My friend and I just looked at each other in shock. The third time he called us ‘Cougars’ he looked right at us, pointed towards us with his chin and laughed.
We. Were. Mortified.
- Reality Check: Despite donning hot outfits, having our hair and makeup done to the nines and sporting a ‘nothing can bring us down’ attitude we had ventured into a new territory and there was no turning back. And you know what? That’s okay. There’s no way that I could, or really, would I want to wear a skirt so short that it could be mistaken for an oversized belt, and I would topple over in the five-inch heels that the girls are wearing these days. No thank you. I’ll stick to my moto-leggings and two-inch heels gladly, even those are a stretch compared to my usual Lulu’s and Ugg’s.
- The Aftermath: Rather than staying in a hotel we opted for the much more affordable option of crashing at our friends cute downtown condo. This meant two of us in her queen size bed and two of us sharing a blow up air mattress. Now don’t think I’m high maintenance but at 34-years old it had been a long time since I’d slept on a blow up bed. I spent most of the night fighting gravity to not roll directly onto my friend. Did I also mention that my friends’ beautiful condo has floor to ceiling windows? Such a pretty feature. A feature you wouldn’t want to cover up with curtains. Ugh, yes, even when you roll into bed at 3am the sun still comes up bright and early by 7am whether you’re home with your kids or not.
- The Day that Followed: A couple Advil’s and some Tim Horton’s and I would be just fine right? Wrong. My 20-year old self would be fine. My current-self is lacking the bounce-back feature. This would be a perfect day to just lay on the couch and relax, except, I had a family reunion to attend. I managed to pull myself together until about 4pm and then I was a write-off. I crawled into the passenger seat of our car and slept most of the way home. I somehow managed to pull myself together long enough to help get the girls ready for bed, brush their teeth and sing them a few songs. As soon as I closed their door I rolled into bed, and by 8pm, I myself was sleeping like a baby.
What I learned: Catching up with my girlfriends is a lot of fun and something I truly miss. A night off from mommy-duties every so often doesn’t make you a bad mommy. My night away made me appreciate my free time and my daughters even more. Depleting my bank account for tapas and overpriced drinks is not something I want to partake in more often than necessary. Being able to bounce back like I used to is a thing of the past. I now realize that aging gracefully is much better than refusing to grow up.
Here’s to girlfriends!
