playing hooky

My last post on motherhood was apparently real swell and all -- at least it struck a chord somewhere, causing quite a few of you to crawl out of the woodwork to comment (thanks, by the way, for sharing your thoughts...I love the warm, fuzzy, popular feeling I get when you chime in) -- and I promise that I meant every single word of what I said, but last night, for the first time in five months and nine days (i.e. since the day before Garrett was born), this mama played hooky. Last night Blake and I went out on a date.

About a week ago, the secretary to the CEO of the company Blake works for handed Blake an envelope from her boss which contained two complimentary Knicks tickets. So we hired a pair of babysitters, told Garrett to be a good boy...

...and then we got really nervous about leaving him for, essentially, the first time since he was born (we're not counting the couple of times a visiting family member has kindly volunteered to watch him while we escaped for an errand). Would he be a happy, playful boy, or would he be ridden with reflux-induced screams and nervous stranger anxiety? Had we left clear enough instructions? Did we remind our friends that it was important not to drop him?

Of course he'd be just fine, we reassured ourselves as we walked to the subway. Scott and Ashley are responsible, baby-loving adults who, armed with the instructions we gave them and the few tricks we tucked up their sleeves, would do fine. And of course we knew that they knew not to drop him.

It was still strange, though, to be riding the subway without Garrett in tow.

We stopped first for dinner at the New York Burger Company, which was oh, so good and faintly reminiscent of the glories of our favorite burger joint in Provo, Jerry's, which has since, sadly, kicked the bucket.

Well fed, we then walked the few blocks north to Madison Square Garden which, we were reminded several times throughout the evening, is the most famous arena in the world.


The Knicks were playing the Philadelphia 76ers, and I can't boast that I'm familiar with current basketball stats and rankings, but I can tell you that the Knicks could have played a lot better. I, who had been their number 1 fan for all of three hours, was incredibly disappointed. (Hopefully, their season will improve. After all, we're going to be New Yorkers for a while and we need a decent team to support.)


Despite the fact that our team was consistently shooting well under par (both literally and figuratively), we still had a lot of fun. It was Kids Night at The Garden (which, again, in case you forgot, is the world's most famous arena), and that for some reason made me feel okay about leaving Garrett at home. Though I really can't claim a logical explanation for this reasoning, it might have had something to do with the fact that I was surrounded by game-going children who made me feel right at home. Or maybe it was the excellent dance performances by the Knicks City Kids, who, with their ability to outdo the competition in acrobatics, were more entertaining to watch than the Knicks City Dancers (a.k.a. the cheerleaders).

Sometime during the first quarter, I received a nice message from Ashley: "Hey! Everything is going great. He is being a good boy and he ate all his carrots." At halftime I called to check in and was reassured that the only crankiness he had exhibited was due to a dire need to go to bed.

So, my baby was apparently doing just fine without me. And while on the one hand I felt relieved, on the other I felt a teensy bit slighted.

A few minutes into the fourth quarter, amid chants of "Fire Isiah! Fire Isiah!" we decided to cut our losses and get ahead of the crowds. Our Knicks were down by a pathetic 20 points, so, apparent fair-weather fans that we are, we left them to fend for themselves. (We looked up the score later for confirmation that we'd made the right decision. And we did: they lost 77 to 105.)

Because good dates, according to Blake's way of thinking, come in threes (meal, activity, dessert), and because it was chilly, we stopped at a nearby Dunkin' Donuts for some hot chocolate, which we sipped as we walked back to the subway. The train ride home was miserably slow, and we were almost evacuated while we were riding over the Manhattan Bridge (a train ahead of us was stopped on the tracks, and the train we were in had to pull the emergency brakes, thus triggering the automatic announcement preparing us passengers for evacuation. It was a moment of anxious excitement, to be sure). While we sat waiting (and waiting) for our train to start moving, I turned to Blake and thanked him for a swell evening out. "Don't thank me," he replied, in much the same manner as his co-worker account manager does after taking Blake out for lunch,"thank the investors."


We arrived back home to the pleasant scene of our baby snoozing in his crib and our babysitters looking decidedly non-frazzled. I, for one, had a fabulous night on the town, and am relieved to know that our son, at least for the time being, knows how to be good for the babysitters. So, thanks, Scott and Ashley, for helping us out! We're sad our new favorite babysitters are moving back to Idaho. You know you're more than welcome to fly out to New York and watch Garrett any time.