Date Night

For a few weeks now, Collin has brought up several times that he wanted to take me out on a date. There were several rules that he explained to me about how this was supposed to happen. First, I would be required to wear a dress. Second, we had to go out at night when it's dark. (That one didn't happen because it doesn't get dark until after 9:00 or something.) Third we had to go to a nice restaurant, specifically, Red Lobster. He was terribly sweet and cute about the whole thing. I asked what he was going to wear since I had to dress up. He said he thought he should have a white shirt with a tie. Since he doesn't own either of these two things I told him he didn't have to if he didn't want to. His response, "Well okay, but if you want me to then I would." I told him he needed Daddy's permission to go on a date with me, so he asked. Daddy was cool with it and just asked Collin to have me home by 9.

So tonight was the big night. Timothy took Collin out on the front porch to ring the doorbell so he could 'pick me up' for our date. We went to see a movie before dinner, because that's what you do. I gave Collin some money and told him what to say and he walked up to the counter and bought our tickets. We saw Smurfs, which by the way I would not recommend. Collin got a little box of candy but reminded me that we should not eat too much because then we wouldn't be hungry for dinner later. The movie kinda sucked and he even asked if we could leave at one point, but we stuck it out. It ended alright I guess, but poor Neil Patrick Harris (whose character was distractingly named Patrick) couldn't even save this movie for me and I really like him so that tells you something. Of course, I may not be the best audience as my brother and I are the only people in this country to grow up in the 80's without watching the Smurfs. (See future post about my unique childhood.)

After the movie we had to go spend a dollar in the arcade so we played air hockey!

Collin kept saying that if he could hit the puck hard enough and get it up to 88 miles per hour then we could open a portal and travel through time. I love that my kids are nerds.

After declining Collin's suggestion that we should buy more $4 movie theater candy so that we could have a snack on the way to dinner, we were off. There was a bit of a line already when we got to Red Lobster and we got one of those buzzer things that Collin was so proud to be in charge of and we hung out with the lobsters for awhile.

I told him it would light up and start buzzing when it was our turn and that made him a bit nervous. He thought it may be loud and scare him, but we watched a few other groups when their buzzers went off so he would know what it looked and sounded like. My little Gryffindor handled it well and calmly turned it into the hostess when it was our turn.

We took several self-portraits and this was the best we could get. I think he was making that face on purpose because they all looked like that.

So we sat down and ordered drinks. He had been looking forward to that Dr. Pepper all day. Then I showed him how to put a napkin on his lap. About a minute later that napkin came in handy when he forgot you're not supposed to tilt a cup that has a straw in it. I thought it was nice that he got to see it in practice, and also it was lucky that it all landed on the napkin and nothing on his clothes.

We had fun looking through the dessert menu while we waited for our food. Funny enough after he finished eating I asked him if he wanted some of that chocolate cake he had been looking at and he said if it was okay with me he would rather just have a piece of gum from my purse. I love it!

Of course we had to spend some time looking at the fish tank too. It's always so pretty. Then we stopped at the Office Depot across the street to buy the last thing on his school supply list and we headed home.

I'm not sure if his first date was everything he thought it would be, but I think he had fun and I know I did. :-)