Honey, I shrunk the Date!

If you have been a parent even for just about a month.. you will quickly realize the value of having that alone time (As a couple) and alone alone time.. (for yourself). When people in love say random shit like "I was with her for a couple of hours.. but it felt just like 10 mins, time flies.." all i can think is wait till you have a kid.. and in a cruel Christopher Nolan-ish irony you would feel the same 2 hours of baby-free time feel like just 30 seconds. For those of you who have not watched Interstellar... just unread the last sentence and continue reading the blog. For those of you who watched it and still didn't get the point... well.. i really don't have the time to say anything to you since i just get a feeling the kid is going to wake up and I need to finish this blog!

So where was I... yeah.. changing dynamics of planning a date with your partner after a kid is a surreal thing.. suddenly there is a 'Third Umpire' (DRS/VAR) vetoing your decisions subconsciously and while you start with Plan A... after B,C,D..... you end up at H... Home many a time (High strike rate). But then there is nothing wrong with Home dates as such. A romantic candle night dinner on a Sunday evening with a small matter of the dhobhi, newspaper guy, wrong delivery guy, society maintenance and Murphy.. all ringing the door bell in that precious 1 hour window. And you know what all those door bells did... they woke up the baby! Thank you very much. Back to square #1. Rot in hell all you chores.(Hinglish pun not intended).

Our movie date nights also moved temporarily from the IMax screen to a Sony 40" TV with special emphasis on finding subtitles to maintain ambient noise for the baby's sleep. So I am watching 'Jurassic World' and 'The Artist' with the same volume, sometimes with English subtitles on top of hard-coded Arabic ones. Don't judge.. this was a time before Amazon Prime and shared Netflix accounts... so yeah i depended on torrents. There were occasions where we started the movie together but one of us had to leave in the middle because the child woke up and we had to abandon it midway.. There was this horror movie, can't recollect which one.. but we couldn't finish it even in 6-7 attempts. Wait.. was it our wedding video? I'm confused. Either way.. you get my point... don't invest in making a wedding video. The photographs will suffice.

After spending almost 6 months in uncharted territory, we started taking the baby along for the dates and many condescending waiters thought we were being constantly stood up by the other..since there was food on the table but one of us had to change the baby and was missing. There was no dhobhi, newspaper guy, wrong delivery guy etc.. but Murphy accompanied us for many of these trips. Each date was however a new learning experience.. we realized what not to order, which restaurants not to visit, the ones with friendly potential nanny like waiters, the tables to be avoided at certain restaurants.. We learnt all this and started spending more time at home and ventured out only after trapping a non suspecting relative or parents for baby sitting duties (especially for movie dates) :D.

On the initial dates when we did go out, the phone was always on the table, and we took the waiter into confidence to get us the cheque the moment we get the SOS raven from the north... err the designated baby sitter.  The waiters never failed us, except for the one time they got the cheque even before the food (efficiency huh..)  On the flip side it is sometimes actually beneficial to take your kid along... it improves your odds of getting a seat in a crowded restaurant :) It is of course a totally different experience in the restaurant with a kid, one for another time, another blog. Till then..do go out.. the kid will eventually get adjusted to the new social dynamic and you can avoid all the unnecessary door bells ;)

One of those date nights at home which did go as per plan... till the doorbell rang!