Date night!

We finally had another date night! I'm pretty sure our last date was at the end of July 2012. We were way overdue! It was so nice, too. We had Grammy come over around 4:30 so the transition wouldn't be too abrupt. Despite Grammy's protestations that she could handle it, I gave her a quick rundown of the basics of Katie's bedtime routine. We left around 6:30. We told Katie goodbye, emphasizing that we would be back after she was asleep. I also told her we'd come in and say goodnight to her, since that seemed to work OK last time. Grammy held her up so we could all wave bye-bye as we drove away. Everything seemed fine, no tears or anything! Yay.

We went to a cute bar & grill with outdoor seating and (thankfully) heat lamps and fire pits. I had fried polenta with goat cheese on top, with bolognese sauce. (Sorry, probably boring you with unimportant details, but it's been SO LONG since I ate in a restaurant!) And we talked! We joked, we laughed, we commiserated about missing Katie even though we'd been gone less than an hour. We got to have an entire conversation without being interrupted every 45 seconds! It was delightful.

I didn't even worry about Katie, well not much anyway. I did check my phone for texts pretty often, but it didn't get in the way of our evening. We decided to text my mom on our way home, to find out if everything had gone smoothly. She didn't reply, which could mean that she was still trying to put Katie down, or that her phone was out of battery, or that she'd left it downstairs, or that she couldn't figure out how to send a text back. Sigh, parents and technology!! So we got home, not knowing what to expect. If Katie was resisting going to bed but Grammy was making headway, we didn't want to interfere.

We tiptoed into the house and listened. We didn't hear anything. Good sign. Then I crept up the stairs and saw a light coming from under Katie's door. D'oh! That meant Grammy was in there with Katie, with the light on. Probably in the rocking chair. I went back downstairs to report this to Anthony, and just then we heard Katie start to wail. She sounded really, really unhappy, so we gave up and went in and got her. Poor baby - she was standing in her crib, crying, while Grammy was sitting on the rocking chair, trying to say soothing things. Katie kept crying after I picked her up, but soon calmed down. Then Grammy informed me that Katie had a regular diaper on, not the one we use overnight. She was also not wearing her pajamas underneath her sleep sack. So I unzipped her and started over. A few minutes, one book and one lullaby later, and Katie went into her crib without further protest.

Then I went downstairs to hear what had happened. It turns out that, unlike when Dada watched her, Katie wasn't happy at all to be left with Grammy. She'd get interested in something for a few minutes, then remember we were gone and start to cry. Grammy did everything she could think of to entertain her, but nothing would last. Finally it was bedtime, and Grammy took her upstairs to change. Katie absolutely refused to have her diaper put on. She writhed and screamed and bucked and kicked. She had an absolute meltdown. Apparently she ran downstairs, screaming, and was trying to open the door to the garage, when...she started to poop. Katie prefers to poop on the potty, so she must have been pretty wrapped up in her tantrum and pretty focused on getting that door open. To Katie's credit, my mom said she turned and ran for the potty, one little hand over her bottom, trying to keep the poop in. (omg!) Suffice it to say that Katie had another reason to say "Dada clean it poo-poo rug" the next morning. Thankfully, there were only two tiny little spots and they both came out completely.

After my mom cleaned Katie up, she still didn't want to put on pajamas or a diaper. So my mom turned on the TV ("Thank goodness Lawrence Welk was on!" Seriously??) She quickly put a daytime diaper on Katie while Katie was standing up, mesmerized by the wholesome mid-century musical antics on TV. I'm guessing she got Katie's shirt and sleep sack on in the same way. I don't know how she got Katie upstairs, but I'm guessing Katie didn't go quietly. And that's roughly where we came in.

So date night didn't go all that smoothly. Good thing Grammy wasn't scared off - she actually wants to try again, which I think is kind of a miracle. Wish us better luck (and less poop) next time!