Night(s) out

This past weekend I had the rare opportunity to go out for the evening sans baby. Not once, but twice. It was nuts I tell ya', nuts!

On Friday a close friend from grad school, H-bomb, defended her thesis. It turned out that poor little Bean had pink eye and had to stay home from school, so Husband and I did some very elaborate Bean swapping in order to be sure that I could attend H-bomb's defense. H-bomb did an amazing job (I mean, if I can follow an immunology talk, it's a freakin' mircale considering I still have to remind myself the difference between innate and acquired immunity... so kudos to H!).

After the defense, we had hoped to bring Bean inside for the celebratory toast, but Bean got fussy at the last minute, so we took her home instead. That meant that Husband and I couldn't both attend the dinner to help H celebrate, so Husband kindly agreed to stay home with the Bean while I went out to dinner and then drinks with many of my closest friends from grad school. It's amazing every once in awhile to get out of the house sans baby and go someplace other than work. On the way I was blasting Tool on my iPod (you don't get to blast music very often once you're carting a kid around, so that in and of itself was a treat). I got to hang out with some of my favorite people on the planet, I had a pina colada (ridiculously delicious and girly), and the bar even sent over a round of shots on the house (some sort of bottle shelf vodka mixed with either grapefruit juice or battery acid, I'm not sure but it was disgusting). It was good to get out and talk about things other than baby. We talked science, we made fun of Jim Watson, we toasted H-bomb and poured one out for our missing homies (we missed you LJ!).

Saturday night was a Mom's Night Out that I had on the calendar for over a month, so Husband had to stay home with Bean again. I met up with a few mom's that I had the good fortune to meet while I was on maternity leave, and all our babies were born within weeks of each other. We met for dinner and beers at 5:30 (because when you have little ones at home you either do these things early or late so as not to mess up bedtimes). We comiserated about pumping and daycare, we dreamed of being stay at home moms, we drank our expensive beer and laughed about watching mindless TV. We compared notes on babies and husbands and how filthy our respective houses seem to get these days. It was an equally fantastic night out.

In retrospect, my two nights out seem like a funny juxtaposition. Am I getting old now? I vote no.