Best Laid Plans

We had an interesting weekend.

Hubby and I have season tickets to Philharmonic Orchestra. My MIL was supposed to be here till May, so we figured babysitting was not a problem and went ahead and got season tickets. But she had to leave unexpectedly at the end of February and so we had to find someone to watch the baby while we were gone. A sweet friend from church agreed to watch Neil and we were all set for a date night on Saturday listening to Hal France Returns. It was a busy morning and we went out to lunch as is our Saturday tradition. R had an appointment with a guy to play some table tennis. I was home by myself with Neil and I put him to sleep. I had just sat down to watch some mindless TV and he started screaming. That was so unusual that I shot up like a dog with its tail on fire and ran to where he was sleeping. He was just crying his little eyes out and screaming. Maybe a nightmare, I was not sure.

Anyway I took him and carried him around and he started spitting up. Again and again and again. In 2 hours I had to change 5 outfits for him and I had to change 2 myself. And he started screaming again. Usually when he cries and I carry him, he stops immediately and he is fine. This time, even that didn't work. R was not home, I was at my wits end. NOTHING worked. I tried sling, stroller, music, toys, reading, rocking, holding and walking. He just continued crying. I finally called R and told him I had no idea what to do. He was playing and had lost all track of time. Anyway, he heard the screaming on the phone and said he will leave right then. He told me to take him outside. I did that and he started calming down. I kissed and cuddled and just carried and walked around with him. It was 6:30 by then and R asked me to make sure that the concert was at 8:30 and that we would leave at 7:45. In the midst of all the chaos, it slipped my mind. He forgot to ask me about that again as well (we were on the phone multiple times). By the time he came home baby was doing ok and had stopped spitting up also. But I was not very happy about leaving him because I had no idea what had caused him to behave that way and also what had caused all the spitting up.

Anyway, by around 7:55 we had his diaper bag packed and we were also ready to leave. R took the concert tickets out and guess what time it started?

8 pm!

So we were not going to make it and we stood and talked for 10 minutes if we should go ahead and catch the one after intermission. Finally we agreed we could do that and we headed for our friends' house to leave Neil there. Just as we turned into the lane that led to her house, we realized that we hadn't taken the stroller. Neil goes to sleep very comfortably in the stroller. That is how we put him to sleep and then transfer to the crib once he is fast asleep. There was no way they could put him to sleep elsewhere especially when he was cranky. It was a 20 minute drive back home and we figured we were not going to make even the intermission.

Since we were out and dressed up anyway we thought we would go some place nice to eat. We thought of Elephant Bar and when we went there, it was a 45 minute wait. We decided not to wait and thought about which one to go to. We could not come to a decision and so we drove around for a bit and finally decided to take Chili to go. By this time Neil had fallen fast asleep and we went home changed into pajamas shared a Chili, watched a movie and went to sleep.

The night was not all lost though. We listened to classical music in the car.

It is times like this I realize that we have come a long way in our marriage. It is easy to not fight when plans are going well, things happen like the way they are supposed to. Saturday night was not supposed to be like that. We had Row A tickets. We are hardly able to get out as a couple. Our lives are super busy taking care of a little person and work. This was one thing we were looking forward to, a relaxing evening doing something we enjoy. I apologized for not looking up the time when he asked me to. He said he was sorry I had such a rough time home while he was gone. We laughed about it and how different our life is now that we are parents. And then we let it go.

While it would have been a treat going out, I realized that the real treasure is being in a marriage where there is room for mistakes and forgiveness without bitterness. Where there is no finger pointing. Where the plans may go up in smoke but the love remains.