On being a grown up

Every year, on the first Friday night of December, the kids' preschool offers free babysitting. They provide pizza, cookie decorating, crafts and Christmas shows for the kids from 6-9. You can bet that I emailed the director from my car the day I received that piece of paper in Ryan's backpack (only 12 kids per age group--and, they took Jack too!). Chris and I went to a nice steak place we'd been wanting to go to. I found a deal on restaraunt.com (if you've never used them, check it out--I got one for "spend $100, get $50 off the ticket". We had a glass of wine, salads, bread, filet mignon (me), lamb (Chris), mashed potatoes, green beans (me), asparagus (Chris) had great conversation, ran into some friends and just had an overall lovely evening. We had plans to go to Macy's to get Jack's first Christmas ornament, but we lingered too long over dinner (and our cappuccino's that the waitress brought us on the house! Yum). As we talked (and couldn't remember the last time we'd been out!) and then waited to get our van from the valet, I felt old. The valet couldn't have been older than 25 and I asked him if it was the thrill of his life to drive my van (I was laughing, feeling kinda funny). He just said, "uh no, but it's fine." Ya, I felt like I was a million years old (but, that goes along with my theory that every kid you have adds 10 years to your age. Think about it.).

Anna-Kate and I ran errands Saturday morning and I was struck by what a little lady she is! We had a special lunch and went into a million stores (she has been doing chores to earn extra money to buy her brothers and Chris special Christmas presents) and she was so sweet and great company! She got in and out of the car alone, knew what she wanted to get for "her boys"...she's growing up, and I'm feeling old.

Last night we went to an adults only dinner party. I remember my parents going to those when I was a kid. Now, I'm the adult. Anna-Kate sat on my vanity chair watching me get ready and told Ryan that mommy and daddy were going to dinner with mommy and daddy friends and they were staying home with aunt Ann. When did I become old enough to do adult dinners and have kids who are OK with me leaving?

When did I become a grown up? {I'm not sure how I feel about this.}