The Living Birth Control

This evening over dinner, I asked my husband, "Hey, do you remember when we went on dates?" He chuckled and said a short, "Yup." I ask this question over my daughter's very toddler rendition of Le Chic's "Freak Out."

This got me thinking about the dating life my husband and I once had. We didn't go out too much just by ourselves before we were married. After marriage the dates were phenomenal. How is that, one might ask. Easy, my mother was quite over protective (my sisters would say she was lenient with me) and said, "If that boy wants to see you, he can see you here at the house." I thought it was pretty unfair at the time until I thought back to when my sisters started to date......

Again, my mother was very over protective. My sisters are one year apart, and they had boyfriends and they too were restricted to house "dates." They could only stay out in the living room where they could be seen by God and everybody. I remember the boyfriends looked so uncomfortable but they stuck to the rules. Finally, they were allowed to go on dates but the kicker was that I got to go with them. I was my mom's living birth control. I was a perfect mole. I was about 12 years old and I thought it was fun but I'm sure my sisters thought it sucked royally. I would whine and complain and I think I was usually the reason why the dates might have been short. There was one time when my sisters and their boyfriends decided just to ditch school and go on a real date; to the beach. My mom ended up finding out about my sisters' fun day out and they got in trouble.

Compared to what my sisters had to go through, my dating life was much more fun. I rarely had to take my brother on dates and I didn't mind being at home, whether it was my house or Mechanic Hubby's house. Sometimes I do miss going on dates with my husband; eating at some cool restaurant and catching a very snooty independent film, but dates now are good too. They usually involve very old pajamas, a Pixar film, a miniature stuffed Elmo, pizza and three pairs of floppy socks.

Yup, I'd say that's a pretty good date.