Night Out? Not Exactly.

Last night was supposed to be my monthly girls' night out with Catherine and Shannon. It's been six weeks since the last one. And this time, I was bringing dinner for the three of us (thank you, Central Market prepared foods) instead of Catherine having to cook. I was soooooooo looking forward to the evening. Now that TJ works from home, he's usually been able to take E at 4:00 so that I can leave for South Austin and get to their place by 5:00. When I checked with him yesterday afternoon to find out what time he'd be able to take E, he told me he had this big conference call starting at 3:00 that could last as long as three hours. He had gotten pulled onto the call at the last minute and had no control over it (there are only three people in his company and two of them had to be on the call). He was hoping to bow out at 5:00 so that I could leave then. I was really annoyed at the thought of having to wait until 5:00 (thinking of traffic), but then realized it was unreasonable for me to expect him to be able to take E at 4:00 on a week day. So 5:00 it was.

A few minutes after 5:00, he came upstairs and told me they were taking a five-minute break and that the call was still going strong and could possibly last until 7:00. In other words, my night out was not happening. Catherine and I had worked hard to schedule this dinner around a bunch of other things, so it's not something that's easily rescheduled. We may try to do it next week, although C & S's niece will be in town from CA, so who knows if that'll work. I felt especially awful since I was the one bringing dinner, and Catherine ended up having to cook on a night she hadn't planned to. Ugh.

I went ahead and started E's bedtime routine. TJ got off the phone at 6:30, right as we were finishing up in the bath. He got E out and ready for bed so I could have a little break before nursing. He was very apologetic and clearly felt terrible. He said he knows how important it is for me to have time away, particularly with C & S. I really appreciated him acknowledging this, and I think it helped me not to hold a grudge. I was disappointed, but not mad. (In the past, I probably would've given him the cold shoulder all night, rightly or wrongly, but I think the horrors of his last job have put things in perspective for me. Last night was nothing compared to the endless nights of misery and stress that characterized our life a few months ago. I can't stay pissed off anymore over something like this. And I feel like we're both kinder and more respectful of each other now.)