Tonight Joel, Benny and I went out for our weekly Friday night family dinner. It was Freebirds tonight (trying to save some cash). Before Joel came along, Benny and I would always go out to dinner and a movie on Friday nights. Always.
I get annoyed with people that bring babies to movies. Not so much because the kid makes noise, I'm used to noise, but I just think it's wrong to make a baby sit in a loud, dark theater for almost 2 hours. So anyway, we don't go to the movies much anymore- which isn't a bad thing. Netflix is our new friend. But we still try to go out to dinner on Friday nights. It's just now it has turned into "family dinner night" instead of "date night".
Joel is such a good baby. He has yet to throw a fit in a restaurant or scream/cry. And yes I am probably jinxing myself and I'm sure it's coming one day, but as of today he's good. He is very content to spend his time trying to grab our food (he is VERY fast) or ever-so-carefully trying to put his cereal puffs in his mouth. He has also developed a habit of being interested in waitresses, not waiters, or any other teenage-ish girl in the restaurant. He will follow them around with his eyes, turning his head to see where they went. When he really likes the waitress he will smile and move his eyebrows up and down. It's too funny.
So tonight, like many other nights, we had a nice dinner and then came home. It was about 6:30 and the sun was starting to set so we decided to go for a walk. We strapped Joely into his stroller, leashed up the dogs, and we were off. Joely sat up in his seat looking this way and that the whole time, very interested in what was going on around him. I remember when he was a little baby and I would take him for a walk around the block to try to get him to stop fussing. He would always fall asleep. Then when he was a little older we would go for walks and he would mostly just stare up at the sky. Now he sits upright, looks around, and my favorite- turns his head around to smile at me while I push him along.
Benny and I talked a lot, the whole time actually. It was nice to get away from the tv, the noise, everything and just go for a walk together as a family. Joel didn't make a sound. It was like he was just listening to mommy and daddy talk about what's going on with this and that.
I think I would have liked to have gone on family walks with my parents when I was young, but I don't remember doing it. That's not to say it didn't happen, because unfortunately I have a pretty horrible memory from when I was little. But that's a memory I wish I had.
So I think another one of my mommy goals is to make sure Joel has a lot of those kind of memories with his dad and I. Simple little things like taking a walk and talking to each other. I know realistically I won't be able to give my son everything he wants in life, but I should always be able to give him my time. And what better way to spend our time than getting outside and taking a walk together? It's as simple as that. :)
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