First date night of the new year!

We had a great night out. Relaxing, fun, delicious.

In the end we decided to see "The Good Shepard" since Rick seemed most interested in that one. I would go see just about anything (ok, so I once went to see a movie without knowing what the heck it was about and I'll never do that again - I ended up covering my eyes and ears for more than half the showing of "Seven"....ugh...I can't do those nasty horror flicks that are more gore and shock value than suspense and plot twists....ya know?). The movie was good - although a bit on the long side- and I, personally, got confused and could not easily keep up with the plot. It is not hard to confuse me, however, so that's not saying much. There were too many agents to keep track of and too much jumping between the 1960s and earlier times between the 1930s and the 1950s. If you like spy/espionage and are not easily confused I'd say go ahead and watch it - otherwise you might want to pass.

Before we headed to dinner I called to check in with the grands and make sure things were relatively peaceful at home. We had a rough departure with A having screaming fits and tantrums about doing some cleaning up so I just had to be sure things were going ok. As it turns out the girls had been having a great evening were acting like "model children" according to my MIL (phew! guess we provided enough incentives through blatant threats to ensure cooperative children for the evening). We headed off to our dinner with an easy conscience and plans to enjoy ourselves. We picked a place downtown that we rarely go to because it's a bit on the pricey side. But, we decided we were worth a little spoiling! Rick ordered a dish called Linguine fra Diavlo which was shrimp, sausage and chicken in a spicy red sauce over pasta. I ordered the Bistro Medallions which was beef wrapped in bacon and served with a mushroom demi-glaze. Sooooooo good. The caramel apple pie was also quite delicious and I'm sure none of this was on my self-proclaimed "diet plan" but it's not often that we get out for date night so I decided to enjoy it without guilt!

It was great to be out and about with Rick and enjoy having uninterrupted conversations. No need to cut up anyone else's food. No need to cook or wash dishes. Just him and me snuggling at the movies and eating a delicious dinner. No distractions, no time constraints, no stress. Ahhhhh....

One completely unrelated side note: there was a group seated next to us at the restaurant - looked like mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, and a toddler of perhaps 18 months - and the entire time they were seated at the restaurant they had the toddler perched in her highchair facing a portable dvd player that was sitting on the bench next to dad! And dad was feeding her some dinner to ensure that she actually ate something (I assume that if he did not feed her she would not have eaten much of anything because she was so transfixed on the video screen). I know we tend to be on the ultra-conservative side when it comes to TV viewing, but I thought that was a bit over the top. Does anyone else agree? I guess they figured it would keep her quiet and entertained so they could enjoy their dinner but I would tend to disagree with that tactic. I guess because I'm also not one to take small children to swank restaurants at what would have been past my 18-month-old child's bedtime (we got there at 7:30ish and they were there until at least 8:30). Feel free to weigh in on this topic. I'm curious whether I'm being too judgemental because of my own biases about TV or if others think sitting an 18-month-old in front of screen for a few hours of quiet at a restaurant is "ok" in their own personal book of parenting tricks.