Last
Saturday my husband decided it was time for a date night. I looked forward to
going out with him all day. There are so
few moments between a husband and wife with small children that aren’t
interrupted by someone needing a drink, or a snack, or needing something wiped that
I honestly felt giddy at the prospect of going out…after dark…to a place with
no children’s menu.
It’s
been a long time since I’ve been part of the dating scene, but I do remember
that getting ready for the evening was a significant part of this ritual. Perfect hair, fresh make-up, cute outfit,
perfectly accented accessories, coordinated bag, and oh-no-you-didn’t
shoes. I began strategically planning in
my mind…I was going to do it…I was bringing sexy back. Unfortunately, what Mr. Timberlake seems to
have left out of his painfully inappropriate lyrics is that bringing sexy
back is a lot harder than it used to be…
You
see, what kept me from bringing sexy back was my lack of planning for the very
thing that stole my sexy in the first place. In my earlier years, I never had
to calculate the time (read life) that three small children suck out of you. I
never planned for the witching hour. (You
know, that inevitable meltdown by one if not all of your children at the exact
moment you’re burning whatever is on the stove.) Speaking of burning something
on the stove, I never had to plan ahead to feed the kids before we left…and
write down every number I can think of because if me or my husband or the
restaurant or the three emergency contacts or 911 don’t answer, the babysitter
can call my college roommate’s ex-boyfriend’s grandma to help in the case of an
emergency. I never had to attempt to get
all three kids bathed and in pajamas.
And can one ever really plan for the child who refuses to wear pajamas after
spending an eternity looking for the Ninja Turtle footie pajamas he HAD to wear? In case you were wondering…he was hot. Or
what about the other one who is too busy smiling at herself in the mirror to
hear you ask her to PLEASE go get her pajamas for the 852nd
time. And the baby, do you hear him screaming
because he must eat…NOW! Because when
your three months old and you weigh in at the 100th percentile, milk
is clearly a very precious commodity. My
former, sexier self would never have had to plan for all that.
By the
time I finished with the kids, I had about 30 minutes to get ready before the
babysitter arrived. Not a problem. After
all, motherhood may have robbed me of a lot of things, but it also taught me
the art of primping on a time limit. My
hair wasn’t styled as planned, but a ponytail can be sexy, right? I knew Jarod would never notice if I just
slapped another coat of make-up over the one I’d worn that morning…or maybe it
was leftover from the day before, who can keep track? My cute outfit ended up being jeans that fit
somewhere on the spectrum of My Underwear Won’t Peek Out the Top and Full Blown
Mom Jeans that somehow ended up with spit up on them. Sexy, right? I even topped it all off with practical shoes
that showed off my perfectly un-manicured toes.
I forgot earrings and I initially grabbed the diaper bag, but thought
better of it and grabbed the first purse I could find buried in the back of my
closet.
As we
were walking out the door, I felt a little defeated. I knew when I planned to bring my sexy back
that I wouldn’t be able to obtain an exact replica of my former dating glory,
but I had hoped it would at least resemble it.
But here I was, looking just like an unsexy mom, the kind of unsexy mom
I swore I would never be. I felt like
calling it all off and just asking if we could eat cookie dough in bed and pick
out another Netflix movie. My husband
reached over, grabbed my hand, and said, “You look great tonight. I’m so lucky to have such a sexy wife.”
It was
in that moment that I realized that even though motherhood has left my body
with less perk and a lot of sag, for my husband, my sexy never left. While I’m sure he wouldn’t complain if my
body miraculously appeared as it did when I was 19, my body isn’t what
captivated him. My husband is captivated
by me, by my commitment to my relationship with God and our marriage, by my
service to our family…and I’d like to think my puke-covered-semi-mom jeans helped
too. So even if I can’t be restored to
my former self, maybe I got my sexy back after all…
