A date night is born

Last Saturday, Wes and I left the baby with a sitter and went to see the new Second City show, "America: It's Fixed!" We've been big Second City fans since we moved to Chicago. Our favorite show was actually not staged on the mainstage but on Navy Pier. The Shakespeare Theater there hosted Second City's Romeo and Juliet Musical -- The People Versus Friar Laurence, the Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet. The show was hilarious. We'd actually seen it advertised when we visited Chicago after our wedding in 2004, and it was still running a year later when we moved here. Since then we've seen every show on the mainstage save the last one, "No Country for Old White Men." (I'm sure the pun-as-title is part of the attraction for me.)

The greater meaning to Saturday night was that it was the first time Wes and I had been out just the two of us since Oliver was born. We went out when we were in Nashville to have dinner with Wes's new boss and his wife, but that wasn't alone. This was just the two us. We grabbed a bite and a drink at the bar across the street before going to the show, and, in true Wes-and-Liz fashion, "planned our future." We talked about the move, my career plans, and all of those big-life-question type things.

We really did have a nice time out together. It's not that we don't talk about these things when we're home with the baby. Indeed, this type of discussion seems to dominate conversation these days. But there's something different about the way you look at your spouse when you're not jumping up constantly to meet the needs of another little person. It's just the two of you, with "The Way We Were" playing in the background. The night was the first of what we hope now will be a once-a-month date night and for at least the new few months give us some final chances to take in what we haven't yet seen of Chicago.