Date Night Resurrected.

Last week marked Tori's eight month birthday. It also marked the eight month anniversary of our last real date night (you know, the kind where you actually leave the house). And eight months of at-home date nights? Adds up to a lot of takeout.

So, we decided the time had come to take the plunge and re-enter the outside world as a couple.

To make it happen, we arranged for our daycare provider's teenage daughter to watch her. But since our dog is somewhat anti-social (and once nipped one of their kids), instead of the babysitter coming to us, Tori stayed with the babysitter.

No big deal...just a little unorthodox.

With Tori taken care of, we took ourselves out for a nice dinner. At the kind of restaurant where there are cloth napkins, wine glasses and real silverware. I had filet mignon. He had rack of lamb. But the main topic of conversation? Was Tori, and how weird it felt not to have Tori around.

We had gone to dinner straight after work, so it was strangely early when we were finished. We could have gone downtown to hit the bar for a while, but...it's Christmastime. And shopping with a baby? Sucks.

So we went shopping instead. That's right. Our first date night in eight months found us at the mall. Exciting, huh?

We finished off the evening at my favorite place in the whole world - the bookstore. A place I hadn't been in, you guessed it, eight months. I went a little crazy. In fact, at one point I had eight books in my arms, fully intending to plop myself down at a table and browse to my heart's content.

But just as I was getting comfortable, Brian started looking antsy.

"It's getting late. Do you think maybe we should get going?"

Secretly glad that he was the one to say it first, I just nodded. We paid for my much pared down pile of paperback goodness and headed to the car.

The time? 9:15 p.m.

Yeah. We're a little rusty. But hey, it's a start!