Date Night at last

DH and I finally got to see The King's Speech, which we enjoyed very much.  It took 4 tries to manage it, but we finally had our first successful "Date Night" of the year--in March!  What happened the first 3 times?  Let's see...

Attempt #1: Teddy had a sleepover on Friday night, and we agreed to let Barley have a friend over the same night, since he would not have his brother to torment/play with.  At the last minute, Teddy's sleepover got changed to Saturday night, so we somehow fouled up our babysitting, such that there were kids here when we weren't expecting there to be.

Attempt #2: We made dinner reservations, timed to allow us to dine and still catch the movie, while getting done before the local drop-in babysitting service closed.  As we were signing the boys into the center, they looked up Teddy's birthday, and realized that at age 12, he was over their licensed age.  Too old for daycare (this is going to be a problem this summer, too), but too young to leave home alone for 5 hours.  And no way was he coming on our date night!  Scrap plans again.

Attempt #3: Teddy was going on an overnight (snow) camping trip.  Try plan #2 again, only dropping off one kid, who is definitely under age 12.  Perfect!  Except for inclement weather--the snow camping trip was cancelled at the last minute.  Doh!  Stuck with 2 kids again, one over age 12.

Attempt #4: Call expensive babysitting service--pay agency fee of 35% on top of $18/per hour nanny rate (mature, licensed, trained, experienced, and background-checked adults cost way more than pizza-eating teenagers).  Cost of a night out with my husband?  $200.  Guaranteed date night with no last-minute snafu?  Priceless.