On Lowering Those Expectations

tee: Sam's Club / jacket: Marshall's / pants: Discount Fashion Warehouse (Express brand) / shoes: Payless / necklace: Target
*outfit from the night of our anniversary, taken on my lunch break the following week because apparently my work wear and date night wear are interchangeable - ha!

My husband and I recently celebrated our 5 year anniversary and I was really excited because it landed on a Saturday and I was feeling like I could finally bring myself to plan an overnight trip away from our 18 month old son. So we coordinated my in-laws coming to our house that weekend to stay with Jacob and then pretty much nothing went as planned.

I had really high expectations for our night and wanted to do something fun that we haven't gotten to do since becoming parents. First we thought maybe we’d head up to Cleveland for the night and hang out downtown like we used to do (my husband lived there when we met and then we always planned a night spent downtown once a year for something sports related after he moved to Columbus) but then I wrecked my car that’s been paid off for years and had to buy another one, so we were on the fence about spending the money on a night away. Once we figured out that the Cleveland marathon was the next morning we landed right on the other side of the fence and discarded that idea because we knew a hotel room would be difficult to come by, expensive, and downtown would be a major pain when we tried to leave the next day.

So that left us with the incredibly rare childcare arrangement but back to no plans. We thought about getting a hotel room in Columbus and maybe a dinner out at a non-kid friendly restaurant we hadn’t been to, but then we still hadn’t made a final decision on the morning of our anniversary and all of a sudden had a toddler on our hands who basically lost his mind if he wasn’t attached to me. And then he wouldn’t sleep, and then the weather was pretty much miserable – think lots of rain and freezing cold in mid-May.

Basically that left us as 2 very cranky and frustrated adults with zero plans still made, and no way were we going to get a reservation anywhere by this point. I’ll admit that when we finally left the house, still with no idea where we were headed, I snapped a little bit and finally owned the fact that I felt overwhelmed by choices because I guess I literally have no idea anymore what people do for fun in Columbus at night without kids ;) and also that I really didn’t care what we did as long as we spent some time together.

That led to the most random of date nights, which looking back on our relationship I think has always been when I’ve had the most fun. We just wandered around, having drinks and splitting an order of wings at our old favorite bar we always went to before having Jacob, then going to Melt and snagging a seat at their bar because fried mac and cheese bites sounded amazing, and then decided to end at Cap City Diner because we wanted dessert and one more drink.

I think we would’ve headed back and crashed sooner if not for the fear that Jacob would still be awake and we really wanted to avoid the normal routine (since we feel like we’re a bit too attached to that), but it was totally worth it and I’m so glad I forced myself to let go of those expectations I had set and just go with it for the night rather than getting caught up in the idea that our anniversary had to be this grand celebration. Maybe we’ll give that another go in another 5 years, but for now I’ll celebrate in a less grand way, probably with a drink and a victory cheers in our pajamas once we finally get our kid to bed for the night! ;)