It’s been almost 10 years since my last first date. Ten 10 years later and I still remember vididly how bad it was and so does my husband. Somehow, we survived that date as the stars must have been alligned.

It was a moment I thought I would never have to experience again.

Don’t be concerned, my husband are still happily married but now with a 3 year old son. I’ve never been one to have a ton of friends for really two main reasons: it would require me to be social and it would require me to make committments.

Along with all the other things our friends forgot to mention when selling us on the baby club membership, they failed to tell us we would be going out on first dates again. A direct result of your kids making friends. We avoided this pretty well until our son began pre-school in February of this year and then it was pretty much unavoidable unless you wanted to be blacklisted. First dates with other parents can be even more difficult than first dates with potential partners. With potential partners you are more likely to have something in common or a general attraction to each other which made you go on this date. With first dates with parents, you are bound together by your toddler’s buddy or in our case, his pre-school girlfriend.

Technically, this date was a second date as I met my son’s girlfriend and her mother at the zoo. It was my time to reciprocate the invite so I asked her parents to join us for Friday Night Pizza Night, which is secret code for Friday Night Cocktail Night for me and my husband. It was a busy week so I hadn’t talked about it too much with my husband other than the fact he better not be late and that we should probably only have one drink. Afterall, we didn’t want to reveal our true selves too early in the relationship. I picked up my son for pre-school on Friday, stopped at home and met my husband at the restaurant. He managed to get there early and a pre game beer which I can only think was to move him along from denial and anger to acceptance for this event. As it turns out, the date went very smoothly. Good food, drink, conversation, laughter and the night ended with the two kids’ frolicking up and down the street by the restaurant.

I hope they call for a second date.