There are times, usually when I’m not paying attention, when my wife somehow escapes from our house and leaves me in charge of our two boys. She plans it out months in advance and even though she says that she told me “many moons ago” about her night out, she usually waits until she’s walking out the door with her car keys in hand to mention it again.
This escape comes under the disguise of “Girl’s Night”, and it seems to be happening more frequently as the boys get older. My wife feels like she needs to get out of the house so she can spend time talking with other women. Apparently, a 3-year-old boy, 7-year-old boy and her husband don’t talk about enough girly stuff. Which I don’t understand, because we always make a point to mention female superheroes like Storm and the Invisible Woman whenever the conversation allows. But that’s not enough for this stay-at-home mom; she needs a bit more female adult downloading than we can ever provide for her.
While this creates more work for me on the nights she goes out I think all three of us with both the X and Y chromosomes look forward to the nights when the house is ours. “Boy’s night!” becomes a rallying cry as my wife bolts out the door faster than a speeding bullet without committing to whether she will ever return. suddenly the main barrier to sharing bodily gasses as loudly as possible has left the building and the incessant caveman/caveboy grunting begins.
But strangely enough, the routine for “Boy’s Night” isn’t all the different than when my wife is around. She usually still prepres dinner for us before she leaves, and after dinner the boys still have to put on their pajamas and brush their teeth.Then there is reading time and I tell them a story before tucking them into bed.
But even though the formula isn’t drastically different, the dynamic certainly is. I’m not nearly as concerned if 7-year-old aidan and 3-year-old Kyle start wrestling would last 0,335 seconds before we would hear, “You know I don’t like that wrestling!” from across the house.
We also feel free to talk about superheroes, Star Wars, LEGOs and video games without fear of annoying my wife with the conversation topic.
