'Tis the season to go drinking, fa la la la laaaa la la la la

The Pirate and the Dame, all primped and prepped for their night on the town. Please note the lack of spit-up on our clothes and the ol' ball and chain bouncing away in the background...

Friday night was our company Christmas party. And by "our," I mean Rob's AND mine. Since mid-November, he's been working at the same company I work for**. Doing the same job I do. Drinking from my coffee cup, surrounded by all my office cubicle art. Nepotistic? Yep! Verging on incestuous? Sure is!

My parents came over to babysit Milo while we went out and tripped the light fantastic. It was the first time that anyone other than me or Rob was to put him to bed. I was just a wee bit nervous, seeing as how Milo hadn't been very happy the last couple of times Rob has tried to feed him with a bottle -- and Friday's babysitting duties involved giving Milo not one but TWO bottles, his all-important pre-bedtime feed at 7:00 and his dream feed at 11:00.

I wasn't nervous enough to consider not going to the party, however. Nuh uh. Mama needed to go out and play. With her man, for a change.

Thankfully, my parents acquired lots of babysitting experience while taking care of Milo's little cousin Nadia back in the late summer-early fall, so they now think of themselves as total pros. I knew they wouldn't call us to interrupt our evening unless, say, Milo sucked back a bottle of liquid Drano and had to be rushed to emergency. Even then, I'm not sure they would have called us unless they were positive they wouldn't be able to get back from the hospital before we came home from the party.

So yeah, I was feeling pretty good about going out, since Milo was being left in capable hands. So good, in fact, that I rushed out the door with Rob to catch the bus downtown without even saying goodbye to my baby. Does that make me a bad mother? Hmm.

(We called my parents from the bus about 10 minutes after we'd left the house, to ask if Milo was still okay. They laughed at us.)

The party was held at the Vancouver Aquarium, which was a truly awesome place to throw a party (the whole "whales in captivity" controversy aside). After all, who needs decorations when the walls are filled with fishies?

I spent a fair amount of time trying to get the sharks and piranhas to notice me. They just played hard to get; must be a "top-of-the-food-chain" sort of thing. The giant flounder, on the other hand, was a total attention whore.

The food was good. The company was great. And the dancing was absolutely fabulous. Even Rob got into it, and that boy really knows how to shake his booty when he feels like it.

It was the first time since Milo was born that I danced without a baby in my arms. I barely knew what to do with myself -- I just felt so darned light.

And you know what? I only missed him a wee little bit.

It's not that he wasn't on my mind all night. On the contrary; he rarely left my thoughts. For the first time, however, thinking about him while out didn't make me anxious or want to run home to hug him tightly in my arms. It actually made me want to party harder, to celebrate his existence by pouring another glass of wine and clinking glasses with Rob to toast our incredible fortune at having been gifted with such a wonderful baby. And, of course, for having survived the past five and a half months of "Boot Camp for Parents."

We finally stumbled through the front door just before 2:00 a.m. My mom woke up just enough to tell us that Milo had been an absolute dream. He'd sucked back both bottles of milk and gone to bed without a fuss. Apparently, he hadn't noticed our absence at all.

It occurred to me that I could choose to feel slightly hurt by his lack of need for me, but I quickly shooed that thought away. The more independent he is, the better. After all, isn't the whole point of parenting to raise self-sufficient children who can lead personally rewarding lives and hopefully in the process make the world a better place? Of course it is.

However, I'm not quite ready to be rendered obsolete just yet, thank you very much.

Not that I have to worry about that. Milo woke up at 4:30 that morning, just a few short hours after we'd gone to sleep. Then he woke up at 5:00... and again at 5:15. He refused to fall asleep until I personally went into his room to give him his soother and shush him back to sleep. As soon as he saw me, he gave a little shriek and wiggled with delight, then was asleep ten seconds later. Clearly the boy still has some need for his mommy.

Needless to say, the rest of the weekend was payback for the great time we had on Friday night. I spent most of it fighting to keep my eyes open as I tried to recover from the lack of sleep. I'm so tired right now that I'm yawning as I type this and am actually TOO TIRED to expend the effort necessary to get off my chair and go to the bathroom to take out my contacts and brush my teeth so I can finally go to bed (until I give Milo his dream feed an hour from now).

So, yeah. Independence, when it comes, will be a good thing. Only then am I sure to be guaranteed a full eight hours' sleep.

**Of course, I'm not working at the moment, seeing as how I'm still on maternity leave and will be until sometime next summer. Canada: it might not be the land of the brave and free, but it IS the land of kick-ass one-year mat leave.