Date Day

The strange part about that time in my life was the duality of it all.

I had accidentally walked into a job that turned out to be life-changing. I knew The Lou had a good reputation. I thought it would be a good fit. But I had no idea it would become all-consuming, or that it would give me a second family outside of my own.

Because the truth was, I already had a family at home.

And he was only eight months old when I started.

My little boy had been born in December. I started at The Lou in August. By the time I stepped into that loud, humming, high-energy room full of seventy personalities, I also had a baby who still smelled like powder and milk waiting for me at home.

I was gone fifty, sometimes sixty, sometimes seventy hours a week with my new family at the restaurant. Nights ran late, and on the nights I closed, my little boy would stay with his grandparents. That became our routine.

I had Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. So I’d close the bar Monday night, stumble through the last of the cleanup, lock the doors, and then go pick him up around ten the next morning. He’d come home with me, and we’d crawl back into bed together.

He had what I called his four Bs.

Barney.

Blankie.

Bottle.

Binky.

He’d gather them all up like tiny treasures, climb into the bed, and curl into me. I was always exhausted from the week, so Tuesdays became our quiet day. We’d clean the house a little, start some laundry, pick up the mess that life leaves behind, and then we’d end up back in bed together, snuggling and watching Barney for the hundredth time.

It was just the two of us. No friends. No distractions. No work people. No social plans. Just me and my little boy, wrapped up in a blanket, hiding from the world for a day.

Then came Wednesdays.

Wednesdays were our date day.

Every single Wednesday, for years, my little boy and I went somewhere together. Sometimes it was something simple, like running errands. But we did them side by side, like a little team. And even when he was tiny, he had absolutely no filter.

I’m an introvert by nature. I like to blend in. Not be noticed. Not be loud.

My little boy was the exact opposite.

As he started learning to talk, he narrated the world out loud. Whatever he saw, he said. And he said it with the sweetest, most innocent smile you’ve ever seen.

If someone was overweight, he’d point and say, “You sure have a big tummy.”

If he saw a Black woman in the store, he’d ask, loud enough for everyone to hear, “When is my skin gonna get dark like hers?”

There was no shame in it. No judgment. Just pure curiosity. He didn’t mean anything by it. He just thought people were interesting, sometimes even beautiful, and he wanted to understand them.

But as his mother, it was mortifying.

I got to the point where I’d scan the grocery store aisles before we turned down them. If there were people there, we’d skip it and come back later. I never knew what was about to come out of his mouth, and I didn’t want to accidentally hurt someone’s feelings because my toddler had no social filter.

He was funny.

And also completely embarrassing.

But he was mine.

In the summers, our Wednesdays got bigger. We’d go to the zoo, or to the pool. And the funny part was, the pool we went to was the same one I used to break into when I was nineteen.

It was out at the bay, part of this little resort area. When I was younger, we’d sneak in like delinquents. Years later, I walked right through the front entrance with a stroller and a diaper bag, and nobody questioned a thing. Turns out, if you look like a mom, people just assume you belong.

They had a baby pool, a snack bar, a little restaurant, and acres of wooded trails behind it. The trails were built on wooden decking that lifted you up above the ground, winding through the trees like a quiet little maze.

We’d spend the entire day there. We’d swim, get snacks, and then wander those wooden trails together, just the two of us, deep in the shade of the trees.

Sometimes we went to movies. Sometimes little kid concerts. We saw Barney Live. We even saw a Cirque du Soleil show because he was obsessed with Michael Jackson.

He had the moves.

He had the coat.

He’d spin and kick like he was born on stage.

He was cute as a button.

Every single Wednesday, for four years, it was just us.

Our date day.

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I was inseparable from my little boy. Everything revolved around him. I wasn’t building a social life. I wasn’t nurturing my marriage. I wasn’t staying out with coworkers. I wasn’t doing anything except working long hours and then pouring everything I had left into those two days with him.

Work was survival.

Good survival, but still survival.

It was what paid the bills. It was what kept us afloat. It was loud and alive and full of people who loved me. But it also took most of my time.

I missed his first steps.

I missed his first word.

Those things happened while I was at work.

By the time he was a year old, he already had a whole personality. Still a baby, but full of opinions and expressions and little dances. By two and three, he was just plain fun. We were always doing something together, always laughing, always exploring. But for years, I kept that world very small and very private. It was just the two of us.

Whatever energy I had left didn’t go to my marriage.

It went to my little boy.

And in the middle of that loud, chaotic, beautiful restaurant life, those two quiet days with him were like stepping into another world entirely. One where the music was Barney instead of bar noise, where the rush was replaced by laundry and grocery carts, and where the only person who needed me was a little boy with his four Bs and a habit of telling the whole world exactly what he saw.

The restaurant gave me a second family.

But on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I came home to my first one.

And he was the center of everything. Of all the times in my life I cherish, my days off with this little boy rank the highest. We set the bar so high. Nothing was as magical as time spent with the little boy who taught me what love really meant. He, single-handedly, gave love a concrete definition. I’d never had that before.

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