Re-Learning Fun, Smug Mummy Style

*The following post is brought to you by the power of caffeine - not for the usual post-music-festival festive reasons, but because poor Master P kept us up all night with teething. If my non-sequiturs, painful puns & atrocious grammar are even worse than usual, blame Keurig. Er, I mean, I apologize.*

You know how parents are prone to issue dire warnings to those of us sans children about how kids are the Death of Fun ("DOF")? That, once we have kids (assuming we do), we'll never leave the house again, let alone make it to dinner on a whim or a 3-day music festival? I mostly brushed off those warnings, determining that having my 2.5 perfect, Ralph Lauren-style children outweighed any high-class concerns about the entertainment factor of parenting, but I admit the doomsayers got to me a bit.

I'm here to report that the Fun sky is not falling post-child - it sure is different, but the reports of Fun's death are greatly exaggerated. If your definition of happiness hinges on spontaneity, granted, then the arrival of a child may - ok, will - be a 7.5 pound bundle of Issues for you. Of course, gone are the days when, for example, the Anonymous Husband & I knew the latest trendy restaurants and actually had the ability to check them out on a moment's notice. Pulling off the ACL Festival this past weekend* was a strategic exercise over many months of babysitter and work scheduling.

*Mildly Relevant Sidebar: Should any music lovers accidentally happen upon this site, please go check out this remarkable New Orleans jazz band immediately; they were by far the best ACL show we saw.

I don't know if it's our advancing ages - thirty-three, for you party-poopers keeping track - or just having spent years in the "When will my (expletive) spouse / kids / picket fence get here already?" trenches, but I've found along with Master P's arrival our desire to be out doing DINK acts of spontaneous fun has subsided somewhat too. Even the scheduled fun has changed - for example, I found myself listening to a favorite act this past weekend, amongst the sweltering heat & crowds, and decided I wanted nothing more than to be at home with my wee darling Master P, the Anonymous Husband, and my air-conditioning instead. Almost entirely in that order, too. In fact, we skipped the 3rd day of the festival to do just that.

Bottom line, though I miss the ability to spontaneously schedule things like meeting a friend out for drinks, the joy of Master P really does outweigh that. I've nattered on about the importance of keeping date nights up Smug Married style, and the AH & I work to do just that, but we happily stay home as a family more too. I also look forward to when Master P is a bit older and we can bring him along to more events. I'm not saying it isn't hugely frustrating at times to lack control over one's schedule, particularly for us Type A Minuses, and that I don't miss traveling or dining out more, but it isn't the DOF either.

Plus, as Master P has grown older, I'm getting better at scheduling the grown-up fun. We have a solid rotation of babysitters now - turns out it actually does take a village -  and a more realistic expectation of how often we'll be able to do Date Night or travel stuff. It's something to look forward to now even more so than when we were cheerfully child-free. Though we have the inevitable cancellations now too, like today when I had to cancel lunch with a friend to stay home with Master P, the Fun will still be there. Pinky swear.