Pandemic Motherhood Diary, Entry 9: A New Kind of Date Night

My husband had spent the week hinting about a surprise he had in store for me. After a long work week and interning for his master’s in Social Work, he had planned a date night. On Friday evening, while riding between two car seats, headed to the surprise, he told me to close my eyes. We stopped, and I heard a woman near his window say, “two for ‘Doctor Strange’.” I squealed in excitement. Not only were we going to see a movie that I didn’t expect to watch until it was streaming – for me, it was reminiscent of 2019 again. It felt like a pre-pandemic date night for us, plus two. 

Date night has always been a big deal to us. We didn’t care how far we needed to drive for a good adventure. Painting, indoor rock climbing, snorkeling, kayaking, different restaurants – we were always prepared for a Friday night or Saturday on the town. The pandemic grounded us and forced us to find other ways to date each other. Because of that, I didn’t expect to see a movie in public for much longer.

The last movie we saw in theaters together was “Gemini Man” in October of 2019. It was the last movie we went to see because I was less than two months away from giving birth to our first child. Soon afterward, the pandemic began, and everything went into immediate shut-down mode. The movie theater was one of the few spaces many took a while to return to. What was once a ritual for us, especially if it was a new Marvel film, had come to a halt. We loved a movie date. If we did nothing else, we always saw a new movie.

Pulling up to a drive-in movie for the first time since the start of the pandemic was very special. Everything from the limited concession stand to being out safely with our kids was a much-needed remixed reminder of how it used to be. The drive-in theater we went to hadn’t been around long. One can assume it was created to accommodate the pandemic moviegoers who wanted other options. 

The evening was its own brand of chaos. We arrived 45 minutes early to get a good parking spot and to soak up the surprise. While leaving the concession stand, our baby started to cough. Sometimes if he coughs too hard, he will vomit or, as I like to call it, “exorcist puke.” Sure enough, just outside of our car and next to someone else’s, puke splattered all over the ground. After patting his back and locking a couple of awkward stares from onlookers, we whisked him away into the car. No use in trying to clean up the ground. I mean, it’s the ground. Just as the movie was beginning, our baby also pooped. A full diaper that I was conveniently tasked with changing. What soon followed was a fussy baby who needed to eat and sleep and a toddler who climbed from the front seat to the backseat just because he could. He had grown uninterested in his tablet, so at times we talked with him just to keep him amused. Shockingly, he had little interest in the movie. 

Those two-plus hours were such a gift. It is an experience I would gladly have again with a little better planning. I did get bit by a mosquito, so repellent would be necessary. Bringing our own snacks would also save us a trip. Kids are unpredictable in many ways, so there isn’t much preparedness we can do there. We just have to be ready for anything, including an energized toddler and an exorcist puke. 

Melissa Menny is an author with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. She is a poet and a writer in all aspects. When she is not working, she enjoys painting, music, and spending time with her husband and two sons.