20 Reasons Why This Mom Is Staying In Tonight

Let’s face it, my 30s are a lot less exciting than my 20s were, which is amazing because every day with kids brings excitement—just a different kind. Usually, it’s sticky. Excitement in my 20s was going mountain biking after work on a rainy, muddy Wednesday night. Excitement last Tuesday was chasing a potty-training toddler around the house hoping to catch her before she peed on the couch again, or at least catch the pee with a towel.

At the end of the day, I’m spent. So, the last thing I want to do is go anywhere. Besides, going out these days is harder than it was 10 years ago. Here are 20 reason mom’s night—with or without my husband—out isn’t happening for me:

1. I can’t find a babysitter who knows more than my toddlers.

2. I haven’t fit into my only pair of heels since the birth of my first child.

3. ​The messy hair look isn’t en vogue the way it used to be.​

​4. The idea of going out sounds wonderful. The reality is it feels like work.

5. Most of my shoes are currently housing a posse of miniature My Little Ponies.

6. My good pair of jeans doesn’t fit because my four-year postpartum muffin top launched the button across my bedroom and into oblivion.

7. Shark Tank is having a marathon.

8. I’m tired.

9. It’s my husband’s turn to do baths, and I’m going to sit quietly downstairs and enjoy doing nothing, in silence, for 10 whole seconds before my assistance is required in cleaning up a lake’s worth of bath water on the floor.

10. We have to plan, process and execute an entire covert operation just to get out of the house and into the car without being seen by our toddlers.

11. Slippers are not acceptable evening-on-the-town attire.

12. We don’t know how to eat a meal without chasing someone out from under the table.

13. There’s an entire obstacle course of toys, discarded clothes, and food parts to wade through before finding the garage.

14. Wine in my house is $4 a bottle instead of a glass.

15. When we ask family if they can watch our kids for a few hours, they cough and say they have the plague.

16. Most of my makeup is missing, minus the few items in the crayon bin.

17. The Olive Garden does not offer fleece blankets and couches to their diners.

18. My husband fell asleep in the middle of Go, Dog Go!

19. We forgot how to eat warm food while sitting down.

20. It’s 7:45 p.m. and I’m already in my pajamas.

Maybe one day I’ll have a mom’s night out again. Not tonight, though, because Shark Tank reruns are on, and we have popcorn and wine in a box. Also, I’m pretty sure I just sat in someone’s pee.