Last weekend The Husband and I made reservations for a dinner out. The In-Laws were in town and we were looking forward to our first date night since Little Brother was born eight weeks ago.

I know–ambitious.

I won’t get into every detail behind the difficulty of getting a two-year-old and two-month-old fed, bathed, and put to bed in the span of an hour (as well as getting their mother pumped, made-up, and dressed), but suffice it to say that such an hour is an integral part of my training program for the half-marathon I’ve registered to run next summer. Gone are the days of preparing for a date in an empty bathroom while an episode of Sex and the City plays in the background and a glass of champagne sits on the counter. Gone are the days of smooth, nick-free legs, of freshly blown-dry hair and toenails with polish intact. Here, though, are the days of my “going out” perfume having gone bad for lack of use; that scent being replaced by the aroma of A&D clinging underneath my fingernails (and, probably, to my shirt); a lingerie drawer now co-opted by the adult Christmas onesies I picked up at Target for me and TH in a caffeine-fueled vision of yuletide hilarity.

Now are the days of sitting across the table from each other while fighting off yawns. We talk about the kids, about sleep training, about the past year and the past eight weeks and, slowly, we lose the edge that lack of sleep has brought to some of our recent moments together. In the darkest moments of the darkest nights, it’s easier to look across the room at each other and see a foe, a person who isn’t pulling their weight, whose flaws are magnified in the shadows. Now, in the flameless candlelight of the wine bar we ended up at because we missed our reservation because kids, we share food and drinks and a life and the reasons for all that are becoming clearer. We get to be friends again.

At lunch last week, I commiserated with another friend, another mom, over how our lives have changed since our heyday in New York. How she recently got a call from a children’s clothing store informing her she had left her credit card there. Which reminded us of how many cards we had lost at bars over the years in moments fueled by alcohol, not sleeplessness. And yesterday, the family ventured out to Costco (because that’s what we do now) and, our cart front-loaded with a toddler and back-loaded with an infant in a carrier, we turned a corner to see two parents standing at the freezer next to their young son, who was shouting, “Esurance, backed by Allstate. Esurance, backed by Allstate,” on an endless loop and I know that there was a time when I laughed at witty, nuanced, real jokes but this struck me as hilarious.

Life, date nights, Saturday afternoons–it’s all different than it used to be. And I spend a fair amount of time comparing now with the less-full but simpler way things used to be, daydreaming I’m back on that fourth-floor fire escape in Murray Hill with a date night ahead of me, a long dinner with TH that won’t end with paying the babysitter or feeding the baby. There’s no helping it, really, these comparisons–they tend to happen on their own. It’s what I do with them that I’ve got to watch out for.

Because what is–am I geared to think it’s less because it’s different, because it’s harder, than what was? Or does more just look different from what I expected? This observation happens to be timed with a bubble-blowing session with TK. The cold bites at our faces and my knee is hurting again and…oh, the tiredness. Then he looks up at me, and he brings his hands together in the sign we’ve taught him. He is literally showing me what “more” is. This boy of mine who doesn’t speak yet but knows how to ask for, and expect, and recognize, more.

Today I am thankful for the hard, the messy, the weary, the beautiful of more.