Split screen brain or was it picture in picture

Last night, several mommies and I went out to celebrate some September birthdays. About an hour into the evening, I get a call on my cell ---HOME. Oh crud, what now? Which one is it?
I ducked out and answered it. In the background, just over the barely audible voice of my darling husband, I hear wailing! I know exactly exactly who it is.
Apparently, the baby had been crying incessantly for almost an hour. Off I scooted to the house.
MOMMY TO THE RESCUE! With the promise that I would be back at the bar as soon as possible.
So I zoom through Carlsbad and Oceanside, it was like a split screen in my head. Or was it really picture in picture? It was like something you would see on Court TV, half my brain was showing a picture of me needing to get home to my distressed baby and half of my brain was showing a picture of me needing to get home to my distressed baby so that I could hurry up and get back out to the bar.
I pulled up behind the garage and slipped through the sliding glass door. As I walked up, at first I didn't hear anything. Then I was greeted by the screaming of a seriously angry baby. But what happens when I walk in? He spots me and starts laughing!
Hubby'd brought him downstairs and was sitting on a blanket with him on the floor watching Comedy Central or something, looking VERY tired. Funny, one hour of screaming has him DONE and a whole day leaves me running a sub 28 min 3 miles. What am I running from? Simple! My kids! Even if I have them in the stroller in front of me. Figure out what that means!
So anyway, I digress. Upstairs we go. In the bathroom and into the medicine cabinet. Ahh the best bottle of purple goo---a little baby Tylonol. Because of course, it has to be teeth! When all other explanation fails with babies, it must be teeth. Or if they're really little, colic.
A little dropper of med and into the rocking chair for a little cuddle nursing. And all the while, I'm thinking, "it's nice to know that I can fix anything for my kids but really, how long is this going to take. I want to get back to the bar. And I wonder if the ladies will still be at the same place. And will anyone hear/feel their phone ringing? How am I going to find them if they've moved on?"
Back into the crib he goes and back into the car I go. But before I head out, I turned up the monitor really loudly hoping that if hubby fell asleep, he'd be woken by a crying baby (b/c he sleeps like the dead). And for the rest of the night I wondered if hubby was awake and all was calm or if hubby was asleep and baby was really having a fit.
I zoom back to the bar. It seemed like a super quick 45 mins to me. But that was b/c I'd driven home, dealt with the baby, and then had to drive back. I wondered if it had gone that quickly for the ladies and so they'd still be at the same bar. I found them and they were surprised that I did actually come back. Obviously they don't know me that well! Was there really any doubt that I wouldn't come back--if the baby was okay? A night out! A real night out, as in somewhere that my children positively, absolutely cannot come. Hell yeah, I'm making an effort to go out. I love my children more than life, and that's never in question, but sometimes it's just nice to get dressed up and not look like someone's mommy. It's nice to have a drink that I can't, won't, or don't have to share. To have a drink in an open top glass and not have to worry about whether it's going to get spilt by a two year old. Or to wear something that I don't have to worry about the ease in which I can nurse.
I won't recap the rest of the evening b/c it went well and with it all said and done, it was nice to be out. I had a blast. But as always, it was even nicer to be home again for the night.
There's a show with what's her face, Elaine from Seinfeld called Old Christine (or something like that) and she's the ex wife and her ex husband has New Christine, the girlfriend. Well I'm no one's ex wife but I do sometimes feel like Old Maria needs to come out and play.
Old Maria for a moment, New Mommy for a lifetime.