a taste of things to come

I had an interesting experience last night ... my daughter went to a birthday party, which ended mid-afternoon, and she was then invited by the host to go to a movie with them. Since it was a movie I knew she would enjoy (Curious George) I said sure. It's tough to get my youngest to sit through an entire movie, so this would be a nice treat for K, I thought. Well, we transferred her booster seat to their car, and I left my cell number just in case, and they told me the show started at 4:30 and was about 95 minutes long. No problem, I figured she'd get home around 6:30ish and we could do a late dinner and wind down for a 7:30 bedtime -- a bit later than usual, but not a big deal.

7:00 rolls around and I am sitting by the window just about panicking because she is not yet home. NOW I know how my parents felt! I can only be glad that it was fairly rare for me to be late coming home, so hopefully they didn't experience that feeling of helplessness and powerlessness too often. I don't know how I'm going to deal with it when she is dating! It was a fairly nasty taste of things to come, I suspect...