Romance...or...man, I want me a singing Irish man

We had a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) MNO (Mom's Night Out) last night. Wish I had more acronyms, but I'm out of them now. We met up at my dad's mission building and watched a chick flick while eating lots of junk. I'd already seen P.S. I Love You, but I knew most of them hadn't seen it, and since I consider it to be the best romantic love story I've seen in a long, long time, I had to get it again. We all laughed and sniffled our way through it. I highly recommend it. But get some other girls, some tissues, and some chocolate to eat during it.

I had two interesting things happen last week that I wanted to write about (ie, think about some more). The first was something that was my first thought upon waking up one morning last week. I am one of those type of people who wake up with brain going full blast. Means I'm not ever surprised by a phone call, or confused about where I am, but it also means that once awake, I ain't sleepin' again. Anyway, I woke up thinking about my MOPS friend who had surgery a few days earlier to have her thyroid removed. She has thyroid cancer. And it looks like they got it all, but it got me thinking about how many people I know who are going through bring you to your knees health issues. (Keep in mind, this was all going through my head lickety-split) And I thought about what would happen if I were to receive news that I had some life threatening illness. And my very next thought was what is the one thing I would regret. Here's the kicker...I started crying. Crying over the fact that I have never been on a romantic date. For some reason the main thing that I would feel like I missed out on was being romanced. And I felt so silly for crying over that. Hubby asked me what was wrong (obviously, I had just woken up and I was crying, so something must be wrong), and when I told him I just started crying harder. I never knew I had such a need to feel loved like that. What would a romantic date look like to me? Well, it would involve some planning, and lots of thinking about me and what I like. It might look something like this....
A phone call or email telling me to be dressed up and ready at a certain time. Babysitting would already have been arranged. Flowers would be given. (Irises, purple) I'd be driven to a Thai restaurant somewhere in Pittsburgh. There would be candles and talk about anything but what needs to be done in the house, the kids, or the latest baseball scores. We'd leave there and go to a gallery opening, or a museum, or the Botanical Garden.
So yeah, I've never had anything like that. And for some reason that makes me really sad. I think because I feel like I am not loved for who I am. For what I like. For what makes me laugh or makes me passionate. I am not made to feel that I am special.

Second thing that happened....
Was in Boardman this past weekend. Trying to run some errands with both kids and husband. Made it through 3 stores before they crashed. And I thought out loud "man, it would be so nice to do something just the two of us". So I called my parents, right then on the spot, and asked if they would be willing to watch the kids so we could have a date. And they agreed. And then I got off the phone and started hearing all the reasons why it wouldn't be a good idea to have a date that night (already too late in the day, would have to go all the way home and then back out and that would be too much gas money, would be better if we could actually plan a date first, etc, etc, etc). And I had to excuse myself and go to a bathroom to cry. I couldn't help myself. And I am not a crier. And it isn't "that time of the month". And I realized, yet again, that I really want someone to do something nice for me. To want to be with me. Even if it is not convenient. Even if it is spur of the moment.

Am I nuts, girls? Do I expect too much? I don't want to have romantic dates all the time. I am not saying I need to go on any kind of date every week. I just would like, for once in my life, to be surprised and feel special.