Squeezing in a date before the birthday gala! 

Thanks to all of you for the birthday wishes!
 
While my little sister and Mae baked the 8th birthday ice skating cake (above) — which turned into a frosting party that yours truly got to clean up — I went on a date with the Biologist. We went downtown to a little swank bar, where he gave me a lesson in Belgium beer. Mmmmm.

The next day, the party was a tad stressful, with 20 hungry girls screaming “pizza!” at the ice skating rink (they’d given our pizzas to another party!) Thanks to my single mom friends — along with a divorced dad in Mae’s class — who jumped up to serve snacks. Fortunately, I got the honor of going one round on the ice with my eight-year-old. We held hands.

P.S. The winner of Ian Kerner’s just-published book, Sex Detox is Kat Wilder who wrote that she enjoys dating now, as the “middle-aged divorced mom of a teenager,” because “dating is stripped of wanting things from it — wanting a husband, kids, the American Dream.’ All I want to do is meet interesting people and see what kind of connection we can have. So that has been very freeing.”

Gotta love Kat’s attitude! Tell me: Do you feel free? Can dating as a single parent can be freeing?