Nothing Happens in Vegas When You're a Parent

No party animals here. 

Las Vegas has been totally wasted on us, my friends. There was no late night partying, we didn't set foot into a strip club, and we didn't even do any day drinking.  That's just a shame right there.  Here we are, sans children, in the city where you're pretty much expected to act irresponsibly, and we did nothing untoward.  Other than some overzealous gambling of a small chunk of our children's college funds, we have been model citizens, which is just...sad.  It looks like parenthood has completely beaten any desire to put the "sin" in Sin City out of us.


Here's what our wild Saturday night in Las Vegas looked like:

• Dinner at 6:30pm.  You want to know who else is eating dinner at that hour in Vegas?  People over the age of 60.  We were the youngest diners in the restaurant by about 25 years.  Any respectable person in his or her 30's was still at the pool maintaining a decent buzz.

• We each had a glass of sake with our meal.  There were no cocktails consumed prior to dining, and neither of us were even tipsy afterwards, thanks to our boring, yet responsible, drinking habits. 

• We spent the entirety of dinner discussing how much we missed our kids and then looked at pictures of them on our iPhones.  This is just beyond pathetic.  We hadn't even been away from them for 24 hours and we were practically bereft without them.  Considering how much lip service I give to our wanting to escape from spending time in their presence, this is embarrassing to admit.  At one point we repeatedly watched a 30 second video of the Muffin Man putting napkins on a table, something we would find incredibly boring under normal circumstances, but that we found absolutely riveting this weekend. 

• We didn't order dessert.  There we were, with all the time in the world to enjoy a leisurely meal and with no baby sensitive to dairy or chocolate to worry about, and we didn't even want to order something indulgent!  They had soft serve and donuts and s'mores on the menu and we wanted none of it.  Apparently we've lost our taste for sugar as well as fun.

• We played two hands of blackjack and then called it a night.  There was no bar hopping, no clubbing, no after hours partying.  Nope.  We were back in our hotel room and were in bed, reading on our Kindles, by 9pm.  

I'd like to tell you that we're going to make up for this utter travesty of a weekend by living it up tonight, but after spending the entire day at a trade show I'll be lucky if I can stay awake until dinner time.  Honestly, I'm a little bit concerned that Las Vegas is not going to invite us back.