So much stuff happened this past weekend, I’m going to save my actual Mother’s Day recap for another day. To be honest, this year I kinda forgot about Mother’s Day and threw my focus into a new holiday anyway. A holiday that involves no children or handmade necklaces whatsoever.

It’s called “Mom’s Night Out” and I never would have known it existed, if it wasn’t for a reader who emailed two weeks ago to say, “Do you know the Friday before Mother’s Day is ‘Mom’s Night Out’? You should do something with that.”

Hmmm… A holiday that involves ditching my children with Mike to drink alcohol with my girl friends? I SHOULD do something with that…

Then, I thought three things, in this exact order.

1) I should get a small group of friends together for dinner Friday night.

2) I should get my friend Seri from Little Miss Party to make the dinner look extra special.

3) I shoud ask UrbanSitter to sponsor the dinner because HELLO! FREE DINNER! Uh, I mean— because I can’t think of a more perfect sponsor for a last minute event than a service that can find you a last minute sitter.

And that’s how I came to have my very first sponsored event. WOOT!

On Friday night, ten women went out wearing real jewelry without spit-up stains on their shoulders or toddlers hanging on to their ankles to drink wine, eat cheese and dunk pieces of bread into vats of chocolate at Murray’s Cheese Bar.

The table was a freakin’ showstopper because Little Miss Party is amazing. (Remember Mazzy’s 3rd birthday party?) Seriously. We were sitting in the front window of the restaurant and strangers on the street were stopping to take pictures.

I have no idea what we talked about because I don’t remember mentioning bedtime routines or potty training or acid reflux even once, but somehow, even though the dinner was scheduled from 7:30 to 10:30pm, every one of us was still there chatting way past midnight.

One thing was clear— we needed this night out and it should not just happen once a year.

In fact, I was so inspired by my night out that I decided Mike and I should have a date night on Saturday. (Two nights in a row! Who do I think I am?!) We haven’t really gone out just the two us since Harlow was born.

We called my mom to see if she was available last minute but she was not. So, I did what any blogger who just threw a successful sponsored dinner for UrbanSitter would do— I hemmed and hawed about how impossible it is to find a sitter on a Saturday night especially if you are trying to find that sitter on a Saturday morning.

Then suddenly, I came to my senses and said, “Hey! Let’s try UrbanSitter!”

An hour later, we had a background checked babysitter with 13 years experience who lived right around the corner. I’m not even kidding when I say UrbanSitter is the most amazing thing to ever happen to your marriage since you moved the baby from your bedroom to the nursery. (FYI- Harlow is still in our room.) You look for a sitter the same way you look for a dinner reservation on Open Table. You say when you want to go out and it gives a listing of who is available, pictures, recommendations, bios, background checks, even friends of yours who have used that sitter before. At the end of the night, you can pay with your credit card through the site instead of awkwardly exchanging cash. It’s that easy. I swear, I’d sing UrbanSitter’s praises even if they didn’t just pay for my dinner.

Saturday night, Mike and I left our two kids in the hands of a complete stranger for the very first time.

And everything went fine.

So fine, in fact, we rebooked her for next Saturday night.

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This post was sponsored by UrbanSitter but I love them and would tell every parent I know to use them anyway.