The Easiest (and cheapest) Date of All

I am going to be honest with you. This revelation is not groundbreaking, creative, or very forward thinking. It is so simple that you might be saying "I already do that every day." If you do, then kudos to you! For those of you in the same spot as me, here we go...

Quality, alone time with my spouse is sometimes the most difficult thing to find. We try to have lunch together every day, but it is difficult to turn off the office drama and talk about things other than work or the kids. On the nights that he has rehearsals, we have a rushed dinner at home amidst the craziness I like to refer to as "the witching hour" (more like hours). He is usually out the door about an hour after I get home; leaving me to carry on with my established mommy/kids evening routine.

By the time the kids are fed, bathed, tucked in, kitchen cleaned, toys picked up, and another load or two of the never-ending mountain of laundry washed, I am ready to crash. If I am not completely exhausted, I will indulge in one of the shows I DVRed from 3 weeks ago. Most nights I am so brain dead that I crawl into bed not long after the babes are asleep. My preschooler has the ability to instantly memorize any song she hears and most nights she graces us with a full on hour or two production from the comfort of her bed. Not easy to relax to the sounds of "little bunny foo foo" over the baby monitor.

When dear hubby is home for an evening, we are able to divide and conquer. We try to throw in family game night for a little fun quality time. Nothing like a rousing round of Hi Ho Cherry-O or Candyland right before bed. Actually, in all honesty, we love playing games with the munchkin. After the kids are down, we commonly find ourselves stuck in our individual ruts. By the time we finally remember we are both home, I'm already half asleep or 3/4 of the way through a show that I don't want to turn off. So I have decided to implement date nights every night.

Instead of focusing on chores, emails or the unending fun of bill paying, we will have a date. Just sitting down each night for a little uninterrupted spouse time. On nights where we have done this, I am able to deepen my connection with my spouse and learn new things about each other and our relationship. After 8.5 years of marriage it is safe to say that we have changed quite a bit as a couple, individuals, and as parents. We are long overdue to further explore these new aspects of ourselves.

Knowing our tendency to forget about the importance of these dates, I've decided to set a few rules. They are common sense so don't expect anything wild!
 
1) Date night EVERY night. Ideally, our date will be at least 30 minutes.
2) If things have been unusually crazy and we are short on time, we can do chores together instead of our normal division of labor. We will still carve out a few minutes of together time.
3) Read and discuss a book together. In all of our years of being together, we have never done this.
4) Read our Bibles and embark on a study plan.
5) NO KID TALK!!!

I can think of at least 8 more rules to add, but it is probably best to keep it simple for now. I am sure the list will evolve just as our relationship will mature through the process. Tonight will be the start of our purposeful and nightly dates. I am really excited an hope my hubby will be too. I haven't shared with him my new plan yet, but I have a feeling he will be thrilled! Great ideas happen when I've been up with the kids since 4:00 am. Luckily not both at the same time!

The rest of the week will be devoted to a few of my favorite things and a giveaway or two! Be sure to subscribe to the blog and share with your friends!

$5 Date Night

Okay…so $5 might be a bit of a stretch. The whole idea is to get creative and appreciate the power of the often elusive date night. After the birth of my daughter, I was absolutely terrible at making time for myself much less our marriage. I became a 24/7 mom. You might be thinking “aren’t you always a parent?” Of course this is true, the point being I was afraid of trying to be anything or anyone else. I thought that if I spent more than an hour or two away from my tiny, helpless, pink bundle of joy that our mother-daughter bond would suffer. Little did I know that it was I who would suffer.  After about 8 months (and this is a very generous estimate), I realized that if I continued down this road I would be teaching my little girl dependence not the independence.

I digress…more about mommy guilt, parenting and independence later. Today I am focusing on the sanctity of the much needed and often underappreciated DATE NIGHT!  Even though the thought of leaving your babies with someone else might be absolutely terrifying…do it! Enlist the support of fellow parents, a friend who loves kids, or steal that perfect sitter away from your neighbors. Make sure you tip her/him well! The extra money spent is well worth the happiness of your kids and the potential to come home to a house that is might be a little less messy than when you left. (Side note…if you are looking for the perfect new mom gift, offer to clean her house. She will love you forever!)

My husband and I are working very hard to incorporate date night into our weekly habits, but this is such a challenge for us. Not because we don’t want to spend time together, but it is just so hard to find a few hours when we aren’t exhausted, are actually both at home, or the kids aren’t crazy! Most of the time this happens at the last minute, and we are frantically trying to hunt down one of the babysitters we trust to watch our kids. We only have a handful but they are awesome! If you live in my town, bring me baked goods or gifts of wine, and I might just share their numbers with you.

Most of the time, we enjoy a dinner out sans kids menus, temper tantrums, milk spills, or our daughter standing in her chair singing her most recent arrangement of songs (the child NEVER stops singing). If you are ever in need of some free, weeknight entertainment just stop by our house at dinner time. This should probably be required if you are thinking about having kids anytime in the near future.

 In our relatively small town, there are only so many restaurants to frequent or other interesting things to do. Hence we created the $5 challenge. After one lovely dinner out, we weren’t quite ready to head home and face reality. We were both secretly hoping that even though we had said we would be home before the kids needed to go down for bed that they would actually be so tired from all of the fun that they would pass out early. Rule number 1 of date night…never expect your kids to be asleep when you get home! Even when you get home hours past their bedtime, they will wake up moments after the babysitter leaves. Back to the challenge…being the witty and clever woman I am, I jokingly said to my hubby “Let’s go to Walgreens and with only $5 pick out a meaningful gift for each other.” To my surprise, he agreed and 15 minutes later we were exchanging our “gifts” in the car. Normally I would share more details of our gift exchange, but I promised my husband that I wouldn’t embarrass him too much on my blog. We ended up having a blast and shared quite a few laughs. I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of our date night challenges.

So this is where I need you! Comment below with your own version of the $5 challenge.  I’m (almost) always up for a new adventure. I’d love to try out a few of your ideas. This post has already gotten a little longer than I intended so tomorrow…well really later this week…I’ll finish up with a few more creative date night excursions!