Good afternoon everyone! We are at the start of yet another weekend even if this week may be shorter for some of you due to the holiday, it’s still another week and that can mean long hours or stressful work to be done. I want to touch on a little bit of a self care for your relationship amid the chaos that can be the week. I am going to do a self care post as well for taking care of yourself as an individual, but wanted to start with more of the “Date Night” first.
*Quick side note, because I can’t resist…I am currently in the office/den/guest quarters of our house to get some work done. My husband (who is off today) is upstairs playing with our son and I am just down here marveling at the excited, happy squeals and screeches coming out of my our sweet boy as he just runs around the house with daddy. It warms my heart in a way that I cannot explain. Now that I’ve gotten that little note of emotion out of the way…
When Rob and I were expecting we heard (and I knew) that continuing to take care of our marriage, separate of our son and future children, was going to be key. While I know that we have a strong, solid, loving, caring marriage, kids are hard work and it is so easy (so so so easy as I’ve learned this past year) to forgo that while in the throws of parenthood. I didn’t want us to lose any bit of our marriage and really wanted to develop some time in our week to devote to each other, as most nights we spend as a family.
Here’s a little tidbit about Rob and I, we are one of the biggest pair of homebodies ever. We don’t really like “going out” unless we are making a special trip out (like a day trip or a weekend away) and we just tend to feel more comfortable in our own home. We also aren’t really into crowds or a lot of social events. The social events that we do attend are work events and, while nice to have, are not really what I would consider “Date Night”.
The fact that we are homebodies is not a bad thing, but it can make what is considered a traditional “Date Night” (dinner and a movie or some variation of that), difficult. Combine that with having a young child and not a lot of family in our immediate vicinity, I knew that we needed to improvise.
For us, “Date Night”, looks like the following:
- We order in food or get takeout from somewhere. Occasionally we might cook, but if we do it is super easy meals that don’t take a lot of prep work or cook time.
- We put away cell phones, books, computers, tablets, whatever that might distract us. During our normal family times, we typically will multi task to an extent and so for our “Date Night” we make a point to put everything away after dinner and focus on what is happening. I also want to make a note that at a certain time during the week we stop multi tasking and focus on our family time.
- We get a movie. We will either use RedBox or pull up a movie/tv show on Netflix and watch it. Each person gets a chance to pick every other week (one week it’s my pick, the next it is Rob’s). This allows both of us to be able to watch what we want and not always feel like we are having to watch what the other wants to.
- Typically (not always, but most of the time), we end up sleeping in our living room. This means we don’t have to worry about getting up at the end of the night or having to do anything further other than enjoy the evening. We get to just relax and not worry, which is so nice.
This is our Date Night tradition and it fits perfectly for us! We also don’t have to worry about the expense of having to get a babysitter as we are at home still and our transition into “Date Night” flows really seamlessly. Our son is old enough to where he can play independently (although still supervised) in the same room as us and goes to bed at a reasonable time so that we are not falling asleep right as we get into the movie.
I would love to hear if you have a specific tradition for Date Night or how you handle getting in time with your spouse that is somewhat or all kid free!
A Cuppa Cosy 