Wanna go on a date?

Never never never underestimate the importance of regular dates with your spouse. Nathaniel and I have just come home from our first overnight stay without any kids in ages (since we went to a wedding 3 years and 1.5 children ago). It was a great chance for us to hang out as adults, and reconnect as a couple, and I am very grateful to our wonderful friends who babysat our children so that we could do it.

Getting away for a full night is rather unusual.  Under normal circumstances, we rarely manage to get out of the house together. Our solution has been to have “at-home” dates. Once we’ve put the children to bed, we sit down together for an evening hanging out at home. Sometimes its a movie and junk food, other times we’ll cook ourselves a special meal, or play board games or cards. What we do doesn’t really matter, what’s important is that we put aside time specifically to spend with each other. If we think it will help, we unplug the land line and switch off our cellphones.

Scheduling regular time together is important for parents. Once the busyness of the day is over and kids are in bed, we find it important to spend time together without interruption. This means that other nights when we are in the same room but doing our own things, we don’t feel disconnected.

–Rebecca