Making date night a priority
Life can easily become consumed with errands, chores, responsibilities and child wrangling, leaving little time or energy to reconnect with your spouse in a meaningful way. Sometimes reminders to make time for each other come along when you least expect them.
Date drought
When you have kids, the days too easily blur into weeks and the weeks into months with surprising speed.
Preschool drop off, errands, cleaning, homework, laundry, gymnastics classes and play dates consume our daily life and there’s often very little time left for anything or anyone else.
If your life looks at all like mine, by the time you’ve put the kids to bed for the night, you’re too exhausted to do much else.
My husband and I have been so focused on keeping up with our kids that we’ve truly slacked on scheduling regular date nights.
Read more about the importance of date night to married couples >>
Making date night happen
We’ve slacked so much that we let three years slip by. Three years! We went on regular dates before our son was born, but since then, we just haven’t been able to make it happen.
This past weekend, we finally lined up a sitter, sifted through restaurant reviews and planned our date.
While I applied my makeup in our bathroom, my husband and the kids laid on our bed, watching a basketball game.
As I swept eye shadow across my eyelid, I heard my 5-year-old daughter Katie ask, "Daddy? Why do some of those guys have dark skin and some have really light skin?"
In her five years of life, she's never asked that before and I was so impressed with the way my husband took the time to explain how it is those differences that make us unique and beautiful and that those differences make us who we are.
In that moment, I fell in love with him all over again.
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Falling in love all over again
We had never spoken with one another about what we’d say when one of our children asked that question, yet he knew exactly how to explain it all to her in a way that she could understand.
Those words that he chose will be the words that help to shape how she views her world and others in it and I couldn’t be more in awe of him.
As I looked over at them all piled onto our bed, I was so grateful for him, for his wisdom, his kind heart and his ability to express his thoughts so beautifully.
When I sat across from him at dinner later that night, I was reminded of just how amazing he is, how lucky I am and just how much I had missed spending time with him alone.
And I vow to not let another three years pass by without a date. In fact, I think I’ll go book one now.
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