Because it was marriage week last week, I was reminded about the importance of couples spending quality time together, so I thought I’d better practice what I preach and have a date with my husband.
Have you ever seen the movie Date Night? Last time my husband and I had a date night, we went to see that movie… For those who haven’t seen it, it’s about a married couple who go out for a dinner date, only to find themselves caught up with the mafia in a fight for their lives and of course in the end it brings them closer together and saves their marriage. Well this week I thought I was actually in the movie.
Like most couples with young kids, we don’t get to have date nights too often. Put it this way, we were given gold class movie tickets for Christmas and we’re still waiting to use them. Also about six months ago, our family gave us some money to go out and have a nice dinner together. That was a few weeks before I got the job here, so we thought we’d have a special dinner to celebrate the new job and I’m afraid the money is still sitting in a little envelope on top of the fridge!
So for this date, we had planned to go out to Gold Class to see Inception. I was really excited about it. But of course when I got home Birdy was really sick, coughing, sneezing, temperature, the works. Turns out she had the flu and she was miserable. So going to a movie just wasn’t going to happen. After we finally got her to sleep we decided just to duck out to a local restaurant for a quick bite. After all, when you’ve got a grandparent willing to babysit, you don’t want to waste the opportunity. So here’s how the night went:
Froze to death looking for restaurant – argued about which restaurant to go to – made up – ate dinner – rushed home – arrived home just minutes after Birdy vomited – spent the rest of the night looking after sick kid who hardly slept. That was date night. So no mafia hitmen but not exactly the romantic, relaxing evening I’d been looking forward to all week.
But at least we made the effort to do something. In The Marriage Course they have this great suggestion for spending quality time together. It goes something like this.
10 minutes each day.
Marriage time or date night for 2 or 3 hours each week.
2 weekends away each year.
And one good holiday together per year.
Even if you can’t quite live up to it, it’s a good goal to aim for. I have no trouble with the ten minutes each day and the holiday part – it’s just the weekly date night that’s a little challenging with young children… especially sick, coughing, sneezing and vomiting ones. But you get that.
How do you make sure you get quality times with your husband or wife? Do you have a date night or marriage time? Or a daily routine for catching up? How did you manage when your kids were young? Have you ever had a disastrous date night?
Jennzy
oh that movie was sooooo funny. You can relate so much more if you’ve been married awhile
Found it very hard to connect and do dates when the kids were young due to exhaustion and kids … as you mention above. Once my youngest hit 3 things started to get much easier. We just went on a date the other night … it was soooo good and made us both go … oh wow .. you… that’s right .. i nearly forgot who you are! 
Not quite that bad .. but you know – it sorta gets like that. You go into parent mode. We have no daily routine going tho. Oh lots of failed attempt at date nights .. first one i tried on moving up here 4 yrs ago, i was so stressed leaving the kids with mum (why??? never really left them much before since we’d always lived far away from family) that it wrecked things. Hubby was getting exasperated and saying oh good grief she can cope!!!! ha ha. Anyway, if i think of any more i’ll add it on!
Katrina Roe
Ha, ha Jennzy, that’s how I was the other night… quite stressed at leaving my sick child at home and almost feeling guilty for being out instead of being home to look after her. It’s good to hear that date nights have been good lately. I’m hoping that if we stick at it they’ll get better. Part of the problem is, that if you don’t have them very often, there’s almost too much pressure to have a good time, and too much disappointment if they don’t go to plan.
Carla @ Chasing Cakes
Argghh….TODDLER VOMIT! Now there’s a way to ruin a date night! I’m happy to hear that you and your hubby got a chance to at least try to have a date night! I really want to see “Date Night”…I want to be Tina Fey when I grow up, plus I love Steve Carell! “Inception” is SO GOOD- you really have to try to see it on the big screen! It’s like “The Matrix” but less silly, and with better sunglasses.