Mommy/Daddy Date

Juggling a family is sometimes a task, a great task though!  I have learned that in order to be successful for myself and my family, I have to break apart our time spent from; mommy and Traycen time, Daddy and Traycen time, Family time, everyones alone time, and just mommy and daddy time.  Wow, that seems like a lot of time divided into a week, month, year right!  We usually are really great at spending quality family time and mommy/daddy Traycen time!  On the other hand, we have not always been the way we are now about taking time for just mom and dad.  We have always made it about family time and our son, which is awesome, but we have to make the time for our marriage time too!  I can truly say we have started to take time to do things for us more often this year.  We took a marriage class earlier on in the year.  We had some people question us as to why we were taking a marriage class, like when we said that, it raised flags to them?  Although they may have questioned it, here was my answer.  My marriage is great.  In the rough patches and the great patches I believe a marriage is worth maintaining.  I used to watch those movies where everything is a "fairy tale".  No one ever gets into an argument and everything just free flows happy all the time, everything always works, there's never money problems,  jobs, or life!  Well, reality check to myself, that's the movies.  Like I said I have a great marriage, we have had our share of ups and down and always kept on through all the seasons of our marriage and trusted in God for everything and in every circumstance, but I always feel like we can be working on ourselves and our marriages.  One thing I learned from having my son is this... One day, he and whatever other kids we have will leave the coop, and my husband will still be there.  If we are not spending the time together now and making that time for us, then what will we have left in our marriage after our kids are gone.  I have seen this happen to a few couples, who stretch themselves thin trying to do every single thing with their kids all the time and then not ever getting their own time.

So this last month the hubby and I got two date nights!  Both times Traycen got to go stay at Moomah- and Papos (Grandma and Grandpa) house.  So, this weekend we went to church to start our evening date (haha I know, but I love getting fed the word of God, and it is different just going when it's just the two of us)!  Then we got to go to Old Chicagos, which I LOVE italian food.  If you go there try the sicilian pepperoni rolls as an appetizer, amazing!!! Then we researched some movies and went down the road to the movie theater.  The movie we watched was horrible.  We kept looking at eachother with that questioning look like "should we leave?".  At the end of the movie, we left and totally laughed at our stupidity to pick horrible movies sometimes and decided we won't be trying movies we don't entirely know about, or we'll stick with our red box movies! (the movie we had wanted to see started at 10, which we thought was too late, we should have stuck with the later movie!).  It was good to go out and just the two of us to have mommy and daddy time.  It reminds us that we were us before we were our family!  I say that meaning I fell in love with the man I married and all the great amazing things about him and then along come our our son!  In our life it goes God first, marriage second and then kids third!  I love our son with all my heart, but what good are we to him if mommy and daddy aren't a mommy and daddy together! 

So, here it is, my advice to you. MAKE TIME FOR YOUR MARRIAGE!  We have started with a handful of different friends and done what we call "date nights".  Once a month we will go out and one of our friends who has kids will watch our son, in return we will watch their children when they go out on a date.  This works for us instead of always paying a babysitter (whichs sometimes where we live is hard...not sure I have even had a babysitter come to my house hah).  Find a group of friends and maybe just start with once a month for everyone to go on a date night.  This means you have someone elses kids one night a month and you get a date once a month!  Good swap out, especially if you live where we live in the boonies, compared to some of our friends.  Or if you have family close or a trusted baby sitter, make time at least once a month for your marriage.  Start with this and then add more time depending on the season you are in!  Remember not all date nights have to be paid events!  You can always rent a movie and stay at home and have dinner in, go on a hike, just go for a drive ect.  Make it fun and ask your husband to plan one date night, then you plan the next!  How fun would that be, I'm definitely going to try that!  Think out of the norm!  You fell in love with this person when you first did and I'm sure you did a lot of fun things and its fun to rekindle those memories!

I would love to have you share with me your fun date night ideas!

XOXO Cooped Up Cowboys Wife Kirste