How We Do - Date Night

I'm going to be achingly honest here: We don't do a full blown date night like so many folks we know.  There's the issue of childcare.  There are all these fabulous ideas for Free Date Nights, but there's still the issue of childcare to take in to consideration.  We have family that are occasionally willing to watch our kids so we can have some down time, but they all have busy schedules and live an hour away.  We tend to save those favors for big things, like weekends away.

So what does date night look like for us?  It doesn't.  Does that mean we don't take time together?  It doesn't.

We love our kids and we love to spend time with them.  However, bed time is bed time, and there are very few exceptions.  We offer strong discouragement to children who stall and break the bedtime rules.  We have our family worship time, we tuck our little people in, pray over them, and remind them of the next mornings routine.

And then we walk away.

That's the important part:  We all but lay aside our parenting card.  We have a big, noisy box fan that we turn on to help drown out any noise we might make or any of the small noises the kids make (we only go back upstairs for infractions that demand our attention).  

Some nights we watch a movie or a television show.  Some nights we talk about whatever needs to be talked about.  If it's pretty out, we might sit out on the deck and enjoy the scenery (but this is Alabama, so the mosquitoes generally drive us back inside pretty quickly!).  Occasionally, we'll each set up with our respective technologies or books and totally check out on each other.

But usually, we demand the others attention.  And that attention is usually accompanied by a shared dessert or snack of some kind.

It's not an evening at the movies or a restaurant, but there's a comfort in knowing that we have this time at the end of most days to just be together.  I look forward to each evening with my husband and I get cranky if we're too busy to have this time together.  There's a rightness to curling up next to him as we take in a favorite movie that can't be compared with lettuce wraps at the local Chinese bistro.

Here's the thing: It's not about what you do or where you go, it's about being intentional and sharing the time.  Don't get me wrong, we love the free-spiritedness that comes with a true date night when we kiss our sweeties good-bye and head out the door for some just us outing time.  But if it's not in your budget to pay a sitter and leave the house, I encourage you to find contentment in being with the one you love.

Plus, this is just around the corner for all of us.  Even you sweet new mama's with 2 kids under the age of 2 years.  It's coming.  Just hang on, love those babies, and cling to your hubby. 


***Want to know how others approach date night in their marriage?  Head over to Vitafamiliae.***

How We Do - Crossing The Street Without Losing Someone

 

So Lora is running a 'How We Do' series over at her place, and since I love to play along with these type things, I jumped right in to be a part of it!  

Three weeks into it, I mean.  Cause I'm prompt.  

But it's a fabulous idea and I love to learn from others, so here we go, right? 

  

While Lora was good enough to tell you how she started and how she does things now, I can't remember that far back.  Which is why I blog: To keep the memories recorded somewhere besides my brain.  That being said, I'm just gonna tell you how we do things currently.

If I'm going out with the gang alone, I park near a cart corral.  Thomas jumps out and grabs a cart and I load Daniel into it.  The other kids all fall out and I cry out, "Battle stations!"  Each kid grabs a corner of the cart and we're off.  

Of course, this only works if there are cart corrals.  If there are not cart corrals or if, by some crazy mishap, the corrals are empty, we just park the van.  The older four get out and line up on one of the parking lines while I get Daniel out of the van.  My kids like to be in order - oldest to youngest, so they look like little stair steps.  They stay right there while I get whatever we need from the van (grocery bags, library books, etc.)  Then I claim my spot at the front of the line and then turn to face them.  'Buddy up!", I call out.  Thomas takes Elizabeth by the hand and Sarah Grace takes Anna by the hand.  

As we walk through a parking lot, they stay close on my heels. When we get to where we need to cross, one set of buddies comes up on one side of me and the other set takes the other side.  I never taught them this, it's just the way it happened and now it's a thing.  A very important part of our getting into the building, if you ask them.  We all look both ways, saying it out loud every time to drill it into the minds of our youngest ones, then I step out and everyone falls back in line.  

I tend to stand in the middle of the road or crossing until all my people are on the sidewalk.  At 5'8", I'm still quite a bit taller than my kids and I just figure people will see me more easily.  At the very least, I guess my hope is I'll see what's happening and be able to shove my kids to safety.

Never question the way a mama thinks when it concerns the safety of her kids.  We usually have a contingency plan in place for all those weird little 'what if's' because our dreams are usually full of different ways our children could get hurt.  It's one of the many reasons we remain perpetually tired from the time the first one is in our belly until, well... I don't know until when.  I'll keep you posted.

Now, if Joshua is with us, it's a totally different situation.  Since Daniel is still 2, he is always carried, but that still leaves my hands and one of Daddy's hands open for someone else.  Usually, the girls latch on to someone's hand and Thomas shoulders the burden of being the Big Kid with glee.  

I guess that's about it.  Five is pretty manageable if you give it a second or two of thought.  At least it is now that they're a bit older.  I do remember some crazy moments when the older four were new, 1, 3, and 4.  I stayed home a lot in those days!  

How bout you?  How do you handle outings with a Munchkin Mob??