Thursday, June 10, 2010

Date Night

I spent a majority of my prep period last Friday (I'm a teacher) venting with another mom in the office. We talked about the normal stuff new moms talk about--how much a baby changes everything. We specifically talked about how quality time with your spouse goes from 24/7 to about 1/7. Feeling inspired by our chat in the office, I called my dad on the way home from work to see if he would watch the baby for us last Saturday night. Of course, he was thrilled and said yes.

Our plans were just a casual dinner and a movie, but I was so excited to go out with Justin, just the two of us. The one of advantage of not getting to go out with your husband alone anymore is that when you do go out, it feels like you're dating again. As soon as my husband convinced me that my dad wouldn't accidentally drop the baby or forget to feed her, I was able to relax and feel like it was 'ol times again.

Although, the baby wasn't COMPLETELY out of my mind. During dinner, we had to remind each other that we didn't have to stuff our food down our throats as if we were in the Nathan's hot dog eating contest--there was no crying baby preventing us from taking our time (I have become a VERY fast eater since Aubrey joined our crew!). I was completely stuffed after dinner, but I forced down dessert just because I COULD! I was on no time restriction, and I was damn well gonna enjoy it. When we stopped at WaWa to buy our candy for the movie (I'm on a budget folks, no $4.00 box of Skittles for me!), I started telling Justin what I wanted before he got out of the car. He looked at me like I was nuts and said, "Christie...you can come in too-there's no baby in the car."

We did a good job of not talking about the baby all night. We had fun laughing inappropriately in the movie and keeping things light. It felt like it was 2009 again! Haha :) Justin and I realized how important it was to get that time together to just be a COUPLE...not parents. The feel good feeling we had that night has lasted throughout the week. We've already scheduled our next date night for next weekend, and I can't wait.

I know it won't always be possible to find an available (and willing) sitter, but I hope our dates night can stay routine. I didn't quite believe people when they would tell me what a difference going out on a "date" with your husband would make, but now I realize why it's so important. Those nights remind you of why you fell in love with each other so that in those moments when you both get so stressed that you want to kill each other, you can more easily remember WHY you're a couple in the first place!

If you haven't had a date night with your husband in awhile, try to make one happen soon. You may be surprised at just how much HASN'T changed :)

2 comments:

  1. man i need on so bad! im glad you had fun!

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  2. Same here!! I wish we could go out but my baby is 2 months and my husband says our son is too young to leave him with a baby sitter =/...

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