Date Night - at home

I love my husband.  And I'm lucky enough to really like him too, almost all the time.  99.9% of the time.  (We all have our moments, after all.  I have a feeling he likes me 98.7% of the time...I get a little cranky now and then)

Date night...date night. 

Everyone says married couples with kids need to schedule a date night.  I can certainly see the value in that.  Particularly since ours is a second marriage, which meant on day one of our life as husband and wife, we had three kids.  My husband's.

I've been an auntie since I was 14, so I definately had some experience, but getting three kids off to school...well nothing can prepare you for that.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I'd become a stay at home mom, and we'd added a fourth to the blend.  Date night was starting to look pretty good.  Particularly since our home had been overtaken by baby paraphenalia, and teen/tween backpacks, coats, shoes, socks (what is with the socks everywhere? !!  Dirty socks are indeed the bane of my existence) 

We went all out.  We hired our oldest daughter as babysitter.  We made reservations for an early dinner for us, ordered pizza for the kids, bought movie tickets on Fandango.  Do you see where this is going?  Yes, we also started an online application for a second mortgage on our house...well not really, but we did drop about $150.00. 

The next time, we scaled it back.  Hired the oldest daughter again, boiled up some hotdogs for everyone, bought movie tickets on Fandango, went to Starbucks afterwards.  Ooh, we cut the cost in half.  This time we only dropped about $75.00.

We called it quits.  Without realizing it though, we started something else.  About this time, we had just discovered Netflix.  I was a nursing mom, but wasn't comfortable nursing in front of my teenaged stepson. (go figure)  So I started watching movies and TV shows on DVD while I was hidden away in our bedroom.  In the evenings,my husband would often wander in, and before we knew it, we found ourselves having alone time (nursing and sleeping baby not withstanding). 

Who knew, a closed door was all it would take.  When the baby grew older, we still found ourselves closing the door after she was down for the evening, and watching DVD's.  Seven years later, we still make a point to come together a couple of times a week after the remaining small child is tucked into bed, and the high schooler is off doing what high schooler's do, and snuggle up to watch DVD's together.