A New Kind of Date Night

I remember date nights pre-kids usually consisted of, well, whatever we wanted. Kevin and I used love movies. We particularly enjoyed dark, artsy movies after a quiet dinner for two. Our conversations varied from work, politics, personal goals, and hobbies. It was a time we set aside to converse and connect in the midst of a busy week filled with deadlines (Kevin) and lesson planning (me).

Then we had Luke (now 7). Date Nights vanished. Instead of longing for romantic evenings with each other, we longed for sleep and alone time. Inside of looking forward to “we” time, I looked forward to “me” time. After feeding, changing, and soothing my baby, all I wanted was a moment to take a shower, read a mindless magazine, and zone.

Now that we have three boys it is even worse! For one, we feel guilty and uneasy leaving all 3 boys with a young babysitter. After all, if these three wild but lovely boys that I carried for 9 months and endured labor for wear me out and make me want to wave the white flag, how can some sweet twenty something without kids of her own handle them?

We’ve also noticed that our VERY generous parents are no longer able to take all three at the same time, so we have to find a way to split them up which takes a lot of coordinating and driving. Occasionally we’ll put our kids to sleep at my in laws and then go out, but that means that as soon as I sit in the cushy movie theater seat, I’m off to sleep. Hey, I’ll take it where I can get it!

So this week was one of those weeks when Kevin and I were getting pretty crabby with each other. There was not anything specific that we were cranky about, but lots of little bickering back and forth. For us, that usually is just kid fatigue. We have simply been around them too much and not around each other enough.

I was also getting a bit annoyed with his new iPhone Scrabble obsession. All week, after we’d put the kids to bed, he was on the iPhone playing Scrabble with his brother and best friend. I didn’t want to criticize or nag because it was already that kind of week, but it was brewing.

Then it occurred to me that if I joined in and played too, instead of despising the iPhone (I mean, really, how productive is that anyway?) maybe we could have some “we” time again.



Now we’ve been playing all weekend. I am addicted and feeling remorseful for resenting his fun during the week. He just needed his “me” time. And so here we sit next to each other on the couch in our pajamas playing Scrabble on our iPhones. I miss the old version with the real board and tiles, but Kevin is a techy so I’ll take what I can get.