Friday Night Date Nights
Once you start traveling down the marriage highway, it is easy to forget that one great way to keep the love alive is to spend “just you two” time. Especially after you started adding kids in the mix. We have being using Friday Night Date Night as just the way to have that time. We initially found that finding the time, money, and babysitter made the ideas of date seem like too much trouble very often. Then we some how, heard about it I think, came up with a way that made all the obstacles disappear. And I believe that our relationship reflects the benefit of that night out.
To start with we have a large family, five children to be exact. We also were blessed with friends who have that same number of my kids and that is vital in making this work.
How does it work?
So the working of this ingenius system isn’t rocket science. Every week one of us has a date. The couple who isn’t going out gets the kids from the other couple. Then the stay-at-home couple fixes dinner for the whole brood, they play together and then the mom takes the visiting kids back to their house. With a bedtime story and snack, she tucks them in and waits for the couple who is out to come home. The husband at home puts their kids to bed. There is no bewitching hour when the couple has to come home, either. The next week, the couple switches.
What’s the big deal?
This might seem really simple, but there is genius and beauty in the whole plan. Sometimes the best things are simple, right? Here are the reasons it works so well:
* You dont have the problem of the babysitter bailing at the last minute - we never bail, because we know that our date night the next week depends on us taking them this week!
* You dont have to pay the babysitter. 6 hours for 5 kids can run into some serious change.
* It is a lot to expect a teenage girl to handle 5 children. So when you have families who do this with kids close to the same age, they tend to just do their thing. Little care needed. And we have the credentials to handle them all too!
*The old “I just trained my sitter and now she has a job, boyfriend, life, ____(fill in the blank)”. And your out of luck. Doesn’t happen here.
* You don’t have to worry about phone calls. Stressing about what’s going on at home can suck the fun out of a date faster than you can say “Help!!!!”.
* You don’t have to take the babysitter home, or worse yet go get the kids at midnight, bring them home and put them to bed. Don’t I love looking forward to that when I’m having that romantic dinner with Julie!
* There is never anything to clean up when you get home. They weren’t there so viola! no mess.
* And if those weren’t enough reasons, the mom who stays home always has some “her time” after she puts the other couples kids to bed. How nice to relax and catch up on the stack of mail or play Wii without the kids nagging at your inability!
So what now?
Julie and I are not willing to go into the older siblings babysitting arena on our “coveted” date night. Once you tasted the good life of uninterrupted, clean house, worry free date night, you can never go back. Not until you are packing the last U-haul to college.
So if you’re looking for a way to have some alone time with your honey, find another couple that’s as desperate as you and have them read this article!