You Know You Need a Date With Your Husband When...

your weekly date night entails packing a diaper bag and toting along two children.

When we got married five years ago, Dave and I decided that Friday night would be our night. Our weekly date night. Every Friday night we went out to do fun things together from square dancing to eating Thai food and from picnics overlooking the Missouri River to watching outdoor plays at the Maplewood Barn Theater.

Then Caden was born. We continued our Friday night dates which, with him as an infant, didn’t change all that much (except we couldn’t very well leave him in a corner while we square-danced the night away). We still went out to eat and went on picnics, but it was hard for our attention to remain on each other. I would coo over Caden’s cute smiles while Dave was waving at me from across the table saying, “Yoo hoo! Remember me? Your date?!”

Once Caden started talking and walking, “Date Night” as we knew it pretty much ended. Oh, we still called it “Date Night” and it was still really fun, only now it was more family fun than romantic, courting fun. As he got older and more difficult in restaurants, we started having more and more movie nights after Caden went to bed. We got in a movie-watching, take-out food slump. Who could blame us? We were tired after a busy week of chasing around a toddler! Then Chase was born.

Now our “Date Night” was definitely a family endeavor. And so you find us today…occasionally eating out on a Friday night but most always at a kid-friendly place (which is also easy on the pocketbook)…we could really use a night out. Without the kids. Pretty please?


This post was written for a $200 date contest at Parenting Bloggers Network and E-Harmony Marriage.

By the way, Dave filled in the blank a different way…

You know you need a date with your husband when…he keeps up with your life by reading your blog.