It's Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and then you follow up either by commenting or by writing your own post and then linking up!
Yesterday, I wrote a post on how to encourage our kids towards courtship rather than mindless dating.
Today I want to talk to us as married couples: do we still "court"? Do you still try to woo each other?
One thing that my husband and I still do is play. We joke with each other, we laugh with each other. He even chases me sometimes! Play is good for the soul. My girls have grown up hearing us laughing and teasing and pretending to pout so the other person has to make it up to us, and all kinds of silly things. It's fun! It's terrible being serious all the time.
We also try to have date nights occasionally. We don't do it once a week, because that's just not practical with our schedule. But we do take walks together almost every night, and we take ballroom dancing lessons during the winter on Thursday nights (which then becomes our date night, even if it's not year round).
I've always believed that the more fun you can have with your spouse, the less stress you will feel at other points in your life. Your spouse is a great stress-reliever, if you keep the relationship strong, because you know you're not going through life alone.
Finding that time alone, though, can be a challenge for two reasons. First, the kids are underfoot, and there's so much that needs to be done with the kids, and second, money is usually an issue. How can you date when you don't have money for dinner and a movie, let alone a baby-sitter?
Solution? Don't go to dinner and a movie and hire a baby-sitter. Do something else. Here are some ideas for low-cost dating from the blog Many Little Blessings:
- Candle lit dinner after the kids are in bed (or while they watch a movie) — our favorite place to do this is our screened in porch
- Board games (we love Scrabble, but play other games as well) or Puzzles
- One of us sitting at the counter while the other one is cooking or baking (yeah — this doesn’t sound like a date, maybe, but we really enjoy it and it is some great time to talk)
- Play video games against each other after the kids are in bed (although this can bring the kids out of their beds to see what in the heck is going on)
- IM each other while you’re both in the house with, um, perhaps more risque messages
- Teach each other about a favorite craft, hobby, or interest
- Give each other massages
- Reading aloud to each other (although we usually do this as a family activity nowadays)
She has more here!
I love the candle-lit dinner after kids go to bed. One night, make them their chicken fingers or something easy, and make you something that you both really enjoy, that the kids always go "EEwwwww" at. Cook just for you. And then enjoy it together!
Picnics work well.
I also love anything active. One of my favourite memories of when we were dating was getting into a water fight. I'm not a sports person, but the times that we laugh the most are when we're doing something physical: I'm trying to steal something from him, or I'm trying to catch him. He's just so much stronger and faster, the whole thing becomes such a farce I end up winning because he's laughing so hard.
So play soccer, or frisbee, or catch, or anything!
I love bike rides, too. And if you need a baby-sitter, try trading with a friend. Or catching some moments when they're in bed. Another thing to do is to limit DVD use with your kids. Don't let them watch movies very often. But then every now and then, pull them out so that Mommy & Daddy can have some time together. That way the DVDs are special, and they're more likely to stay engrossed, but they also learn that sometimes you need privacy!
What do you do for a cheap date? What do you do that makes you and your husband laugh together? Let's get some ideas going in the comments, and then I'll publish a new post with a long list of date ideas, using everything you gals have said!
Now, what advice do you have for us today? Do you have great ideas on how to "Date While Married"? Or do you have something else to tell us? Write your own Wifey Wednesday post that links back to here, and then leave the link of THAT POST in the Mcklinky below. Thanks!
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Something we've started doing since we moved (and no longer have family around to babysit or have any local friends to trade with!) is having a picnic in a park down the street once a week. We take a bottle of wine, the baby plays with toys in his carseat and our toddler runs around like a maniac while we chat. We've also started taking a bath together on Friday nights; it's really nice to relax and talk for an hour in an intimate setting.