The Cost of a Date Night

This post may seem a little "Un-thankful" considering my previous post about Thankfulness and it may seem that I am complaining and maybe I am but as my friend has said in the past on her own blog...this is my own personal podium so I am allowed to say what I want I guess! I think John and I have a really great relationship and marriage. We work at it REALLY hard. We try to put each other above the kids and we so try to have open communication and serve each other and it really works but it is so hard sometimes with how busy we are to find time for each other. I am not talking about the time that we sit in front of the TV together or the time we spend paying bills on the computer together, or the time we spend cooking for the family together, or the time we spend doing chores together...this is all good don't get me wrong but I am talking about time where we are totally focused on each other, what the other person is saying, time to laugh, time to talk without interruptions, time when we are both not completely exhausted, time when there aren't clothes on the couch to fold staring at me or dirty dishes in the sink calling my name, time to hold hands, time to do something fun, time to have a deep conversation. I personally, and this is my humble opinion, think that date nights with your spouse are extremely important. I think that especially when you have young children, they can be very important.......simply to have that time to talk about things....so many of my friends, coworkers have had really difficult times in their marriages because the family, kids, finances, and other stuff have become priority. So John and I really do try to make time for dates. Because we know our kids are our responsibility and we try to be responsible with our money, we have been creative and had "dates" here at the house when the kids have gone to bed....we will order sushi and eat it around the coffee table with some candles when it is quiet. This is fun but there is also a need to just get out of the house together! We went on a date on Thursday night. We were trying to be careful with money so we ate dinner at home. We left the house at 7:00 so that we could make sure the kids were fairly ready for bed. We stopped at Food Glorious Food and ordered dessert and coffee. It was $18. We then went to a movie which was $9 (cheaper because it was a week night). We never see a movie in the theater b/c of how expensive it is and truly not many movies are that good! We got home at 11 pm and paid the sitter $45!!!!! So our date night cost us $27 but the sitter cost us $45 putting the evening at a whopping......$72. It really isn't even worth it for that to tell you the truth although John was trying to make me feel better today about it and told me that it was worth it to get to dress up and go sit at a quiet restaurant and stare at me for a couple of hours! He is sweet but DANG!!! I know...it is my fault for having three kids.....!!! Our friends in Madison, Harriet and Jeff, started a babysitting co-op for this reason...they couldn't afford to go on a date and so four families switch off. One couple watches all the kids (which is like 13 kids sometimes) on a Friday night and the other three couples go on dates with their spouses. Then the next week another couple watches all the kids and it keeps switching. Every couple gets 3 dates a month with no childcare expense. They get three hours to go on their date. Well this would be awesome but John has such a weird schedule that we wouldn't be able to commit to a group such as this. We have to go on dates on "off days". The Connells and us had a deal at one time (before the newest little ones came along) where we would switch off months and because Paul has the same kind of weird schedule as John does, they understand....(Ann I will be calling you soon...we need to start this again!). My friend Amanda (what an awesome sweet spirit she has) use to out of the blue call us sometimes and just offer her services to us for us to have a date night(she has been out of town a lot lately and very busy) . Seriously, I think she is one of the few people that understand what a huge blessing that is! For someone to just say, "Hey, pick a night..I want to watch your kids for you to go on a date...no strings attached" is probably the greatest present anyone can give me!!! And she doesn't even have kids so that I can return the favor (We have dog sat though). Anyways, I guess you can tell how important I think it is and how it made me want to vomit when I realized how much our short 4 hours together cost. It makes me wonder what people do that pay for a sitter or childcare when they work. But again, I chose to have three totally beautiful wonderful kids and I guess paying $45 to make sure they are safe, happy, well cared for is worth it! But Ann, I will be contacting you :)