Dating again after a baby…
This was a picture we took of ourselves on the plane on our way to our honeymoon…so tired from our wedding, but so happy and in love. Spending time as just a couple…enjoying each other with not a care in the world.
When I look at the picture below compared to the picture above I see two completely different people. I know we don’t necessarily look different, but we are. The picture below we are PARENTS! We still try to go on dates and spend time trying to enjoy each others company but we now have a million cares in the world. We now have a little girl that relies on us. A little person whose very livelihood depends on us….CRAZY!!!
Dating before the baby was easy for us…I even made a date jar one year for Christmas. When we were bored (which seemed like so often now that we are never bored) we would reach into the jar and pull out one of the many wooden sticks I had written different cool dates on. We would just go, do, live, date…no big deal.
Before we had Ellie we used to talk about how important we felt it was to always continue to keep the romance alive in our relationship after baby. We felt like it was such an important thing to never forget about “us”. At some point this little girl is going to grow up, she is going to move out and live her own life. We want to make sure that when that day comes we still like each other, we still enjoy each others company, we still love spending time together…we want to make sure we never bury our problems or issues in parenting. We don’t want to wake up one day and realize we were pretty great parents but pretty shitty spouses. At the end of the day that little girl will be looking to our relationships with each other as well as with everyone else to figure out her own relationships.
Now with all that said…
and remember we discussed all these wonderful expectations before she was born
…I now know that it is all easier said then done. It is damn hard to make time for our marriage, not because we don’t want to. We do…we still love each other, we still have so much fun together…but we are tired, we have other things to spend our money on then dates, and after the day is done nothing sounds better then to just relax.
But we have an agreement…we never want to forget how important our marriage is…so we try. We try like heck to make time for dates…time to step outside our titles of parents and just be spouses. It is hard, but we still feel like it is important. Sometimes we have amazing fun times out together, and sometimes it is a bust like Sunday…i.e. mall bars!
No matter: we talk, we reminisce, we laugh and we try to relax and enjoy each other…enjoy being married…enjoy all the moments. And then we go home and hug our little girl and smile at each other knowing we are happily married because we work at it…we do it for each other and we do it for her!
