Photo from Love-Sessions.com

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to spend more time with my wife and value that relationship more. She and I took our first step by having the first Date Night we’ve had in a while.

Getting out of the house for date night is no easy task these days. Going on a date before kids is as easy as picking up the phone, saying “do you have plans?” and heading out the door. Once you have kids, it gets much more complicated. When they were younger, it was about finding a babysitter for the two of them. Then as my son got to be old enough, it was “whose house is he playing at and who will watch my daughter?” Now that they are 15 and 11, it’s become complicated in other ways.

For example, the kids now have their own social calendars. When my daughter is going to the school dance and needs to be picked up at 9pm, someone has to be available. When my son and his girlfriend want to hang out, someone has to be home with them. Really. They’re old enough to be alone, but too old to be left alone, if you know what I mean.

We finally worked it out a couple of weeks ago. The wife and I went out to see a movie My wife was getting the kids set up at home, and I went out to the Mall. I bought the tickets and scoped out a restaurant. Then I remembered one of the reasons we never go out on Friday nights.

Have you tried to go to a restaurant at a mall on a Friday Night? I told my wife to bring granola bars because there was no way we could eat. Then she reminded me about the Food Court. Classy? No. Fast and easy? Yes. Easy to get a table? Quite.

There we sat with our wooden chopsticks, japanese food, and Arizona Iced Tea on our plastic trays. a little romantic dinner behind the food kiosk. My wife suggested behind it because it’s quieter there. Note to self- the fact that it’s further removed from the Food Court proper means it gets cleaned 1/4 as much.

Following our lovely little dinner (and it was lovely, because the company was great and there were no dishes to do at the end) we headed off to the Snack Bar for the movie. We don’t actually GO to the Snack Bar. We go to Target. Sure, Target sells blankets and iPods and bicycles. Target also sells candy and water. That was all we needed. My wife pondered hiding the food stuffs we had ‘illegally’ acquired outside of the theater, but I assured her that I was certain… um, relatively sure… er, that I heard somewhere that they can’t keep you out for having outside food. For heaven’s sake, it’s a mall. Would they keep me out if I bought a pillow at Bed Bath and Beyond prior to attending my movie?

Anyway, we got to the movie with plenty of time to spare. “Last Chance Harvey” starring Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. 15 minutes before the start of the movie, few seats remained. We were lucky enough to get two in the back. The next couple to come in got two in the front row. Luckily, we didn’t have long to wait. Just 15 short minutes before… previews. 11 minutes worth of previews. Then 5 minutes worth of movie chain b.s. about your cell phone, buying tickets online, etc.

The previews were actually welcomed. My wife watched the previews (obviously geared toward the audience, with most of them being some kind of romantic story) and stated that she “could see that” when it came out. And so, the mental checklist begins for future movie nights.

The movie was good. My wife says great. I think Hoffman and Thompson were great, but the movie built around them was only okay. Had the other characters been a little better fleshed out, the movie would have jumped a rating level. However, the movie served it’s purpose. It gave us a night out of the house (away from the kids whom we love but sometimes please can’t you just leave us ALONE?) in each other’s company doing something other than worry about the bills, the basement renovation, or which cat is hurling all over the comforter.

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children, kids, marriage, parenting, relationships, spouses

I know, I know. But the other day, I was feeling like I should call. I was lonely. I felt, at that particular moment, that I wanted to hear her voice. She wasn’t there. The voice mail picked up. Now I had to decide what to do. Should I:

• hang up? I didn’t really call for anything important.  It’s merely a ‘hi, how are you, I missed you’ call, so is it really worth interrupting her workday?
• leave a message? I never like leaving mushy messages, because the sound so lame. You never know what to say, and your voice already sounds weird, so it’s never as cool as you hoped it would be.

By now, the outgoing message is nearly over, and it’s become a time critical decision. If I fail to decide promptly, I will end up hanging up after the beep. Then it becomes a ‘hang-up’ and my nice sweet phone call becomes an annoyance. That wasn’t what I wanted and…

BEEP!

“I just called… to say… I love youoooooo! I was thinking of you, and decided to give you a call. I miss you, and love you, and can’t wait to see you. Talk to you later!”

CLICK.

Rats. That was not nearly as awesome as I wanted it to be.

At the end of the workday, I check my messages. She called back.

“I love it when you sing to me.”

Cheesy, yes. But sometimes cheesy sells.

Technorati Tags:
marriage, spouses, relationships

The holidays are a very stressful time of year, mental health professionals say. I don’t have empirical data on this, nor a source you can check. I’ve heard it said, so I repeat it. This is the Internet so it must be true. I figure Thanksgiving fights come from the fact that tomorrow is Black Friday, and I just know I’ll be wrestling some old lady in the morning for the last $20 DVD Player at Target.

Some of the biggest and most memorable disasters we’ve had:
- The Great Gravy Incident, where my sister-in-law finished helping with the food for all the kids, and by the time she got to the table, the gravy was gone. I think that was the last time we saw her that night. She didn’t speak to anyone that year.
- The Bonanza Buy-a-Hand Brush-Up, where my brother-in-law bid $.25 for a hand in a penny card game. My sister-in-laws previous bid had been $.03. They didn’t speak for a while after that.
- The Drunken Douche Dust-Off, where my wife and I had a fight because her family was particularly aggravating and I let her know. She said I was ruining her day with my complaining. We didn’t speak for a day or two.
- The “Share Share That’s Fair” Scare, when I complained that I never see my family on the holidays anymore. The next year we solved that problem by actually seeing my family. I remembered why we don’t see them, so it’s better now.

The past three years are memorable because again we’ve been fighting over gravy. The first year someone was supposed to bring it and arrived asking “do you have a cookbook?” We ended up using jar gravy. Last year the gravy came out so bad that we had to reach into the cabinet and pull out packaged gravy (which we laid in just in case.) This year after an hour of preparation, the gravy was not thickening (which wasn’t mentioned at all on the Internet recipe she consulted) so we added the proverbial  emergency package of gravy mix to thicken it up.

And so we wrap up another Thanksgiving Day, joyfully sending our families on their way, reciting the mantra we hope to remember for next year…

“I couldn’t ask you to do the gravy. That’s too much. What vegetable would you like to bring?”

Hope you had a happy day!