Date Night



Flying through the air.

 

Back in September I was over at Naomi's blog Seven Cherubs were she shared a new family tradition that they had started with their seven children. The idea was simple, easy to achieve, it created memories while also been very relevant to my little family. Naomi said that "we have always been mindful of our children growing up in a large family and try hard to make time in our schedule to prioritise our spending time with them. It was from this thinking that we decided to start date nights with each of our children." (this is a direct quote from Naomi's blog)

 

This was so relevant to us and our family, I'd recently noticed that I was relying on Caelan to do more and more of the babysitting for me. Every afternoon I was giving him Quinlan to entertain while I rushed around trying to get dinner organised before Mr Opoes got home. Caelan is a good hearted boy and although he didn't really want to babysit he would do it to help out. With Caelan helping me his homework wasn't been done until after dinner and this meant that bedtime was getting later and later.

 

So after reading Naomi's post I rang Mr Opoes who if I remember rightly was interstate and I ran the idea past him to see if he'd be interested in doing something like this with our kids. We decided to give it a go starting the first Saturday of October and we even held a hat draw so that the kids got to see how we picked the order that the date night would go and to show them we were been far. Know we have four children so that should mean that we'll be going out ever Saturday BUT because as Quinlan isn't quiet twelve months old he'll get time to spend visiting grandma and grandpa. The other change we're going to make is that we'll only do three dates a month so that grandma and grandpa can still do things that they want or need to do.

 

So Mr Opoes and I had our first date with Mackenna. She decided that she wanted to go to a park to have a play. We've made these dates 2 hours long so that we have time to talk, laugh and just have some one on one time with each of them however, it's also a good amount of time so that grandma and grandpa don't get left with three children all day. We have made our date time during the lunchtime period so this allows the child to choose to have lunch at a special place or to do something else they like. 

 

Now we had to tweak Mackenna's date a little as we were running late due to have a tradesman come an give us a quote for some landscaping. Due to not organising any food prior to leaving we called into a place of her choosing so we could grab a quick bit to eat, then it was off to the park. The one thing that Mr Opoes and I noticed straight away with Mackenna was that her voiced changed when she spoke to us. Mackenna has a tendency to talk like a baby at times and she can be very moody if she doesn't get her own way. For the two hours we spent with her she talked nicely, she was polite and she seemed grown up. We had a lovely time, I real enjoyed the time we had speaking, it just melted my heart to see Mackenna smile from ear to ear and her laughter was infectious.

She smiled like this the entire day and we could see how much she enjoyed herself.

 

Next week it's Caelan's turn and he is still in the process of deciding of thinking about what to do. He wants to do so many things and he's forgetting that he'll get to have another turn in four weeks time. It's funny because Mackenna already knows what she wants to do.

 

So to I want to say a big thanks to Naomi for sharing your family tradition with us. We've decided to use your idea in the hope that the time spent with them individually will allow us to reconnect with them now so that as they grow they'll feel comfortable talking to us about anything. I'm hoping that the kids continue to enjoy doing these activities with us and that life doesn't get in the way of us spending the time with them.

 

Megan