We recently celebrated our 9th wedding Anniversary.

Woo hoo! What an incredible reason for, wait for it….DATE NIGHT!

Ahhh, date night. The night when moms and dads shower, put on non-sweat pants clothing and go out for the evening.

I would love to do weekly date nights, but it’s just too tough to coordinate. If you’re lucky enough to have family, friends or great sitters available on the reg, then you’re half way there.

Luckily, we did have a great sitter lined up for our anniversary night. I got myself dressed (wow!), put mascara on (ballsy!) and poured myself a glass of pre-date night wine (typical!).

My hubs got home a little earlier than expected so I sent him straight upstairs to change and get ready so we can get the fuck out. He did come through the door with like 4 bouquets of flowers, which I spent the next 15 minutes playing florist and filling vases with colorful arrangements.

Our sitter was already here and was occupying our 2 kids.

Date Nights In The Early Days

Back when we first explored date nights, we’d take our time and give a lot of detailed instructions for the sucker, I mean sitter. And do a lot of check-ins and text messaging to make sure everything was going well.

Now, I just throw a few extra diapers at the sitter’s head and run out the door.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m totally lax when it comes to my kids. We’re 5 years in. We know our shit. When we go out for date nights, I set it up right so we can go out and have a few hours of us time. No worrying about this or that. If the sitter needs us for anything big or small, I always stress that they can call us.

My husband and I can catch up, drink, laugh, and be carefree for a small window. It took us a really long time to not talk about the kids for the entire dinner. Now, we only talk about them for about half.

That evening, on my way out the door, my 5 year old told me that I looked nice for my “university”.

Cute, right?

So how did our date night go? Great! Believe it or not, date nights help us to catch up on tons of shit that we can’t otherwise chit chat about on typical days. I filled my husband in on stuff that happened like three weeks prior. Lots of talking. Lots of drinking. Lots of feeling like an adult. Much needed.

Do you and your partner go on “Date Nights”? Tell us about it at sothishappened@bleepingmotherhoood.com