People are always asking me how I manage to spend enough individual time with each of my children. Quite frankly, I don’t. It’s not something that causes me stress since I firmly believe that what they may miss in one-on-one time with me, they make up for with the amazing interactions and relationships they have with each other. Besides, on the odd occasion where I have found myself alone with a child, I’ve noted they’ve spent most of our time together obsessing about what the others might be doing.
However, Daddy-o and I thought it would be fun to have some special time with each child so cooked up a new family tradition: Date Night. The idea is that each week, one child picks a parent and goes out for an adventure or activity. Alone. Just the two of them.
There was great excitement and chatter when we presented the idea to our kiddo panel. Immediately ideas about Date Night locations were being considered—movies, dinner, mini-golf, bowling. The list went on and on.
When the excitement died down, I asked if anyone had any questions about our new tradition. There were two:
1) Little Lady # 3 asked: “Can I bring a brother or sister along on my Date Night?”
2) Her 3-year-old brother came next: “Can I bring the whole family along on my Date Night?”
I would be lying if I said the questions shocked me, but I was a little unsure about how to answer—it is their night, shouldn’t they call the shots? I suggested we stick with the original plan and see how that works out. Now I only hope that I’m the parent of choice for the kiddos—going out with one kid sounds like a heck of a lot more fun than staying home with five.
So watch this space and tune in for occasional installments of “Adventures in Date Night!” In the meantime, what does one-on-one time mean to you? Do you have some children that crave it and others that don’t seem to want it?
Taken the day before having baby #6.
It marks baby’s last few hours of “alone time” with me.
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