Date Nights With Our Kids

Life got a little more complicated after having our third baby with the older 2 already being 6 and 8. It was an adjustment for all of us, even though I couldn't have been more pleased with our new addition.

Communicating became more challenging between us as parents and the older kids. So they wouldn't feel completely ignored during the adjustment period where they learned to understand that the baby's needs pretty much came first and that we just didn't "love the baby more," we instituted date nights and a communication binder/journal for them. We still use the journal and date nights today.

Date nights are supposed to happen once a month, but they don't always. We take turns with the kids. One month I have a date night with our daughter while my husband has a date night with our son, and then we switch the next month. They get to choose where they would like to go out to eat and an activity, be it Build-A-Bear, the movies, skating, rock climbing, etc., and then we go.

They initiate the note exchange most times. They take their little journal and write us a note on its pages. They then leave it and the pen on our pillow or nightstand in our room. We find it just before turning in for the night and write back and leave it back on their pillows the next day.


I buy the journals from a $1 bin at a craft store, a really inexpensive tool for treasuring the notes, the spelling, the funny comments, their concerns.....a keepsake to revisit in the future.