Get out of the way please - I want to hug your mother

As a child I watched my parents do all sorts of exciting things as a married couple. I also watched them continuously attend / deliver all the myriad of activities we excitedly embarked on, from French horn lessons through to breeding Siamese cats.
When you move out of home (much to your parents relief , especially if you are less than 30 years old) you set off to explore the world and find someone to spend the rest of your days with.

If you are lucky enough to find such a some-one, when you first get married it's announcing to the world that not only are you ready and able to look after yourself but that you also believe you have the ability to shoulder the responsibility for another.

When the first child is born suddenly that's all that matters and every thing else is re prioritized. It's like some one hit the Go switch and you're off and running with a vague idea of the route but no map.

You cease to be the couple and immediately become the  parents. You try and try to still be a couple but you get consumed in the hustle and bustle.

Gone are the romantic camping trips .

image courtesy of aber.ac.uk

Gone are sleep ins and slow brunches

Gone are the long dinners and discussions of what the future will look like, because it's here right now - you are in it.

Now that our two are almost teenagers we realised that in the not too distant future we will be retired and will need to spend large volumes of time alone together so we had better get back to basics.
It's so easy to get caught up on the hustle and bustle of being parents that you easily forget about your partner and more often that not yourself. So here is what we are going to do.

Set aside time to be a couple and remind ourselves why we got married and had kids in the first place. (Because lets face it my original idea of raising the kids to be our little slaves has NOT worked out at all.)

We have decided to keep it keep it simple, a little like the army reserve - one night a month and one weekend a quarter.

As a side note date night the first time we tried this our date was over in 30 minutes because we did all the things we would do with the kids :
1) Pick a restaurant that serves entrees, main and desert all at once.
2) Pick a noisy place with service so fast, the food must have been flash fried

So as we walked home we planned the next date a little more carefully.

image courtesy of pureluxury.com

Anyway we figure getting away once a quarter or so should be fine as getting the kids baby sat and planning a night away somewhere can resemble a military campaign.  But I can happily report that after the first effort, I am indeed looking forward to the next one. Even though a) I played Golf and b) It was played in the pouring rain and gale force wind.

So utilising all my knowledge gained from my online amateur psychology degree (that's still in the mail) - I issue the following instructions :

1) Stand up, walk away from the computer.
2) Push any small children / distractions away from your partner (they'll be fine)
3) Give your partner a hug

Repeat as often as required.

Now , I'd better stop messing around here on the Internet and prepare some conversation cards for the next date, I can't afford to run out of stuff to say........