While most couples probably have a date night, my wife and I don’t like being out late. It means we’ll likely be awake late and neither of us have the time nor the inclination to experience those types of shenanigans.
No, we have date days.
Date days are fun but let me acknowledge right at the top that this isn’t practical for everyone, I appreciate that. My wife does shift work and I’m a writer and do comedy, so I’ve pretty much no structure at all and I work a few hours a day sometimes. So for us, a married couple in our forties who don’t like the nightlife, dates are best had during the day.
The activities are give and take
Sometimes we’ll go for a hike if the weather is good and it’s not my turn to choose what we do. We live around some beautiful trails and national parks, and the coastal paths in Western Australia are gorgeous so often she’ll make me do that. Then stop for something to eat for lunch before thinking about heading home and planning the evening.
When we’re feeling super adventurous, we’ll go to the movies and stop at an arcade where my wife will get absolutely destroyed at any game of her choosing. Then binge on snack food and watch whatever movie I pretended I knew would be good.
Or, and this is the one where the guilt sets in a little, we’ll go to the zoo or the museum, something we definitely could have taken our son to but on this day chose not to. But that’s because we would have taken him previously and had to leave early or deal with any number of meltdowns that may occur from a toddler being looked at by a giraffe.
One of us would be midway cleaning food off of something we hadn’t planned it being on while the other tries to amuse an angry and confused child, and we’d give each other the nod. The nod that said, “Let’s come back here and enjoy this properly when he’s at daycare.”
And that’s what we did.
We’d choose a day a week or every other week where we both were off work during the day, we’d send our son to daycare and we’d plan a morning and early afternoon of things we would either be unable to do with him or felt like he may not enjoy. Ok, things we didn’t want to do with him.
We were lucky. We had chosen a daycare where we knew all the educators well and we trusted them and adored them. Any guilt that we felt taking our child to daycare on a day when we theoretically didn’t need to, was quickly alleviated by the reminder at drop-off that he was going to have the best day with amazing people.
And to be honest, it always felt better taking him to daycare than taking him to stay with his grandparents for the afternoon. For one thing, daycare is far more than a babysitter. There’s structure and tasks, games and learning as well as a crucial socialising aspect. With other children and with adults who he can’t just wrap around his little finger like he can with his grandparents.
Besides, at daycare, they follow a very strict food plan which, while varied wonderfully, doesn’t include processed foods and sugars.
At his grandparent’s house, anything goes.
