By Allison Spence

Is May insane for everyone else or just our family? Between birthdays, Mother’s Day, traveling, illnesses, and yard work, Garrett and I haven’t had a break. Which also means we haven’t even had time to entertain the thought of a date night.

On months like this dates are far and few between, so we have to get creative. Once you have children you quickly learn that finding time to “date” is impossible. Being parents mean date nights involve trucks, crayons, and pacifiers slew about the table. Both of you shoveling your meal in hopes of avoiding a meltdown.

Our new dates go a little something like this:

We wake up, get the kids dressed then drive over to our favorite doughnut shop, Revolution. Garrett runs in while I stay in the car with the kids, he grabs his usual caramel bacon doughnut and my favorite orange pistachio, then off to the park we go. Once there, we find the closest bench to the playground, sit down and have a date. Grafton plays, Eleanor sits in the stroller and we have pure, 100% adult conversations.

On Mondays, Dairy Queen has BOGO blizzards so we put the kids down for bed and I run out to get them. Then we cuddle up on the couch and eat our blizzards through an episode of Superstore.

And today, we met at the park during Garrett’s lunch, I packed salads and snacks, he grabbed waters and forks. Grafton sat between us snacking, Eleanor napped and for a moment Garrett and I caught up.

These may not seem date worthy to most but to us they are. With that being said what’s the going rate for babysitters these days? Hah, only joking. This ones for you babe, may we always enjoy the little moments we share among the chaos.