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Relationship

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Making Date Night Work For Us

Remember that yucky song we use to sing as kids about kissing a boy:

 “(Boy name) and (Girl name)  sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage…”  

Well, whoever wrote the song wasn’t lying. Often we tend to fall in love, get married and have children, or in my case, fall in love, get engaged, have the baby and then get married. But then what happens to love… why is it that we become parents and then lose our spice, our sexual drive, our us?

Our children become our number one priority, and somehow our significant other takes second place. Second to the late night baby cries…second to the many activities… second to homework, dinner, bath and bedtime. So how do you get your romance back, how do you manage to still find time for just you two instead of you three or four or in my case five? 

This is where date nights come to play. 

I love the idea of getting dressed up and going out with Bini but with everything we have going on it’s always hard to set a specific time for us. Some years ago, we came up with a plan where the weekends that we had help at home, I would go into the city with him, and we would hang out. Usually, he would work while on our date, but there have been times when it was just the two of us (no phones and no interruptions), and those were the best! We would check out new restaurants, visit our favorite spots in the city, catch a movie, go dancing, hang out with our friends, anything to just be out and together. This helped our marriage come back to life after we hit an all-time low because we were more involved in each other’s lives and talked about everything that was affecting us at that moment. Our plan worked out perfectly until I was about eight months pregnant with Novena and too tired to go out after coming home from work and attending to the children.

‍On one of our many evening adventures together

‍Grand Opening of the African American Museum- I was 7 months pregnant with Novena

Fast forward to present day

Life has taken over again, and we are both extremely busy in our daily schedules. Novena just turned seven months, and we recently got back into our date night routine. Our first official date night after Novena (and yes, I’m corny and like to remember specific dates) was February 25th, 2017.  I’ll always remember this date because that’s the night Bini came up with the idea to call my blog Luwame. We were waiting on desserts at the King Bird Restaurant in D.C., and I was stressing out over what to call my blog. I’m sure the waitress was annoyed at the mess we were making because we were writing on napkins and kept crumbling them. After what seemed like an eternity, he looks at me and says, “Luwame”! I thought he was just talking to me, so I said “yes,” and he replied with “Luwame- that’s what your blog should be called.”  

‍Etete's in DC... best Ethiopian food in town

There are days where I look forward to date night and then there are days where the idea of staying out past my bedtime (9pm-yes I sleep at 9pm, and I love it) drains me, but I do it anyway. In all the years that we have been together and after everything we have overcome as a couple, I’ve learned that it is very easy to get caught up in the usual day to day routine. If we don’t prioritize us, we will easily get lost in our busy schedules and forget that before we were parents, before we were busy working adults we were lovers, we were best friends and I want to always keep that with him. By keeping date night alive, we have grown stronger together and created a bond that I pray will never break.

‍Gliding into 2017 the Great Gatsby Way

Like I’ve said in previous posts, date night does not have to be outside of your home. You determine what your ideal date night will be. Just make sure to have them‼ Where ever it is, whenever it is, always remember to enjoy every minute of your time together and create memories that will last you a lifetime.

As always, I’d love to hear your idea of date night.

Yours,

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