Monday, November 9, 2009

Night Off of Parenting

H and I have a meeting in Dallas Saturday morning. Because of this meeting, we get a free hotel stay and nearly a free trip. In order to thoroughly enjoy this trip, we are farming the kids out. My parents are taking one of the kids, the in-laws are taking 2 and my sister is taking 2. By noon on Friday, we will be kid free! We, of course, will be collecting all the kids by Saturday evening so our freedom will be short lived. We had decided to go out to eat (somewhere nice) and go see a movie. Our hotel happens to be near the Majestic theater and I just happened to check out the even schedule there. Guess what's showing Friday night??? Tap Dogs! I have seen only clips from their performances, but they are an awesome tap group. H and I started looking and found a couple of affordable seats. So...instead of going to eat out and to a movie, we are going to Tap Dogs. Being budget conscious, we will not be eating out at a nice restaurant, but will instead be eating fast food. The trade off is worth it though. I am looking forward to the night out and seeing a real performance in person for a change.

With 5 young kids, finding a good, affordable babysitter is very difficult. As a result, our last night out was in May for our anniversary. That's 6 months without a date! As I said, we're farming the kids out to 3 different family members so that we can enjoy a night off. Having a night off is very important for any parent. Even if it is only occasionally. Ideally, (and we used to do this) a parent should have one night out every month, but I'm very grateful for my night off. So take a night off every now and then and go do something that is a real treat for you.