Nataly raised a great question on the Work It, Mom! blog earlier today:

"Do you carve out special time to spend with your partner or spouse? (And if you do, how the heck do you manage that!?!) Do you feel that your relationship is not a priority since having kids and juggling work?"

She also made the point that in all that in all the talk about juggling work and kids, it can really easy to take our relationships for granted.

Do you agree? Do you make "couple time" a priority, or does it happen even less often than "me time?" How do you find that time, and how do you spend it (no need to get TOO graphic about that! )? And if you don't, why is that?

We have a weekly "date night". Generally, we go out for dinner. Sometimes we just go to the neighbourhood pub for a pint. Sometimes we go for a long walk. But on Thursday nights, we go out together.

Every Saturday and Sunday morning, we walk to our favourite coffee shop. (It's a 45-minute walk.) We have a coffee, then we walk (or bus) home.

We can do all this because our youngest child is 11. (There's no way we could afford all that babysitting!)

When my children were younger, we had friends with children about the same ages as ours. Once a month, we'd have their kids for a sleepover, so they could have a kid-free evening/night/morning. Once a month, they'd do the same for us. It was a great system.

My husband and I are not much for going out. We live in an enormous city (15 million) with horrendous traffic-- just getting through the day can be really over-stimulating. We bought and renovated an old building to be our house a few years ago. We still think it is extraordinarily cool to just hang out in it.

When our daughter goes to stay at a friend's house for the night, we will go out to dinner or to a movie. Baby sitters as we know them in the US do not exist . You have to arrange for your cleaning woman to come especially and then she charges for a full day, and it is just a big headache. His parents live on the other side of the Bosphorus and it can take a few hours to get there in evening traffic (on Sunday mornings it takes 15 minutes!). When our daughter was smaller we would leave her with them for the night if we had an important event like a wedding.

My husband gets so sleepy so early in the evening, it is just not worth the bother.
I'll be sitting across from him at a restaurant and will see his eyes begin to droop. And I'll say. "It's 9:06." And I'll be right, I know it is 9:06 because it is four minutes to 9:12, when he emotionally shuts down (in a pleasant way). I love him to bits. Over time, I have adjusted to his internal schedule and find it weird to be out at night.

Other people think this must be boring, but my husband and I are very close and talk about all kinds of really nerdy things.

We make couple time a priority. Often we will go on dates during the day when the kids are at school. Hubby takes the time off work and we go to the museum, or to lunch, or to see a movie, then pick up the kids after school.

A few times a month my mom, who lives less than 5 minutes away, will take the kids overnight. She has taken them once for the entire weekend and that was really great!

Several years ago, we made a pact to carve out weekly time. Saturday nights are couple nights-- we book sitters on a regular basis. We found that if we don't have carved out time, we rarely went out. We certainly don't do exciting things most of the time; usually just dinner and a movie. Sometimes we do errands together, or work out together, or just go to the bookstore and sip coffee and read together. We find that if a few weeks go by when we can't have "our" night, we get really antsy. It's definitely not inexpensive-- sitter costs are substantial, even if we're not doing expensive activities while we're out. But I think it's crucial to have couple time on a regular basis.

Hubby recently was overseas for 6 weeks - it enhanced our 'personal' life immensley, by making us mch more aware of each others presence. We now plan an hour of snuggle time, Sunday mornings, behind closed bedroom door.
Our son is 8 and was thrilled at the idea of giving mom & dad some quiet time in exchange for full control of the remote control for an hour.

My boyfriend and I both work from home and work out of the same "office" but we do not have time during the day spend together. So we turn off the computers early after my daughter goes to bed a few days a weeks and sit together with a few cocktails and talk. Also my mother lives a few mins away and she takes her overnight once in a while. We are constantly saying to each other we physically spend all day together but mentally we are miles away. So we make sure we have the time together with no distractions

My father-in-law lives with us so we've been able to go out almost every Friday night for the past 2 years. Sometimes, it's dinner, or coffee, other times it's at the local bookstore. We're usually back by 9pm.

My kids are 10 and 6 so within the next couple of years, we should be able to leave them by themselves if we want to go for a walk or something.

I find that when we don't have this connecting time, it's difficulty to maintain a family. We feel disconnected & out of touch. The intimacy of just having a leisurely meal and talking about everything else but the kids, house, work, etc. really helps us - it must be working...we've been together for 23 years and married for 20.

We are fortunate to have both sets of grandparents within an hours drive from us. So, if we need the time, we take advantage of the free babysitters. Usually twice a month, we'll have a free night to ourselves.

But, we live in a great bayfront house, so we want the kids to be there to enjoy it. We fish and kayake and grill out several times a week.

Even when we do have time together, we still generally just stick around the house. We sit on the deck together with a cool one or we'll go grab a bite then come back home to watch the sunset.

Dont you just hate when you need to go out.. but have no one to watch your kids?? then you find somebody but they are too expensive? Well, I can HELP!

I am 14 Years old. I am a Female, who needs a job. my dream was always becoming a babysitter. at this time, i am a LIT( leader in training), at the YMCA. i love working with kids..and have plenty of way to keep them company.

for more information please call me at: 813-453-4434 and ask for Brigette!

If we do not awnser, please leave a voice mail.

thank you,

Brigette