Today will be the first day in a long time that my wife and I will be getting away by ourselves for the day. This is technically her spring vacation, however, due to the snow this winter and the numerous days off, the vacation has been shortened to today and today only. So, knowing she only had one day off this week, we decided a while ago that we I would take the day off as well, we would drop our son off at daycare, and we would take off, get out of the house, and just spend some time together. We both admitted that if we spent the day at home we could get a lot done around the house, but then it wouldn't be the same as us not working and spending a little extra quality time together. Yes, it is only one day and we will be picking our son up around 4 in the afternoon as is usually the case from daycare, but it is one day that we haven't had in a while. This isn't saying that we don't spend time together and talk as much as possible, its just that our conversations usually take place over breakfast, or while driving somewhere with our son, while working on the house, or in the evenings when we are both tired and want to relax. It will be nice to get away from it all, not worry about anything, and just have a little fun. So what are our plans for the day? Well, it starts off with a very exciting trip to drop my Jeep off at our mechanics to get fixed up so it can pass the emissions test. After that, we will head out to the outlets to do some shopping for clothes. Trust me, I am kind of excited about this part as I haven't bought new clothes in years and could use a little wardrobe update. The better part about the shopping is that we both have a bunch of gift certificates that we got for Christmas so it will be very little money out of our pockets towards the clothes. Once we are done with that it will probably time to get some lunch in us. Now, we have two options for lunch and I am personally leaning towards the first one, Abbot's in Niantic, a little seafood place on the water with some outdoor picnic tables. They have fantastic lobster (although I don't know if I will get that) and it is nice and quiet. The other option that is on the table for lunch (ha, pun partially intended), is Bill's Seafood, somewhere on the post road in Clinton or somewhere in that vicinity. Both have excellent food so I could definitely eat at either one without any complaints.
Either before or after lunch, depending on which eatery we decide to patronize, we are planning on stopping by an art gallery in Mystic that my wife's work was accepted into for a show. It's always exciting to see her work on display and see what other kind of work was accepted into the show. For those of you that don't know, she works with ceramics, both wheel thrown and hand built. She has been getting into a lot of shows recently and one of these days, one of her pieces will sell. In any case, the art gallery is in a nice section of Mystic and while we probably won't walk around the town much, it will be nice to drive through. Once all that is done, and hopefully before we run out of time, we would like to make it to Bluff Point which is near Niantic. My wife used to go there quite a bit when she was younger and as I have never been there, I would like to see it for myself. I think all of that will probably take up most of our day. Even if we don't get to everything we want to, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that we are spending the day together, alone, without anyone else. As much as we love our son, we also realize that once he moves out (20.5 years from now (hopefully)), we will still need to know who we are as a married couple. If we lose touch with each other, there will be nothing left for us when we are back to being all alone in our house. I can imagine that there could be nothing worse than losing track of who your spouse is because you are too focused on your children. I know that children suck a lot of time out of your life, and for the most part it is totally worth it, but there is something to be said for making time for yourselves and keeping in touch. We have tried date nights before, but those seem to be too short and not as productive as we are both usually fairly tired in the evenings from work. Even on the weekends after a long day, evenings are our time to relax and take it easy, not necessarily go out on a date. So our little day trip will be our date day instead.
One of the biggest reasons that we are trying to take as much time as possible to get out alone without our son is because we have heard too many stories about parents getting too involved with their children's lives to the point where they forget who they married. People change over time and that includes the person we married. Unless we stay up to date, check in regularly with them to see where they are at, then we won't know them when our children move out. I see personally and hear about regularly how children get involved in too many activities which in turn causes their parents to go a little haywire trying to keep up with them. What ever happened to letting children be children and letting them grow up slowly, taking in little bits of the world at a time, not diving right into everything and trying to sort it out later. Children greatly impact the lives of their parents and it can either be in a negative way or positive. I am sure that almost every parent out there loves their children and would do anything for their children. With that being said, perhaps the most important thing we as parents can do for our children is to take time to focus on ourselves and not let our marriages suffer because of our children. Having an 18 month old running around, watching everything we do, I am coming to realize more and more the impact that we as parents have on our children. If our children see us focus on ourselves from time to time and not just focus all of our attention on them, then they will most likely grow up to lead a similar life with their children. However, if they see parents lose touch with each other, slowly separate due in part to excessive focus on them, than they will use that as their guideline and perpetuate that path in their own married lives later on. If we want to keep the divorce rate down, then we need to focus on our marriages so our children can see how to make a marriage really work. Marriage is not about children, its about spending the rest of your life with the person you live the most, and that shouldn't be your child. Children only depend on us for a certain period of time before they go out and forge their own lives. We need to nurture them, guide them, but also step back and take time to ourselves. If you are married and reading this, when was the last time you went out on a date with your spouse and what did you do?
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