Tuesday Talk

Tuesday Talk… This month the discussion is all about “Quality Time”. Quality time with my kids. Quality time with my husband. Quality time with the whole family. Here’s a few ways how we do it….

Each kiddo gets “dates with mom”. So, roughly twice a year I schedule dates with each of my kids. And by schedule, I really mean PUT IT ON MY CALENDAR! If I didn’t put these on my calendar, they wouldn’t happen. It might seem silly to have to schedule time spent with my kids but as you know, life gets in the way! If it’s on my calendar then it happens!

What does a date with mom look like? Usually it’s just lunch somewhere they choose and a visit to somewhere that meets that kids interest. With Sofia last year, we had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and hit up Build-a-Bear. This year Joshua chose IHOP (he has a serious love of pancakes) and we browsed at his favorite destination…The LEGO store. Of course he came home with a small set to build as well. With my older girls, we grab lunch and get our nails done and then shop! It’s fun to see what interests them…makeup, makeup and more makeup…oh and SHOES! We could kill hours in a shoe store. 🙂

In 2016 we started a special tradition. Each child gets a big, special trip somewhere. So far only one of our kids have done this. Meghan and I went to Seattle. Why Seattle?? Seattle has such a funky vibe, eclectic and very LGBT friendly. It’s also home to Meghans first love…Starbucks! We stayed in a condo for 5 days. We walked and ubered and saw SO many Starbucks cafes! We ate cupcakes and apple pie and drank coffee. We walked on rainbow painted crosswalks and viewed the city from the Space Needle. We spent our evenings snuggled up on the couch watching old Charlies Angels. It was fun. It was special. It was a time neither of us will every forget.

Sarah will be next. We don’t have a set age in which to do these trips. Instead it will be when it feels right. Pretty vague huh? Its just that I would imagine that each of our kiddos will mature at different rates and have totally different interests. Seattle would NEVER suit Sarah…So far I’m thinking she’s more of a New York, see a show, kind of girl. And who knows for Sofia and Joshua! But no matter what each of my kids will get to do one of these BIG trips.

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Ok…quality time with my hubby. It’s often just as simple as making sure we get the kids into bed at a decent time so that we can just hang out in the evenings. We watch t.v., we debate news articles, we show each other stupid videos on Facebook. Sometimes it’s just being next to each other and that’s enough. We are blessed with built in babysitters (and really good ones at that!) so we have the freedom to grab dinner out or watch a movie pretty much as often as we want, which typically amounts to a couple of times a month. Before we had so many kids we would go away for a weekend at a B&B. We have seen some lovely locales that I’m sure we wouldn’t have had it not been for an internet search bringing us to a cute B&B. I think the place we stayed on the Eastern Shore, in Rockhall is probably my favorite. We ate dinner in Chestertown and literally sat on a dock by the bay in Rockhall. We’ve also gone on two, week-long cruises together. Once to the Bahamas and once up the east coast to see Maine and parts of Canada. We love our kids but also understand how important it is to make time for each other and our marriage. We know that someday (hopefully!) it will be just him and me. The kids having flown the nest. We want to make sure that we are still connected once the craziness of child rearing is in the past.

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Quality time with the whole family. We do a big family vacation every other year. On the off years we often do one of two tiny getaways instead. It’s tough to travel with a family of six…especially making sure that there is something for everyone one, at all their different ages, to do. Cruises have fit the bill the best but we’ve done other things as well. We typically go skiing once a year with several other families. Plus we do things like “Cocoa Christmas”…(drive around look at lights, in jammies, drinking hot cocoa). We’ve found, as the kids get older that we need to let some traditions go, while embracing new ones!

How do you DO quality time?