Celebrating My Sweetheart

Today is my wedding anniversary. Isn’t that wonderful? I’ve been married since 2007, and because I still don’t get very much sleep I have to keep thinking about how many years that’s been. Fewer than 50, more than 5.

Happy Anniversary, Corey!

Happy Anniversary, Corey!

We chose Memorial Day weekend for our wedding and, thus, always seem to find ourselves on vacation or out of town for our anniversary, which is both good and bad. Since having kids, it’s been good because we live far away from our families and being out of town typically means built-in childcare from relatives.

Last year, we had a three-week-old baby on our special day. We were out of town for my father’s 60th birthday party and really couldn’t do much in terms of celebrating. We decided to go to dinner, taking our wee newborn along with us and leaving our older son with my parents. He slept by my side in the car seat while I ate grilled tuna and drank half a wheat beer. Then I was exhausted so we just went to bed.

But this year is different. We’re staying home AND we have a banked childcare swap that we’re cashing in. Free childcare for two kiddos on a holiday? Yes!!! That leaves extra money to splurge on a new outfit for my special night, right?

Since our kids are a handful, we’d never think of asking anyone other than our mothers to put them to bed. This means we have to choose between going to an early dinner, getting home by 7pm, or else not going out until after 8 when they’re asleep.

To me, 5pm dinner date was the obvious choice. We start our day by 5am most days, anyway. I’m hungry for lunch by 10 and usually eat dinner at 5. I’m a little, old lady! Whatever–our restaurant isn’t going to have run out of our entree choice by the time we order if we get there at 5:15. Give me a nice Belgian white beer and something chocolate for dessert and I’ll call it the perfect evening. Once we get the Lev-lets to bed, we’ll most likely play competitive games of Geo Guessr on our laptops, because that’s how we roll.

Some day, possibly by next year, we won’t be battling sleep depravation on our anniversary. We won’t always have young, nursing children who go to bed by 7pm and we won’t always be paying or bartering for childcare so we can have a special date. Some day, we’ll spend the night at a cute B&B near a winery for our anniversary. But right now, we have a preschooler and a nursing baby, neither of whom sleep very well. That’s just the reality of our lives right now and we’re cool with that. We realize we have to shift our concept of the perfect celebratory evening.

As it is, we’ve shifted our idea of a perfect daytime adventure. My former self would never have imagined I’d love a family bike ride/picnic/afternoon nap as much as I do. And yet, we do this whenever possible. We’ll get some alone time together as adults, with some good food and competitive, nerdy gaming. I’m pretty happy with how things are shaking out this year.

How do you celebrate your wedding anniversary when you’ve got young kids and babies? Leave us a comment to share your ideas!

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