Dream Date

Steve and I are serious about our dates. For a long time after moving out to New Jersey and having our second child, I would get a babysitter every other weekend, even that felt profligate. Then Steve questioned why we were limiting ourselves to every other Saturday night. He questioned what was keeping us from declaring every Saturday night a kid-free night? A hot-date night? A night of keeping us connected, alive and in love. He argued that it was not extravagant, it was essential, necessary to the health of our union. I was more than happy to oblige. Since then, we have had a babysitter most Saturday nights and we both feel a little claustrophobic when we can't find a Saturday night sitter.

We're pretty social here in the burbs, and we use many of these Saturday nights to go to dinner with other couples or go to parties. We like to make sure that at least once a month, these Saturday nights are a true date night: just the two of us, dressed up a little, me in nice jeans and a sexy shirt, a little lipstick, eyeshadow and perfume, him in clean jeans and a clean shirt. It's such a great feeling to bid the kids and the babysitter goodnight and step out into the night together, knowing that we will not be interrupted for the next few hours and that we will be able to talk, share our thoughts, worries and maybe even a few laughs.

Our ideal date is dinner and a movie. We've always been movie addicts. In our pre-children days, we would see a movie every Sunday night; just to keep the work blues away a little longer. I loved our 8-block walk home along a deserted Broadway, around 10:30 at night, talking excitedly the whole way about what we'd liked and disliked about the movie we'd just seen. Then we would walk into our cozy one bedroom, brush our teeth, and snuggle up in bed ready to face the workweek.

Our date nights no longer involve leisurely walks along New York city streets, but they do still involve dinner and a movie. I miss the days when we would see everything that was released. Nowadays we often miss movies we really want to see because our schedules get too hectic. Seeing the movie on DVD with Steve periodically snoring on the couch next to me is just not the same. The worst feeling is when we waste one of the precious date nights on a bad movie. We recently saw No Country for Old Men and left the theater wishing the villain had shot us with his pneumatic device. But a few months ago, we had a great dinner and then laughed our way through Knocked Up. It was a perfect date night.

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