For those of you that don’t know, my father in law, comes to our home every single Friday in order to watch our children so we can have a date night. We had four children within five and a half years so a date night once a week is needed, and appreciated. I think having this date night once a week has really helped our marriage, for the most part we are two ships passing in the night.
When we decided to start having children, we decided together that a parent should be with the children at all times until they start preschool. We really didn’t want to rely too much on babysitters, and were against daycare. Before our youngest started preschool, our schedules would be reflective, if I was with the baby, she would be at work, and vice versa. I would typically work Monday morning, all day Tuesday, Wednesday evening, Thursday evening and Friday morning. So that means Bonnie would work Monday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon (thanks to my wonderful mother in law who would watch a baby of ours), all day Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday afternoon. We would see each other in the evening, sometimes we would work together for bed time routine. Some evenings we would say a few sentences before we passed out.
Needless to say a date night was our saving grace. Last night for our final date night until we get back, we went to the Hot Tubs of Berkeley. It is a rent by the hour hot tub establishment where we rent a private room that has a sauna, shower, hot tub and mattress. It is exactly where your first thought went.. We go there so often for our date nights, that the manager knows us on a first name basis. We keep inviting him to all the kids birthday parties because he has a toddler of his own. We just want people to ask him how he knows us.
Moving on, then we went to an Ethiopian restaurant. Bonnie’s favorite food is Ethiopian food. I tolerate it because she loves it. If you haven’t had Ethiopian food, imagine that someone serves you a pizza platter full of piles of meat and vegetable dishes. The platter’s surface is covered by a sour tasting pancake type bread called injera. They also serve you extra injera bread to use to scoop up the food and eat it. It’s ok, but she loves it.
Then we ended our date night at my office in order to print out some forms we need for our trip. This isn’t an exciting post, except for the fact to highlight that for the past eight or nine years, my father in law has given us a date night every week. Part of me realizes he isn’t doing it for us, but to see his grandchildren. This trip is going to be life altering, but there is a flip side to that. We are also taking the grandchildren away from the grandparents who see them on a weekly basis. This trips’ collateral damage is that the grandparents won’t be able to see the grandbabies. I hope and pray this six months abroad doesn’t irrevocably affect the relationships we have with the grandparents, but time will tell.
Four days to go.
Our Family Adventure 