Spouse Time

While I laid passed out on the floor, next to a happily playing Noah, Abby asked me a good question.

"Mommy, if you are so tired all of the time, why do you stay up so late?"

Excellent question.

Our pre-kid days

Actually, I do not stay up that late.  If I am crawling into bed after 10:00, I am already dreading the lack of energy that I will feel in the morning.  However, coming from my six-year old's perspective, that is late.  In her opinion, I should be going to bed at the same time as she does hours earlier.

My answer to her questions was simple...to spend time with my husband.

I explained how it is important for moms and dads to spend time together-alone.  Her daddy is at work all day, I'm with the kids all day and as much as we love them, we need to have time to just talk together and catch up on our days.

That seemed to make sense to her and she accepted my response.

It is true.  That time alone with your spouse is so important.  And it can easily get lost in the shuffle of a busy day.  Or busy week.  Or busy life.

How easy it is to let our marriage become about our kids.  But, what do we do when the kids are gone and it is back to just being "us" again?  We better have something to talk about! 

One of the best things that my parents did for me was that they were always communicating.  About everything.  They had their own friends, but their friendship with each other was clearly the most important to them. 

Thankfully, I married my best friend.  During our friend stage in college, I suddenly had the realization that if Nick dated someone else, I would lose my favorite person to talk with.  That is why I had to marry him :)

It is not easy to have the spouse time.  After a day of constant chatter from my talkative children and wearing a shirt that is covered in spit-up (Noah's, not mine), I usually just want to stretch out on the couch-alone.  I need my space!  And that is a good thing, but I do find that when I get into my own little world of facebook and angry birds and ignore Nick, I go to bed feeling restless and discontent.

How good it is that God does not want us to be alone.  I love my husband and feel blessed to spend every day with him.

*I am writing this as I sit alone on the couch and he is at the Reds game, tweeting about his excellent seats.  I think he has some making up to do :)