Sunday, June 12, 2011

$ave $ome $crilla: Date Night

My husband and I can be a bit thrifty especially when it comes to babysitters.  We only like to hire one when we have exhausted our family members and really NEED one for a scheduled event.  I hate my brain for working like this sometimes, but after paying $30 for a sitter, I add it to the cost of my meal and think, "Man, that was not a $35 cheeseburger I just ate."

After a few months post-baby, we noticed that we were living under the same roof, but hardly sat down and actually had a conversation.   We were on diaper duty, preparing bottles, etc.  Early on in our marriage, we always thought getting out of the house just the two of us and having an uninterrupted conversation was important.  As mentioned before, the dilemma is that we are cheap (oops, did I say cheap, I meant thrifty) and it now costs us double to go to dinner.

YAHTZEE!  The date night idea was born.

We asked some of our friends, with a baby just about L's age, to establish a date night swap.  We trade off babysitting each other's baby.  It works out great!  Each couple picks out one date a month that works.  We go to their house to babysit and bring L with us so they can enjoy some adult beverages and not have to drive their little nugget home.  When we go to their house, we grab some take out and have our own little date night while they are out.  Everyone wins!  Two date nights a month, improved communication, and $60 richer!

Try it out with some of you baby friends.  Let me know what you think.  I wish you more luck than Tina Fey and Steve Carrell!


*Note - The only thing a little tricky about this is we have to wake L up to get back home...It is not ideal, but she goes back to sleep pretty quickly when we lay her in her crib.  I would recommend waiting until your baby is about 3 months or older to start this.  That is when L's bed time moved to around 7-730, so we could put her down and all our friends had to do was be an able body in case something went wrong.

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1 comment:

Larkin Ade McMillan said...

love this. We are so glad y'all thought of this. Let us know when you want your next date night.

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