Nolie here guest posting for you all today since Cass decided she needed a vacation. Really she just wanted to spend more time with her MIL instead of us.

Usually Cass introduces you to the guest poster, links to their site and says something only slightly amusing about the person. However I guess I am not worthy of her snarky comments because I sit here in her dashboard posting all on my own.

So in the famous words of Cass “Make sure you show me some comment love and check out my blog Nolie’s Place.”

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Making Time for Us

By: Nolie

Before children come along it is just you and your spouse. Life is great and revolves around the two of you. Then along come the kids and many people forget about taking care of the adult relationship. For Tobei and I we didn’t have the chance to be all about us. I already had Little Man when we became a couple. From the very beginning we had to balance being parents and growing our own relationship. To this day we still make time for us whenever possible.

In the beginning it was easy. Little Man went to his birth fathers every 2nd week-end. However he no longer sees his birth father so we had to change our ways to make sure we still have time for us. This past week-end we had a date night. We got a sitter for the night and went and stayed at a hotel. It was really nice to have time just for us. We try to get a sitter whenever we can to spend even a couple of hours just the two of us. I know and you know that it’s not always possible to have a sitter. However there are many other ways you can make time for just the two of you.

Since couple time is important to family life I am going to share with you other ways that we make time for just us while still being full time parents to Little Man.

• Tobei is lucky to come home every day at lunch. I will meet him outside where we will spend a few minutes talking about our mornings before coming in to eat lunch with Little Man.
• We do the exact same thing at the end of the day when he gets home from work.
• Yesterday while Tobei was making dinner. I sat in the kitchen and we hung out together while he cooked and Little Man played in the living room.
• Every Sunday is date night. We have 3 hours of TV that night and we cuddle on the couch watching our shows. One of them is Big Brother which he isn’t a huge fan of but he watches it as it means we are spending time together.
• Last night we rented a movie and got some junk food and had another date night while Little Man slept.
• When we get in bed at night we will spend some time just talking. Doesn’t matter what we are talking about but we are together and it’s just us. That is all that matters.
• Having kids doesn’t mean you can’t go out for dinner anymore. Little Man is very well behaved and we have many nights out at restaurants as a family. It gets us all out of the house and spending some time together.
• As a friend on twitter mentioned to me today when discussing this post idea “don’t forget to include “pinching the bum” in the kitchen as you pass each other!” That also counts as “squeezing” in couple time.
• Most importantly the one rule Tobei and I have is that if one of us says “”Let’s hang out”, we do it. We put away the phones and the computers and spend time together, no excuses.

It doesn’t have to be anything big or really memorable. Even the little things count. Finding even a couple minutes to spend just the two of you pays off in the long run. Never forget about your spouse. You guys are the glue that holds the family together. Yes it is easy to fall into the every day routine of life and it takes effort to break the routine. If you put in the effort eventually it will become the new routine of life and you will forget about the days when you felt more like roommates.