Date Night

About a month ago we had our first date night with the kids. I don't know if you've ever done anything like this in your family, but I highly recommend it. With the kids being twins, they almost never have any individual time with us. Parents of singletons have their first child to themselves for at least a year or so and then often have times during the day when the baby takes a nap. So, for a few years the oldest gets to see what it's like to have mom or dad alone. I do things individually with the kids during the day, and Steve and I do on weekends, too, but we're often interrupted or it doesn't last long.

One day after Steve and I came home from a date, Alexa asked Steve if he'd go on a date with her, too. So that's how the whole idea originated. Jared lives for Steve, quite literally he has to give Steve "ten hugs and kisses" every day before he goes to work and waves to him out the window as he drives away, so he was a bit disappointed to have me to spend the evening alone with instead of Steve. I told him we'd switch in the future, and I was determined to plan a night he would always remember, positively of course!

We went to Enchanted Castle and wound up staying there the whole time. Jared seemed a little overwhelmed at first (it was very crowded) and wanted me to hold him a lot, but he gradually warmed up to the games. He got especially excited about a Batman game he found.

After we spent a lot of tokens, we went down to the go-carts to ride. We had to stand in a half hour line, but it was so worth it. I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but Jared looked so cute inside the cart! He was very disappointed he couldn't drive it himself, but I tried to make up for it by going as fast as I could and whipping around the turns (which is saying a lot for me).

Afterwards we ordered our meal. This is when the evening started to go a bit downhill. We had to wait 45 minutes for a hot dog and hamburger. It was really hard to keep Jared patient. He wound up laying all over the floor, climbing on anything he could find and my back hurt from carrying him for a long time. Finally, when we got our food we couldn't find anywhere to sit and wound up sitting under a coat rack. Thankfully, after five minutes some people offered us their seats. 

The rest of the evening did get better. Jared cashed in his tickets for a candy bar and some tootsie rolls that he gave to Alexa. On the way to the car, I asked him if he had a good time that evening and was glad he went out with me. He looked up at me, smiled and said, "I'm glad I went with you, Mommy."  What more could I ask for?