Every other weekend, there are no kids in our house. Two to three nights a week, there are no kids in our house. For literally half of the nights every month, there are no kids in our house. And do you know what? We love those nights. We go out for sushi right at bedtime. We go out to charity events and don't worry about paying a sitter to watch four kids. We go for long walks under a moonlit sky after our late dinner. We go to bed way too late and sleep in longer than we should, often past the rising of the sun. We go away for weekends at the shore, enjoying quiet, romantic dinners and dancing all night at the clubs. And we love every minute of it.
Every weekend between our kid-free weekends, there are four kids in our house. Two to three nights a week, there are four kids in our house. For literally half of the nights every month, there are four kids in our house. And do you know what? We love those nights. We eat takeout on the porch after bedtime. We go out to family-friendly community events and don't worry about paying a sitter to watch four kids. We go for short walks around the block under a sunny sky after our early dinner (often pulling kid-filled wagons). We go to bed way too late and wake up way earlier than we'd like, often to the sound of giggling (and sometimes crying) children. We go away for weekends at Nana and PopPop's house, enjoying loud, messy dinners and visiting all day with family. And we love every minute of it.
While we love our kid-free weekends, we equally look forward to and love our kid weekends.
Jesse and I never entered our parenting journeys planning on only being half-time parents. Neither of us, in our previous lives, ever imagined such an arrangement. But it is what it is. We both have healthy co-parenting relationships with our exes, and everyone recognizes the importance of all of our children spending equal amounts of time with both sets of parents.
As for loving our kid-free nights and weekends? We look forward to those nights because we can't change the fact that our kids aren't here. We both agree that our kids are better off spending equal time with their other parents, which, by design, leaves us without kids half the time. And we can sit around pouting and missing our kids on those nights, or we can make the most of it. We've chosen to make the most of it, because missing our kids while having fun is a lot better than missing our kids while sitting around pouting in an empty house.
Sometimes it feels like we're leading double lives. How about you? How do you handle those kid-free nights?