For this week’s update with school, I’m switching up the topic a little bit! But of course I’ll quickly fill you in on our our week went.
The kids were amazing every single day, with no tears and lots of excitement for school. Jackson made sure to tell me every morning that he was not going to cry going to school and when I picked him up, he would inform me again that he did not cry at all at school. It was the cutest thing and if that’s the reassurance he needs to have awesome days at school, I’ll listen to him tell me that every day! I also managed to watch the triplets walk in to school and then quickly run over to see Emily walk in to school a couple times last week! Overall everyone had a great week and all four are so excited to share what they had learned each day! (Emily did want any pictures taken and when I would try she would run away, that’s why there is no picture of her)
Now on to our new topic!
This was an exciting week for Dan and I, because we had our very first date day! With Dan’s work schedule, he works alternating weeks, which means every other week he’s off Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Now that the kids are in school, Monday to Friday, Monday’s that Dan is off means we have the whole day to hangout.
As parents we know how hard it can be to find time for yourself and time to go out as a couple and it’s something that we have had to work on for a long time. We have been lucky to have gone on a few trips and have some date nights, just Dan and I, because of my amazing family being there to watch the kids, but it feels like it has been a while since our last one!
On Monday we took advantage of having the kids all in school and went on a date, during the day! It was so much fun and definitely needed after being away all summer.
We started off with some lunch at the Mandarin and then played two rounds of mini golf. The Mandarin is always so yummy and this time we were able to enjoy it, eat our food while it was hot and actually have a full conversation without being interrupted. I don’t actually remember the last time I’ve gone to the Mandarin without kids, so it was a nice treat. But on a side note, the Mandarin is a great place to take your kids!
After lunch, we went to Max’s Sports World, just in Waterloo, right beside the St. Jacobs Farmer’s Market. If you’ve never been, I would totally recommend you check it out and it’s great for the whole family! They have two outdoor 18 hole mini golf courses and it’s only $10 per person to play both courses. There’s also batting cages, an indoor and outdoor driving range, ax throwing and archery.
The weather was a little overcast and it started to spit just as we made our way to the first course, but luckily it quickly passed. We were also the only ones there on a Monday afternoon, which was nice!
We enjoyed our time playing and it was a close game, but I managed to come out victorious, even scoring a hole-in-one!
The whole day was just so much fun and such a good way for Dan and I to spend some one on one time together and really reconnect. It’s taken me a long time to realize how important spending time with your partner and working on your relationship really is. It’s too much to share in this blog post, so it will be saved for one to come, but in short, when Emily was born and then the triplets all I would focus on and care about was being their mom and putting all my time and energy into their schedules and what they needed. Nothing else mattered to me, including making time for Dan and I to hangout and spend time together. It put a lot of strain on our relationship, along with some poor communication, which created a very hard time for us. Luckily we have been able to work out those problems and get to where we are today, but it does take work to make a relationship successful.
It’s days like Monday, where we need to stop what we are doing and take advantage of the time we have to do something together. I don’t think we even need to go out and do an extravagant activity to make it count, but just an activity where we can laugh and enjoy each other’s company. But with that being said, I do want to find new things for us to try, whether it’s an activity, visiting a new place or trying a new restaurant. I think the excitement of a new experience is a great thing to share together, no matter how big or small that new thing is.
I’m no expert when it comes to relationship advice, but just from speaking from my own experiences, I do want to say, if you are reading this and feel like your relationship isn’t what it used to be, take a moment to think about the effort that you are putting towards it. A relationship won’t last on it’s own if there’s no work being put towards it.
It’s okay to go through periods and phases where your relationship isn’t the top priority because sometimes life happens, but you have to make sure you realize that. I know I’m going to share more in another post, but when the kids were babies, I wasn’t putting any effort towards our relationship and it didn’t even occur to me that I wasn’t. Rather than talking about it, we would just ignore it and even go some days without talking to each other. At one point, we both felt like we were just two people living in the same house raising kids together, going through the everyday routines, but after some work, we have made it to where we are today!
I’m looking forward to our next date day and seeing what we do. Dan apparently has something planned, so I will report back what it is in a later post!
I hope you enjoyed this week’s update and topic and if you have any suggestions for activities or places we should visit or try, let me know! It would be greatly appreciated!
The Baby Gang 