Molding, shaping date night

I knew the hubby had finally gotten around to reading some of this blog when one night he walked into the living room and said, "Did I really say 'Why do we need a date night, we're married?'"  I said yes; he said, "I'm an ass" and walked out of the room to go back to reading.  The next day in the car, I explained to him my thoughts on the matter.  Date night isn't a natural thought to him since he hasn't been reading women's magazines since he was ten years old (like yours truly).  Also, we really just never dated.  Even our first date was more of a hang-out than a date; and then we clicked so much that we just started spending time together - all our free time, every day for a while.  Other than special holidays or things, I'm not sure we ever had an actual date.

So of course date night isn't going to be natural for us.  I was a little liberal on my 101 list for last month in that I counted our weekend in Baltimore as the "date night" for the month, but it fit.  We relaxed and we actually got to spend a good amount of time by ourselves Sunday morning, just talking and laughing.  For our life, it was a date.  Today we're going to the Liberty Science Center, which I'm counting as a sort of daytime date (although we did also go out to dinner Thursday night to celebrate the Columbia notification, which also felt like a date).

So we're getting there.  I think as I start school and we start talking about when to have a baby, date night is going to become even more important.  As I've expressed before, we're still working on becoming that well-oiled machine you should be in order to bring a baby in to the family, and I think date night is utterly instrumental to this.  We get to talk without a TV or computer around; we get to maybe talk about things that we haven't talked about but need to.  I'm not the best at sharing my thoughts or worries or fears; date night gives me a quiet, slower time where I can figure out what I want to say and how to say it.  I'm amazed at the things I was able to finally say to the hubby when we were in Baltimore and when we went out to dinner Thursday night - things that have been on my mind for a while.  In those moments, I feel like I get a glimpse of who we actually are as a couple.