Time For Us

What a ruddy brilliant bank holiday weekend I had with my lovely man and our gorgeous boy, we spent it at home, doing some housey jobs, spending time in the garden, having a few drinks and eating all of the meat - what bank holidays are made for - right? 

But when I looked at insta stories on Tuesday morning, I saw a lovely post of a Mum I follow, having a guilt free, child-free Monday with her lovely other half. And it got me thinking. The last day my man and I had a whole day together, child free, was August 2017 - 9 whole months ago.

Since little man has arrived, we have had 3 evenings together with no kids. 3 evenings and one day in 10 and a half months! Yet can you believe I said to my man the other night that I felt bad asking family to look after F as people will think we just palm him off all the time! Ha!! Yeah unlikely when you look at those figures eh?! Typical bloody mum guilt slipping in unnecessarily.

Now don't get me wrong, I am fortunate that I do get a good amount of "me - time" if I need it. My Mam is great and will look after my boy so I can have my hair done/see friends when I head home. And my partner is just that, a partner. He will, without question stay in so I can head out and get some alone time/see friends/head to the gym/get some well needed beauty maintenance and I do take advantage of this!

But what I am missing is the "us time", the time for us to go out for a day and not have to worry about whether we've packed enough bottles, snacks, changes of clothes, nappies etc or to plan our outing around when F might be hungry or need a nap. I long for the days of heading to a food festival together or going out on a long mountain walk without taking all of the guff that a bay requires you to take along too. I miss spending time together, laughing, experiencing things and just being together without having to consider anyone else. That might sound selfish but I really love my fella and being in his company with no one else to think about is bloody amazing.

We are lucky that we do have family who offer to look after him and who are desperate to spend time with him, but the closest family member is 38 miles away so this takes planning and ideas of things to do so we don't feel the time is wasted. When sometimes, all I want to do is be able to say "fancy nipping to the pub" or "lets head to the cinema" - we haven't been to the cinema in over a year!

I'm not a woe betide me type of person, but I can't be the only parent out there who doesn't have family on the doorstep or a set of friends nearby who would willingly take care of your little one? In this day and age, with more of us moving away from our hometowns and villages for university or work, and very few of us returning to be near our families, how can we solve this baby sitting gap? I've heard of people using "bubble" the babysitting app with great success, but I've also heard stories of baby sitters not turning up! When I was little, I remember having all sorts of Mum's friend’s kids looking after me, but that doesn't happen nowadays really does it? I couldn't imagine knocking on my neighbour’s door and asking if their kid wants to take care of mine - I'm sure I'd be reported to the social!

I'd be really keen to hear how you navigate this situation - how do you get couple time/nights out without weeks of planning and diary consultation?

Before anyone chips in with "this is what it is to be a parent" - yeah I know and I knew the level of commitment I was making before I got up the duff. I'm genuinely not stupid, sometimes daft, but not stupid.  It also doesn't mean I don't get to be a normal adult and spend time with my favourite human, just being a couple.

In the meantime, I've got the number of a local "Nanny" an NCT friend has used so I'll be sussing her out in the hope we can use her, and we have an adult night out at the races planned in for 4 weeks time, so there are things booked in, but I'm keen to find a solution that doesn't involve bag packing, Fraser staying away and a lot of calendar admin!

Written by Rhi @rhifreshing_