An Unplugged Date Night In
On any given evening, once the baby is snoozing away, you and your partner invariably change into comfier pants, head back downstairs, light some candles...
And then they proceed to wait very patiently whilst you spend the next 40 minutes checking emails, browsing Facebook, researching new blog post ideas, catching up on all the celebrity gossip that you've missed in the whole 24 hours since the last time you checked, browsing Instagram, checking the weather for the week...
Basically you waste up to an hour of your night on an IPhone black hole, switching your brain firmly off and before you know it, it's 10:30 and therefore too late to watch another episode of House of Cards so you head upstairs and pass out lightly until 3 am rolls back around and you're up comforting your still-not-sleeping-through-the-night angel.
These nights are so familiar to all of us and even though you end up unsatisfied and feeling pretty guilty, sometimes it can be such a relief to switch your brain off and give into the mindless comfort of at-your-fingertips technology.
So when you decide that actually, it would be nice to have a proper conversation with your partner without the interruption/distraction of children/work/gossip blogs/Facebook it almost becomes an event!
Introducing the most novel of ideas in this age of technology: turning off and unplugging the white noise of your device.
I promise, you won't miss much! Facebook, Instagram and Twitter will all still exist! The news is a 24 hour cycle now so if you do miss a major story, don't worry! You can catch up in a few hours!
What you're swapping for is a couple of hours, a glass of wine and a proper catch up with the person you chose to walk through this life with. It's amazing how much you'll find to say to each other. How much you realise that you miss them when you're both hunkered over your phones, totally ignoring each other. (Seriously, we're all guilty of it - my husband physically takes my phone off of me after a certain point!). Or play a board game or put on that new Staves record that you've not listened to properly or prepare and cook a meal together without worrying whether your toddler will try to feed it to the dog again. It costs nothing, not even the hassle of a babysitter and you can wear sweatpants!
But enjoy each other, remember how you got here in the first place, to a life that is more than you could have hoped for because you get to spend every day waking up to the person who thinks you hung the moon.
Below are a few of my personal ingredients for a perfect date night in. What are yours? Comment below!
