Reconnect with your partner in the kitchen

Dinner date for new parents? Excuse me while I laugh like a maniac! ha ha ha ha. Ok, I’m back.

When I’m on schedule with the evening routine, I pick up the kids and hustle them in the door a few minutes before the crazy dinner rush starts. If I succeed, we might have a little playtime before the show starts at 5:30.

Once the show begins, I have 25 minutes to prepare dinner with a goal that all four of us (two Minis and two Bigs) can eat together at 6pm. Rookie Dad Alec doesn’t usually walk in from his bus until 6:22 but since there are several points of failure in this system — we get home late, someone’s throwing a fit, food takes too long, someone’s throwing a fit, I’m up and down running for beverages or seconds — we often eat together!

I like family dinner, but how great would it be to spend an evening sipping a little wine and doing the romantic dance around the kitchen sauteeing a little of this and chopping a little of that? Together. With your partner. No kids. It’s pretty flipping awesome.

What about having a dinner date at home after the kids are in bed one night a ~~week~~ month?

Dinner date: reconnect with your partner in the kitchen after kids are in bed

The key is that you really do it together. Not that mama has one shift making dinner for the tiny set and one more shift making a second dinner.

We got this book, Dinner Dates: A Cookbook for Couples Cooking Together as a gift when we started sharing a kitchen and recently busted it back out so we could reconnect in the kitchen. So, it’s good for newlyweds, new parents, and for any of us who need a fun idea for a date without a babysitter. It is absolutely fantastic about helping couples figure out who should do what and when so it all comes out even for steps and ingredients. The meals are very tasty; Alec and I have had several of them (and I’ve prepared one or two with a girlfriend for a fun evening as well). All come with a dessert and a wine pairing.