Mom's Tree House Writer's Club- July 22

The prompt: How do you and your hubby keep your relationship going with the chaos of the kids?

To be honest, there has never been a problem with chaos and our children. Daniel and I have always made the girls a part of what we are doing, and we like it that way. It may not be advisable according to marriage experts, but we rarely do activities without our children. When we do have a babysitter we kind of feel lost.

With that being said, I think we get plenty of couple time, just not in the traditional date nights that others do. We go to the gym a few times a week and work out together. During this time the girls are swimming or doing another supervised activity. The YMCA is awesome for that! We make sure the girls go to bed about an hour before us (when we're doing good with keeping a schedule) so we get to spend some time together in the evenings. And... once a month the girls go to my mom and dad's house so we can go to the Adventure Run sponsored by our local running store. We have lots of opportunities to spend time together and to enjoy adult activities, we are just a little creative with how we define that time.

Another thing we've always done is to have the girls go along with whatever it is we are doing. We do not have a child-centered home. If the adults want to watch television or listen to the stereo we pick. The girls get their turns, and we often choose family movies (especially when the girls were younger), but they know they will not be taking over the media when the adults have something else in mind. Our girls come grocery shopping with us and run all the other errands we have to do in order to keep the home running smoothly. Putting groceries away and cleaning the house become family activities on the weekends. They have learned that more hands makes the jobs quicker, leaving us all time to do the things we want to do rather than what must get done.

Daniel and I both wanted children and knew we wanted to build a family who truly enjoyed spending time together. Our relationship does best when we plan outings that include our girls. We don't find the routines with the children to be chaotic at all. It's only when we fall out of our normal habits that things start falling apart. Rather than keeping our relationship going with the chaos of the kids, the better question may be: How do you keep your relationship going when life gets too crazy and you aren't able to focus enough on the kids? That's a whole different story and one we've had to figure out quickly in the last four months.

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