Special Night

It has been over a month since anyone in our family has enjoyed a Special Night and we are starting to feel the lack of this special glue. Special Night is a simple idea that began for us several years ago and has passed the test of time as one of our best relationship builders. One child chooses what to do with one parent while the rest of the family takes care of the homefront.

To begin, discuss with your spouse any time, distance, and/or financial limits to Special Night. On a sheet of paper, write both parent's names on top to make two columns. Going down the left side of the page, write all children's names. This will produce a grid that provides a space for each partner combination to write down ideas for Special Night. Call your children together and plan to spend about 20 minutes max brainstorming Special Night ideas. Write your ideas down. Take your calendar and find the next open time and plug in a Special Night. Work through your grid list over time until finished. Repeat.

There have been times when we have limited Special Night to as little as two hours spent close to home while spending less than five dollars. When we first moved to Arizona, we upped everything to give ourselves the opportunity to indulge in our new area by going to restaurants, IMAX theatres, and Diamondback baseball games. We tend to identify a weekday evening that is consistently open, but this changes seasonally based on sports and holidays. We also include our nursing little one with Mom until little one is ready to happily separate.

The key to this is not to see it as one more thing to do on the To Do list. It doesn't need to be a source of broken promises. It doesn't have to happen every week. It doesn't have to be fancy. What makes it work is the anticipation of spending time with mom or dad then doing something special.