Up until two months ago, we were the typical married couple with children: we almost never spent time alone, without the kids. We have been on exactly one vacation alone in the 11.5 years we’ve been parents. In the first decade of our parenting, we probably went out ten times total as a couple. That’s an average of once a year, in case you’re not a math person. The word “date” was never really a part of our vocabulary.

For a long time, a very long time, I was breastfeeding. Then, there were the times we just didn’t have the money to hire a babysitter and go out. Then when we did have the money, we’d find great babysitters who we loved and our kids loved and then they moved away.

But a couple of months ago, we decided to hire a babysitter we knew and loved to come every single Friday night. There have been a few Friday nights where the kids have had school events, but otherwise, we’ve gone out to dinner almost every Friday for almost two months. No kids. Ever. And since many of our friends here now have one child old enough to babysit the siblings, our friends have joined us every week, too.

It’s the most wonderful thing, ever. I hope we’ll keep it up.