Date night doesn't always have to be exciting and adventurous. There was nothing glamorous about our date this past weekend, but we accomplished something together, ended the night with some quality time together and we won't have to spend as much time cleaning every night each week to catch up, so we'll be able to spend more time together after the kids go to bed in future weeks.
Acts of Service is my top love language and nothing makes me happier than a clean house. As I’m sure you can imagine (and some of you know from experience), keeping a clean house, or even feeling like you’re getting somewhere when you are trying to tidy up while your kids are in the house is daunting. Lately, I’ve wished that I could have someone come in once a month and do things like clean the baseboards, dust the always forgotten areas, and take care of the cleaning that is time consuming and last on my list.
My mother-in-law has been offering to tend the kids for us while we go on a date, so last weekend I took her up on that offer and asked her if she wanted to have some cute kiddos hang out at her house for a couple of hours. Rather than going out on a fun adventure, I asked Joe if he wanted to stay at home and having a cleaning party with me. Because I have been working to deep clean and get rid of clutter in the house, I’ve been having a hard time staying caught up on my weekly routine and really wanted to do everything at once and start fresh. We used to have cleaning parties together a lot, and although it sounds a little lame, it’s one of my favorite things to do.
We pull up a 90’s Pop station on one of our radio apps, turn on the portable speaker and get to work. The one thing that we don’t do is work side by side when we’re “partying”. The way/order that we clean in is one of the biggest sources of conflict in our marriage (silly, I know), so tackling our own respective tasks is the best way for us to work as a team. When we’re feeling really ambitious, we’ll clean out, clear clutter and reorganize an area of the house or yard. There wasn’t time for that this time around, but I’m planning one of those cleaning dates in the near future, maybe one afternoon while the kids are both napping.
This past weekend we only got the bedrooms and bathrooms cleaned up, but they’re the area that gets most neglected lately because I clean the living areas while Bensen plays outside, since that’s where I can see him. Joe spent an entire hour cleaning our bathroom, and it was the greatest thing ever! He scrubbed hard water spots off the shower doors, and cleaned all of my postpartum hair loss out of the shower and sink drains (he’s a saint I tell you). After he was done, he put laundry away and vacuumed the entire house. I spent my time dusting, sanitizing, cleaning up clutter, putting laundry away and washing spots off the walls.
It’s crazy how three hours goes by so quickly… I need another 10 to clean the rest of the house apparently. The best part of our date? We brought the kids home to a clean house, put them both to bed and curled up to watch our favorite show together. I wasn’t thinking about all of the things that I wasn’t doing or the mess that I was going to wake up to. I was able to cross some projects off of my to do list and feel a little bit less overwhelmed with my life.
Date night doesn’t always have to be exciting and adventurous. There was nothing glamorous about our date this past weekend, but we accomplished something together, ended the night with some quality time together and we won’t have to spend as much time cleaning every night each week to catch up, so we’ll be able to spend more time together after the kids go to bed in future weeks.
You might be surprised by how much fun you have cleaning your house for date night! Whether you tackle getting caught up on the daily cleaning, focus on deep cleaning one room or work on getting rid of the things in your house that you don’t need anymore, make your cleaning fun. Tackling these tasks as a team will help you get things done faster and more effectively and because you both worked so hard to get the house clean, you’ll both be more motivated to keep it clean when you’re done.
For more date night ideas like these ones, check out the book, Prioritizing Date Night in Your Marriage, with 300+ date night ideas.
