Teaching your children to love

I remember, as a young child, asking my parents to kiss each other.
"Kiss my mom! Kiss her!!!!! Come on!!!"
Then I would giggle and giggle when they finally kissed.

That memory came flying back to me the other day when I read, "the number one way to teach your children to love is by loving their father." (and visa versa)

This struck me in a powerful way! I strive daily to show my children the love that I have for their dad. We don't hold back hugging, kissing, rough housing, or even giving "da dip" (Ben uses his Italian accent when dipping me :) :)) in front of our kids. We want them to see us together. We want them to see us loving each other... showing and demonstrating our commitment to our marriage.

I know that someday when my three children get into a relationship, they're going to look back on the strength they saw in our relationship and want that!

That's why we put our marriage first. We have goals for ourselves, our careers, our family, AND our marriage. Your marriage can't be left to chance and it certainly can't be left to get whatever's "left over". It must be a priority! And YOU get to decide how you do that.

For us, we have monthly date nights. We tell our children that we need to concentrate on each other and spend some time together. We tell them how important it is to us and to them as well.

We also strive to get away for 1 weekend every 6 months. We swap time with my sister. She and her husband watch our kids while we get away and then we watch their kids while they get away. It's been a great way to spend more time with our niece and nephew as well as more time as a couple. Double blessing!

So here's the point of this blog. About a year after having my twins, I remember looking at Ben and thinking... "You.. I know you....Hmmmm? You're the guy I used to spend a lot of time with right?"

Our lives were turned upside down. AND we were loving it! But (and here's the big BUT...) I could see how having children can get you in trouble. Ben and I hadn't had a date night in months, we rarely spent time just the two of us b/c we were having so much fun with the kids, and we also shared our bed with kids so we weren't even getting time to snuggle like we used to. I could see where you could suddenly find yourself not knowing the person you married. Not knowing how to pick things up and put things back together. I also knew that marriages were only won in a prevention arena. It was time for us to make some new rules and make sure we were as proactive about our marriage as we are about our health! And our marriage stepped onto the side of the arena we would be staying on.