Do you ever feel like you need a date night every night of the week?  I do!  Why? Time with my hubby. Time away from the kiddos.  I love being with them but I could definitely use time as an adult, too. The joy of sitting down to a meal that someone else cooked. The pleasure of not having to wipe some one's mouth, cut up food, wipe up spills, or pick items off the floor. NOT HAVING TO CLEAN THE KITCHEN! The list could go on and on. REALITY CHECK!!!! Finding a babysitter. Paying a babysitter. Preparing everything before you go.  I usually feed everyone and do bath time before a date. Picking everything up when you get home. Just as above, the list goes on and on. My husband and I have taken on a new kind of date... The Speed Date. Speed Dating - working as hard as possible to make sure you and your hubby still get a date each week, even if it is only 60-90 minutes long. My husband works very long hours, six days a week, 10-12 hour days.  He usually gets home between 7:30 and 8:00pm.  It has always seemed impossible for us to have a date during the week.  Until, last night.... :)  My mom offered her free babysitting services for any night this week.  Typically, it would be used for a scheduled activity... Cub Scout meeting, volunteer meetings, and any other type of meeting that may come up.  BUT!!!  This week we did not have any scheduled meetings, wide open schedule!!!  How did this happen?  Don't question it?  Don't tell anyone or post it on Facebook because they will schedule something that involves you!   This was our plan. 1.  Feed and bath the kids prior to Mom arriving.  This was actually the kids' idea.  They said they did not want to waste their time bathing while "Ma" was at our house. :) 2.  Have an amazing mother who offered to bring the kids milk shakes and tater tots.  Wow!  What a treat!  Can I stay? 3.  Arrange with the hubby a time and place to meet.  There is not enough time for him to drive all the way home to pick me up.  I know this seems ridiculous but it takes him 20 minutes to get home then a few minutes visiting with the kids and finally another 15 minutes to drive to a restaurant.  It is much easier and saves a lot of time for me to meet him.  We picked Jason's Deli (on his side of town) at 7pm.  Not romantic but sounded really good. 4.  Tell mom that we will be back around 8:15.  I am a real stickler for bedtimes during the week.  I would not be able to relax on our date if I knew the kids would be going to bed really late because we were not home.  Our kids are not the easiest to put to bed so I never ask grandmas or babysitters to worry about bedtime.  I want them to come back! So, the plan was in place, now to execute it.  I found myself a little excited to meet my husband at the deli.  I waited in my car in the parking lot and watched for a white pick up truck.  Where we live, there are a lot of white pick ups.  It actually felt like our original days of dating.  It was fun to watch and wait for him to pull into the parking lot.  Is that corny?  Probably, but I love that I still get that excited feeling in my stomach when I meet my husband for a date.  I hope it is like that when we are 80, although our children will probably be driving us to our dates.  :) We had a great dinner and the food seemed extra yummy.  Probably because someone else made it and brought it to the table.  We actually ended up with some time to spare.  We decided to run an errand to Academy for snow gloves.  We are taking a family trip to Washington in March.  It has been quite the battle trying to outfit our family for this trip when we live in a warm weather climate.  We laughed because we saw a display with snow hats and bikinis! I was quite fond of our "speed date".  I will take a short date over no date any day! Last week, we put the kids to bed a little early, rented a movie, drank coffee and ate donuts.  That was a fantastic date!  It only cost the amount of the movie.  Plus, we felt like we were breaking the rules eating donuts at 10:00pm!  Hey, its the little things!!! What kind of dates work for you?