Marriage Centered Family

The season of life that Zach, Copelynn, and I are in is so...new and fun!  One of my favorite parts about having a kid is that life is allllways changing because they're always changing! Nothing is ever the same for very long.  And that is just how I like it; change change change :) 

The older Copey gets of course the less babyish she is. She doesn't necessarily need our CONSTANT attention and care...don't get me wrong, she is quite a handful, but not in the way a newborn is or even a baby is. She is so much more of a toddler now that she has turned the corner into year two of her little life.  It probably is exaggerated more for me than Zach because we just finished nursing, too. 

With having a kid, I have experienced how easy it can be to let her become the center of our lives. That may sound weird because people say all the time "My kids are the center of my world!" But Zach and I have purposed to strive to have a marriage-centered family.  I literally have to repeat to myself every so often when life gets busy and priorities get out of whack: "Aimee + Zach existed first. Aimee+Zach+Copelynn existed second."  I think God designed it this way for a reason. The best thing we can give to Copelynn is a healthy, happy marriage. A happy, healthy marriage doesn't just happen by itself, that's for sure. We really have to fight for it.  Especially with me working part time opposite hours of Z, it is a struggle.  But nothing worth while ever comes easy, right?

We got away for a date night this past Friday night.  I had to leave for work at 1:15pm and Zach of course had been at work since 7am.  Our babysitter usually stays with Copelynn until Zach gets home around 5-ish, but that night she hung out until we got home from dinner. So Z got us a table at Olive Garden and I met him there when I got off at 6pm.  But not before my manager asked if I could stay late at work because we were understaffed and pretty busy.  These are the moments I have to repeat my priorities!  I told him I wish I could but I have a hot date with my husband and marriage has to come first at some point if you want it to last.  We proceeded to talk about his marriage and then I left.

I laugh when I think about date nights before we had Copelynn.  We worked at the same company in the same department.  We commuted 45 minutes each way to work together 5 days a week, took breaks and lunches together.  What did we ever even talk about on our date nights back then?!  

Now a days we are very intentional about not just getting out together, but asking each other the meaty questions when we're on a date...only because some great leaders in our lives taught us this.  "How am I doing as your husband/wife?" "What can I do better?" "Are you happy?" "What do we need to change to be more unified?"  And we're really honest with each other.  This time our conclusion was that we need to allow each other to have some alone time at the end of the night and after that certain amount of time we agreed on, we will put our phones/computers/iPads away and just be with each other.  We talk about our love languages and what we need more of from the other person. And made sure to compliment what we are getting right for each other.  

If we weren't striving to have a marriage centered family, that date night and conversation probably wouldn't have even happened.  I was feeling guilty about leaving Copelynn to go to work AND making her be with a babysitter through bed time.  I flirted with the idea of canceling, but with Zach's affirmation that Copelynn would be just fine, I didn't.  I'm so, so glad because we needed that time together. We have to put each other first.  This is something we hope that Copelynn learns from seeing it modeled and not just talked about.