sleepoverAh, girls' night. The one thing that can help your marriage AND replenish your sanity. The one thing they warn you that you'll have to give up when you welcome that bundle of joy, the poopy diapers, and the milk-engorged boobies.

Sometimes I feel like there should be an iTunes playlist made up for every new mother. Along with the "sleepy lullabies" for baby and the "girl power" music to make you feel less like a slob in those sweatpants and more like the kick-@ss woman you once were, it will have the voices of your friends telling you how awesome you are, how much they love you. Maybe they'll relate a few stories. It will be like the old days, when you sat around the island at someone's kitchen with a few glasses of wine.

Or you could just keep up the girls' night. No babysitter required.

Take the kids.

That's it. Girls' night. With the kids.

Fret not, I'm not one of those holier than thou uber-moms who make you fake retch behind her back. I love a night away from my kids as much as the next woman who realizes she really does have an identity without jammy hand-prints on her jeans. But in a lesson I learned from my grandmother, mother of seven, including a set of twins, kids are always easier to entertain when there are MORE of them. It's with this in mind that my friends and I have started playdate girls' nights.

Getting out, just us girls, was supposed to be a monthly occurrence. It's been more like once every three months between our kids' social (and t-ball and soccer and dance and ... ) lives, our spouses' work schedules, holidays, family obligations, etc. So we cut one huge factor out of the equations. No more waiting until there's someone to keep our kids occupied. We take them with us.

Last weekend that meant six kids in jammies cuddled up on the floor of B's house, watching a movie, while four moms sat in the dining room, eating, talking, imbibing (not much -- I was driving after all, but a little wine is a lot more fun when you don't have a pint-sized someone whining in your ear). Occasionally a kid would wander in, but with six kids, there is enough activity, enough "attention-giving" among the crowd that there isn't a lot. And there were four, count 'em, four moms to run intervention.

The goal was to have them all asleep by the time we were ready to leave, something I confess didn't happen this time around (me turning into the tickle monster and chasing kids around the living room may or may not have had something to do with that?). But having them fall asleep on the way home is nearly as good.

I get time away from my house. I get time with "just girls." I save on a sitter/don't have to worry if my husband is working that night. It's good for my marriage. It's good for my sanity.

Have you tried this option? How do you keep up with the girls?

 

Image via jolante/Flickr