Recently, I had the opportunity to head out a lot more without the kids. I met up with my close mummy friends and went for events.
Of course I did make sure to check with Daddy Ting that he was perfectly fine with the arrangement before I went ahead to go out. Daddy night-care has been a success so far, QT has gotten a lot closer with Donald so he was okay to be without me.
Donald, on the other hand went out with the boys. He took them cycling and swimming. The boys loved it. Ollie would come back and go on about what happened and what they did. The boys and I have heaps of memories together; I’m glad that Donald is creating some of his own with the boys.
Getting the opportunity to meet up with my close mummy friends was awesome, whether one-on-one or as a group. Now that the kids are schooling, it was hard for us to meet up for play dates. Meeting on weekends was sorta harder as we had to look for alternative arrangements for the daddies to take the kids. Haha. Not that they cannot handle the kids lah, but more of it might be harder for them to handle the kids? =P
We caught up on life. Life about the kids, about the struggles, about our husbands, about managing time, about just some thoughts, about our businesses. My last meet up over this weekend lasted 4 hours! We talked so much over food, sitting comfortably in our booth. Really thankful the staff of Colony didn’t chase us out!
Ahh it was a good month to fill up this social need. Sure, we talk on WhatsApp but nothing like a good face to face meet up and just talk.
It was also during one of these meet ups that inspired my paktor-versary gift to Donald. Donald and I have been together for 11 years now, and we have only been apart from each other 3 times in our time together. We had the luxury of living together when we were dating, and that really eased us into our married life. We are still in a honeymoon phase, where most of the time, we could talk and share about our day. Of course there are the bad days, but I am thankful that we have more happy ones than the sad ones.
I decided to gift him the memories of us that I hold dear to my heart. The ones that make you smile randomly as the memory passes through your mind. The one where perhaps he first held your hand? The one where perhaps you first told him you love him.
The one where you said your vows.
The one where you were at your most embarassing moment but you didn’t feel that way in front of him because he made you feel beautiful and secure.
Those memories. I wanted to remind him of those moments, and that they were my prized and treasured memories of us, no matter how insignificant it was to him. The ones that was the very essence of our relationship. The ones that will make me stay. The ones that make me feel that it is all going to be okay on a bad day because I do love him. =)
It was also amazing to look at it and see how my memories have progressed. There was the dating phase, the living together phase, the married life phase and now the kids. The memories were doing things together with the kids, and how I saw him as the father of my kids and his involvement.
60+ treasured memories and counting. The list will go on!