Ready for Anything?

Chapter 75

Finn and I went out with Evie and Patrick to our first night out without the babies; we went to our favorite Italian restaurant for dinner.

"Gosh, I can't remember the last time Patrick and I were able to go out and have a date night – even if it is with my brother" Evie teased and I laughed.

"And get used to it, because you don't get chances often to spend time alone together" Patrick said.

"I guess it gets hard to make time for each other with little ones, huh?" I asked, starting to realize this was what our life was destined to become.

"Yeah, it can be, but you just have to make your relationship a priority, really. Date nights don't have to be out away from the kids. Sometimes you can have family date nights, and sometimes you can have date nights at home, after the kids go to sleep" she said.

"That's what we usually do. We make dinner to where it's ready at their bed time, so then we just eat dinner late and watch a movie on the couch. Sometimes we make it a little more romantic with candlelight, but generally speaking, we just try and spend as much undivided time together as we can" Patrick said.

"It's so important to make sure you're making time for each other and putting the effort in, because that's a huge reason why people split up – or at least in my opinion – because they're so busy taking care of the kids' needs that they forget that their spouse has needs, too." She said.

"You seem like you really know what you're talking about!" I said, a mixture between being impressed and terrified.

"We hit a rough patch a couple years ago, and we were fighting all the time. Andrew was nearly two years old and having major sleep regression, and we couldn't get him out of our bed at night, or he wouldn't sleep. Evie and I actually ended up sleeping in separate rooms, because I could never get a restful night's sleep with him wind milling around, and I needed to be at my best for work the next day" Patrick said.

"Yeah, it got really bad. We eventually virtually stopped speaking altogether, only to fight about bills and the kids, really. And the messes...oh the messes. It nearly broke us. We almost didn't make it. We despised each other so much, that we were about to let it all go, but then one day we were sitting together in the car, on a rare occasion that we went anywhere together, and an ad for a weekend marriage counseling retreat came on the radio, and we both felt compelled to give it a shot. And thank God we did, because I'd be lost without him. We were to the point where we couldn't even stand to look at each other anymore, basically rock bottom, and we got ourselves back up to a relationship that our friends tell us they envy" she said.

"Yeah, well, we're not exactly in the market for marriage counseling, Evie. We've had enough thrown at us rather quickly, we've purposely put off talking about marriage - but we'll keep that in mind should we ever need one in the future" Finn said with a laugh.

"Maybe you don't need marriage counseling now, but if you start off doing the same things that we used to build ourselves back up, then you should never have a chance to fall apart in the first place" Patrick said.

"How in the hell did this dinner get so serious in the first ten minutes of conversation!?" Finn asked with a laugh.

"He's right, let's talk about something more lighthearted. So Rory, how is motherhood treating you? Finn says you're a natural!" she said with a smile.

I smiled and shrugged. "I love it, which is weird because I never thought I would be cut out for kids, but they're pretty great" I said.

"Especially since the GI doctor realized that poor Liam was having a milk allergy and reflux, now we've got him on a special hypoallergenic formula, some liquid Pepcid and a probiotic each morning and he's a new baby!" Finn said.