When DH and I got engaged, one of the first things we did (like thousands of studious Mormon virgins of our era) was purchase and avidly read Tim and Beverly LaHaye’s book The Act of Marriage. More than a decade later, I don’t remember much of the, ahem, technical advice they offered, but I’ll always remember that they advised a weekly date night and a monthly overnight away from the responsibilities of life. Even at the time, with no kids or jobs to weigh us down, the advice seemed overly optimistic. Sure, it could work with teenage kids or if doting grandparents without active social lives of their own lived nearby, but that would not be our situation for a long time. So we resigned ourselves to infrequent dates and rare and much-anticipated getaways.

We had one of our rare getaways this weekend. In preparation, I spent weeks researching hotels in the Texas Hill Country, a few days coordinating our child care (my mom and godmother both flew in to tag-team babysit), a few more days researching restaurants and state parks and tourist attractions, a few emails to rearrange on-call schedules, and many weeks eagerly anticipating the trip. We left on Friday afternoon, got to the hotel by dinner time, woke up without an alarm clock (of the mechanical or human variety), talked about things other than our schedules and our progeny, hiked in spots that would have been treacherous or impossible with a stroller, poked into little shops where our offspring would have been dangerous or bored, and ate in places without kids’ menus. Nice doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Then, less than 48 hours after we left, we arrived home. Even before we hit the driveway, we were referreeing fights over the phone. We still had bags in the car when Maren dragged me to the tv room, asked me to turn on her favorite show, and refused to get off my lap until it was done. Just like that– back to reality. My two-year-old missed me, but I’ll admit that we weren’t gone quite long enough for me to miss home– long enough to taste freedom, not long enough to get sick of it. A couple more nights would have been perfect. I think. But what if it took two or three weeks away to start missing home? Could it even take longer?

While we were gone, my mom took the boys to the zoo, where she indulged them with popcorn and pizza and stuffed animals and carousel rides. “I want to spoil them,” she said, “because I don’t get to see them enough.” My godmother patiently helped Maren in and out of every princess dress in the costume box. Both of them have raised their kids, all of whom now live too far away for them to drop in for a casual visit or to watch the kids for date-night, so the work I do every day, the stuff I want to get away from, is a treat for them. The traipsing around the zoo and playing dress-up don’t have the same cachet for me– they’re mundane, they’re work, they’re just another part of the daily routine.

Maybe if we managed to squeeze in the weekly date night, the weekend getaways wouldn’t feel so loaded. As it is, we manage a “real” date about once a month, and substitute with takeout and the DVR on the weekends when we can’t make it work. How do you work out the dates and the getaways, especially if you don’t live near family? Do they recharge your batteries and have you excited to come home or leave you feeling faintly guilty for enjoying yourself so much? And if you know you’ll miss the busy/messy/hectic little kid phase when you don’t have it anymore, why is it so hard to appreciate it when it’s right in front of you?