Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Speaker: Welcome back friends. We are here with another episode and talking about something super exciting and that is married getaways. So quick little trips with your spouse and how much fun they are and how essential they are to your marriage. But first we're going to start with the funny mom moment.
Speaker: Yeah, funny or embarrassing, whatever, we'll go with it. So we, I think at a year house too, like at our house, we're getting into some birthday time. And so we had some of our ministers over and they were visiting and my fresh, my four or five year old is talking about her birthday that she just had turned five. And so they had a little conversation about this and, you know, okay, all right, this is going fine. And then my two year old wanders in the room and he hears them talk about birthdays and he's like,
Speaker: my birthday next." And so they say, yeah, oh yeah, what are you going to do for your birthday? I'm going to have a bottle of beer. And my husband are both like, up, up, up. And my husband says, buddy, you can't. We don't have any beer. And he says, well, let's go to this door and get some more. All of a sudden, these visitors are like, what happens at this household when we're not here?
Speaker: I know, so it gets better because then I'm like, I'm just like, oh shoot, let's just change the subject because sometimes you can't detract a two year old from the topic they're on. So I'm like, hey buddy, didn't you make lunch with your brother today? Why don't you tell us about what you did for lunch? Because he had a super fun time helping his big brother make lunch and he says,
Speaker: I had chicken with drugs. Oh my gosh. And I was just like, I was just like, and I looked over at my teenage son, raised my eyebrows and he goes, we had chicken with teriyaki sauce and broccoli. What are you coming up with?
Speaker: Yes, I don't know whether to like crawl under the couch or you know leave the room What playgrounds has he been hanging out with
Speaker: Just his older teenage siblings, I think they must teach him things because they think it sounds funny to hear a little two -year -old say, bottle of beer. And then the ministers come over and here they are on their little bottle of beer expression. It's not so funny anymore.
Speaker: I know, I know. If any of you out there have small toddlers and also teenagers, we feel you because the things that come out of these kids' mouths, I'm like, if everybody at the park is probably thinking, who is this lady whose kid says such foul language? I mean, foul words, two -year -old. Obviously, we have standards, too. But I'm like, it's not me. It's the 14 -year -old. I'm not teaching him this stuff, honestly.
Speaker: Oh goodness. All right, let's change the subject. Let's talk about traveling without kids. So those times when we don't have anybody along to embarrass us.
Speaker: We just want to mention, first of all, that we do have a companion episode to this one. It's called Travel Without Kids, but that one discusses mostly how to prepare your kids for your absence and also how to prepare yourself to be away from them. But in this one, we're going to add this one to our marriage series because we want to talk specifically about that part of traveling without kids.
Speaker: Yes, and there really is two parts to it. As we know as mothers, it's almost a full -time job just to get your kids ready for like a trip or being left or prepping a babysitter or whatever else. But the actual planning and executing of a trip with your spouse is one of the most exciting things.
Speaker: as an adult, I think, especially with kids at home, it's just so much fun to get away. So we're going to focus specifically on traveling with your spouse and not necessarily far, just any sort of vacation, staycation, if you want to call it. And this is really going to fit in well with our other marriage episodes, which involve lots of different topics for creating a strong and lasting relationship. Right, right. So
Speaker: I think we did talk a little bit in that traveling without kids. You talked about some examples like on your girl's trips and those are fun too. So absolutely go listen to the other episode.
Speaker: But we're going to talk about five topics to discuss marriage getaways. And I want to do a little timeout here before we start this episode. If you are in the middle of lots of little kids and a getaway is like a pipe dream, it's OK. Hey, I was there too. My husband and I did not leave longer than a date night until our 25th wedding anniversary. That was our first getaway from the time we had a child until
Speaker: then, which was just a year ago. So I just want to tell you that listen to this episode, even if you think this might be a long way off for you, but it's something that you can look forward to. And maybe we'll convince you in this episode, or maybe you might get the idea of why maybe you want to make this happen sooner than your 25th anniversary.
Speaker: Yeah, and I have been fortunate enough to be able to do lots of these trips without my kids, just with my spouse, because my husband is in the travel industry and so his family has been able to plan trips to Europe every other year since the year we were married, except for...
Speaker: the COVID disaster. So we have had quite a few experiences of being able to get up and leave kids. We didn't have to go every time, but because these were already planned and put in place for us, it was kind of a no -brainer. We're like, yeah, we're finding a babysitter. We're going. So we have a lot of experiences with this. And it has honestly been one of the most amazing blessings of our married life because of all the things we're going to tell you, all the benefits, and just the chance to reconnect and remember that you're an adult and not just mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.
Speaker: So the first thing we're going to talk about is the best length. So some different lengths that you can consider because the first thing you want to know is how long am I going to get a babysitter for or how long are we going to have to figure this out for? So I love weekend getaways, even just like Friday, a Friday night or Friday, Saturday night, especially if you're not going far. So we love to do staycations.
Speaker: which is basically a staycation is basically just going to a town nearby or even your own town and staying in a hotel or an Airbnb so that you're away from the kids but you're close enough if anything goes wrong or you know it saves a lot of money versus you know traveling across the entire country but we have also done several trips that are like a week seven to ten days which is considerably harder logistically for for leaving kids but is amazing it's kind of like
Speaker: second honeymoon. It's long enough that you forget that every day, day -to -day doldrums of being a mom, and you just kind of, you feel really free. It's really, really amazing. Anything longer than that, in my opinion, is so long that it's almost not worth the hassle. It is really hard on the kids, and so that's a little weekend, or even up to a week is pretty magical.
Speaker: That sounds so amazing. My husband and I being kind of Johnny Come Latelys to this married getaway thing are total converts now.
Speaker: We wish we'd been doing it for a lot longer, but because of, well, many reasons we haven't up to this point. So we've actually only done two little getaways and one was a four days and one was parts of three days. So not really very long at all, but just kind of the magic that happens, just being away at all, just with your spouse and it being a specifically targeted, adult, romantic,
Speaker: marriage thing is just really really cool and worth it and so we only have experience with pretty short lengths and so far I think because this is new to us and and new to our kids us being gone that that's a good length to start with and maybe we'll be able to work up to that second honeymoon length at some point but right now we just have done two really shorter ones
Speaker: Yeah, and those short ones can be so magical, especially if you haven't gotten away ever or for a long, long time. And they can be a lot easier on a babysitter too. So maybe grandma volunteers to spend the night, but grandma can't really handle more than about 14 hours with all your little kids. Then you just go to the town next door and you stay there for a night and you have a nice breakfast out and then you come home. It's amazing, even just a short little trip like that. I will say too, for the longer trips, now we talk a little bit about this in that episode 124 about traveling without kids, but
Speaker: There are a few phases that you'll go through when it comes to like missing your kids. The beginning part is usually really heartbreaking, especially if you have little, little ones. And there's a day where you feel a lot of guilt. And then by about day three, you're like, kids? What kids?
Speaker: settle into this amazing vacation. And then in my experience, by the end of a week or so, you're ready to get back and you really miss your kids like crazy again. But I just share that because there should be no guilt there. Like you give so much to your family. It's okay to miss them and feel guilty a little bit. But after that, do not feel bad if all of a sudden you just are able to completely immerse yourself on the strip with your spouse and really reconnect. That's what it's for. Okay, love that.
Speaker: Yeah. It's just like, it's about reconnecting. So that leads us. Awesome. An awesome segue into the next topic that we want to discuss. Make it special, make it special. Do this is about you and about your marriage. And, um, one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids is a healthy marriage. Uh, just blanket statement that I believe a hundred percent. So do at least one thing on this getaway.
Speaker: that you're going to think about often when you get back home. You can sort of, you know, when you're back home and you've got, you know, wiping butts and clean up puke and all that kind of stuff that comes with motherhood. You can just sort of have a little mini getaway in your mind where you're just, you know, looking over the cliffs of whatever and breathing the ocean air again or whatever. Do one thing that makes it special when you get back home.
Speaker: Yes, totally. And obviously, if you have a longer trip, you can plan lots of special things. But we try to strike some sort of a balance between scheduling fun things and special experiences, and then just being able to relax as well. So you probably know if you are more of a couple that likes to go, go, go, do, do, do, or those that just like to sit around and my husband and I are the sit around kind. I think just because life is so chaotic and hectic with kids at home that we get somewhere in a hotel, we just want to
Speaker: Lay down to take a nap for a day. So our challenge is always to plan a few things. You know, we go to this new town. Well, let's explore a little bit. Let's go on this tour or something and then leave plenty of time for relaxing. So whatever your challenge is, step outside of your comfort zone a little bit, make things fun while also allowing plenty of relaxation time. Yeah, definitely. It's more stress, like know yourself and your husband, like how you are as a couple. It's definitely more stressful for us if we have
Speaker: like a certain time that we have to be a certain place to do a certain thing. And then we have a couple of those in a row. That's a good way to ruin it for us.
Speaker: One other thing we like to do is make it special for the kids so that we have something to share with them later, like an experience or photos or something bring back for them a gift, but sort of like a gift of experience type of thing, something that you want to share with them. So that's another aspect of making it special so that they can really
Speaker: It can be special, something special for them too. So we like to always keep our kids in mind and either bring them something back or we always take photos and videos. I mean, half the time we spend talking about them. I was going to say good luck going on a vacation and not thinking about your kids half the time because it's your life, right? Yeah. I remember going on a trip with my husband. We went to New Orleans.
Speaker: never been. We're exploring the whole town. It was just amazing. But we went on this swamp tour and of course the entire time we were filming everything because we knew our kids were going to freak out when they knew we'd seen a live crocodile and you know all these cool all this cool wildlife and amazing trees and swamps and everything. So yeah that and that makes it fun for them when you return. You always have something exciting to share.
Speaker: Okay, so number three, do everything you can to make your trip romantic, right? These are probably not gonna happen very often, unless you're really, really lucky. So use them as a reason to celebrate your relationship.
Speaker: your love, reconnect, think about the things you enjoyed doing when you were dating or engaged or married before kids. We like to plan at least one special dinner. So if we're going to be gone three days, we're going to plan at least one dinner where we get to go out and it's like a really nice place. We dress up a little bit or one special romantic experience. We're somewhere by the beach. We're going to go on a nice romantic evening walk on the beach and tell each other what we love about each other.
Speaker: um just something that a wildly in love couple would do with each other sometimes it takes a little bit of thinking because it's been a while since you've had something other than poopy diapers to think about right um but think back to those earlier years and what you can do to really feel like you're twitterpated again yes yes i love that it you know it's the perfect opportunity to focus on the special intimate romantic part of your relationship with your spouse that you can kind of
Speaker: neglect a little bit when you're at home with so many little kids demanding your needs, now demanding things from you with their needs and your time and your space and your, you know, your physical touch and all that. So just, just like a perfect opportunity to focus on that romantic part. So, um, I just have to talk about this. So one thing I love that you mentioned that it can be, um, a moonlit walk on, on the beach, you know, something like that, or it can be something
Speaker: really like special. When we went on our 25th anniversary, we went to Florida and my husband booked for us a sailboat ride tour of a bay at sunset. And it was like the most romantic thing ever. And there were like dolphins and it was so romantic. And like, you know, you just think back, it was just us and the captain piloting the sailboat. It was so romantic. And that was just really, really a special thing.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, that sounds so fun. I want to do that. A little side note here about the romantic thing we say romantic and we know what the guys are all thinking, right? Yeah, but we want to make sure that we are remembering that to not put undue pressure on yourself for intimacy on these trips because
Speaker: Sometimes you need to go surface level before you can go really deep. And sometimes we get so disconnected during parenting that we haven't even been able to have an uninterrupted conversation for weeks, right? And so generally on our trips, we like to just start from the beginning, almost like you're starting dating again, right? You start to have conversations again. You hold hands again more. You kiss more.
Speaker: And if it leads to intimacy, great, but sometimes the relationship needs to take care of some of those foundational building blocks before you dive back into that. Not that you shouldn't be intimate with your spouse on a regular basis, but on a trip, sometimes there's undue pressure we put on ourselves to, oh, it's not a good trip unless, you know, just make sure you have some communication about that and start with the easy romantic stuff.
Speaker: Yes, yes. Side note, we do have a whole episode about intimacy in marriage. So if that's like struggling, even in your thoughts, if that's a struggle, go listen to that episode.
Speaker: All right, so our fourth suggestion is do something adult. And no, we're not talking about those triple X rated places that we don't even know what they are, but we see the signs and we're like, yeah, we're not going in there. No, we're talking about something adult as in place or time or experience. This is your opportunity to feel like an adult again, not a mother adult, but like a woman adult and go for it.
Speaker: Yeah, something a little bit more mature, right? Thinking back to your earlier years, what did you like to do with your spouse when you were dating or engaged? Maybe you won't be able to do all those things if you're 45. Your body is not as able as it once was, but maybe something exciting, maybe even something a little bit dangerous, right? Like you've always wanted to try parasailing or skydiving. Do it. Although skydiving, just make sure you have a really good insurance policy out on yourself before you do that.
Speaker: or go ziplining or some really adventurous thing and a couple other things we like to do as adults are something strenuous that the kids couldn't do like go hike the Grand Canyon or a difficult bike ride that you know you believe in your seven -year -old in the dust something cultural so if you go to a place that has a very distinct culture maybe try a Hawaiian luau like legitimate one where they put the pig in the ground and all those things
Speaker: some sort of cultural center, a unique dinner experience that has weird stuff that your kids would never eat, just something out of the norm to make you feel like a grown -up again. We have a couple of really great examples of these because we've been able to travel internationally together. One of my favorites was we rode motorized scooters in Italy.
Speaker: And in Europe, you know, they ride a lot more scooters and smaller vehicles than cars. And it was terrifying, like death -ifying. I thought if we could make it out of this alive. It was so fun. We just scooted around the city. We were able to climb pyramids and ride camels in Egypt. We did some body boarding in the ocean, climbed some cliffs in Ireland, like all kinds of really, really fun things. You don't have to go that extreme, obviously, but something that makes you feel alive again.
Speaker: Absolutely. Oh yes. Just, just the thrill of like the, you know, the blossom of your, yourself inside of you, the woman coming out is, is really, really amazing. And you know, this is something that you can, you can give some, your kids something to aspire to when they're adults, like, Oh man, mom and dad went in a hot air balloon. That is like my goal. When I'm old enough to go in a hot air balloon, I'm going to do that. You know, that kind of thing. Or, you know, for your, maybe your children who are teens, give them a relationship to emulate.
Speaker: Like when we were on that trip to Florida that I was talking about, we went on jet skis and we went on a sailboat and we did all this kind of stuff. And we would text pictures back to our kids, our teens that have phones. And they were like, you guys are just being kids again. But also we were like, yeah.
Speaker: We're like, you know, mom and dad are having fun and we want you someday to have a relationship where you just enjoy each other and have fun and work on yourself and your relationship. And so like, that's just kind of, it wasn't like we were doing it for our kids. We were definitely doing it for us, but it is something that our kids can look at and aspire to and want to emulate. And I just like, I want to be that and do that for my kids.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely. Send back pictures that'll make your kids jealous, right? I'm like, oh, they're having so much fun. And I was going to say, who wants to grow up and get married if all they see their parents ever do is argue, fall asleep at 7 PM, or binge watch TV, right? I mean, we get it, survival mode. Sometimes there's just not a lot of energy for anything more than that. But if you show them what a really fun, exciting relationship can be, like you say, that's what they want as well. I love that.
Speaker: Okay, so final thought is...
Speaker: addressing how and how much contact to give the kids while you're away. So this is also something we talk about in the other episode. So our personal experience, we found that it's helpful to give the kids about a day or so. I'm talking some of these longer trips, obviously, for gone overnight. Sometimes we don't even call home. We're like, we'll see in the morning. But these longer trips, we've given them usually about a day or so to adjust to life without us. Because I found that if you call or text immediately, especially calls or FaceTime,
Speaker: immediately. It just makes the parting so much worse. Then they're just sobbing. Give them a day to just kind of adjust to life with grandma or the sitter or whatever, big siblings. And then you can call and say, how's everybody doing? And by that time, they've kind of adjusted and gone, oh, hey, we're having a great time. We're going to the park, we're eating pizza, whatever.
Speaker: Um, and then after that, you know, just kind of take a cue from the kids. Very often we let them start, you know, um, initiate contact as long as the schedules match up, um, so that we can talk to them on, on their level, like, Oh, I'm missing mom. I'm going to call her right now, instead of us interrupting a really fun activity where they weren't missing mom. And now we've called and caused a tantrum, you know, so just kind of take a cue from kids. That's usually what we do.
Speaker: Yeah, that's, those are good thoughts. I don't really have much experience with this, but what we've done is that we've found that if we FaceTime or Skype with the littles at like the hard times, the transition times of day or night. So like it's nap time or it's bedtime. Those are good times that they, they appreciate reach out. And then our caregivers have been our older kids. And so we just make sure that they know that we're available anytime at all times. We're still, you know, the parents and in charge.
Speaker: and being available to them to let us know if they're having trouble with a younger sibling or if, you know, there's an emergency or something like that is a relief to the older kids who are in charge. And they really reach out because they're really, really wanting mom and dad to, you know, have a good relationship and they want to respect that time and what we're doing, like they really love that. And so they really reach out except, you know, if there's something going on.
Speaker: And so that's kind of just an ease of mind to them. But I found that being available to them at any time, the older kids and then to the younger kids, like at nighttime, hard times a day transition, it helps them and it helps us because, you know, there's like it helps us wage kind of that guilt thing that you were talking about before. Like they can just reach out any time and and we're there. And so then we know that if they're not reaching out, it's because they're everything's good. So that helps a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that. I love the transition time thought. My other thought is if there's going to be a time when you are unavailable for a long period of time, let's say you're going on a really long flight or there's going to be a
Speaker: major time differences. You might want to allow for some other adult close by to be like that emergency contact, right? Maybe there's a neighbor or a grandma that can help maybe knows kids schedules a little bit or could be a comforting face if mom and dad are not available for a Skype call and the kid is totally melting down. Oh, do you want to talk to grandma or just kind of a backup in case you're unavailable?
Speaker: One of the thought I wanted to share is that when you do getaways with a spouse, it can be really tempting to bring other adult friends, and I highly recommend this. This is really, really, really fun. However, I have noticed that when we do trips with our friends, I always wanna make sure that there's at least a little bit of the trip that is just my spouse and I, right? So that's the whole point of this episode, right, is to talk about how to reconnect with your spouse on these trips. So if you bring adult friends, of course it's always more fun with friends, but I like to always just reserve a little bit of time
Speaker: maybe a little bit of time each day or just the tail end of the trip where the friends go somewhere else and we do our own thing so that we can kind of get the best of both worlds hanging out with friends as well as a private you know adult trip with the with the couple. And honestly you guys this has been one of the best things that we have done as a couple. I know that we are kind of rare and pretty fortunate to have been able to do so many trips alone.
Speaker: But no matter how disconnected we may have gotten through the daily stressors and chaos and dirty diapers which we always bring up of life, these trips just have us coming back feeling like newlyweds. We go away, we may have a day or so where we don't want to know what to talk about, and then all of a sudden we're like, oh my gosh, I remembered why I married you.
Speaker: You are amazing. I love you so much. You're so funny. And you know, all of a sudden this person is not dad or mom anymore. This person is the love of your life. And you're able to see that so much more clearly. So we just highly recommend making time and space for these trips. Yes. I really, really agree. Think about if you had a friend who was very special to you and you had a relationship with them and you didn't make any effort to work on that relationship. What would happen to it? Who would die?
Speaker: And you're not so you're not contractually bound to a friend. So, you know, if a friendship dies, that's not as hardship. But just thinking about.
Speaker: I guess we've talked about this in other of our marriage episodes as well, but being friends with your spouse. These getaways are such an opportunity to just work on that friendship. Without the other distractions of everything that you do and love to do and hate to do and have to do and all that at home, it's just an opportunity to focus on just
Speaker: You and your relationship and it's so special to be able to Have that time. It's like just taking the time and making the time and saying I care about you and our relationship Matters, even if you just go to hotel room and do nothing like you just you know Sit on the couch and just breathe because it's quiet and you don't have to listen to any noise
Speaker: It's just that I care about you, and I made time for you, and this is important to me. That is one of the hugest things. And the message that gives to your kids as well, that our relationship is important to us. We care about this. This is important. And we're doing this for us, and we're doing this for you. Like I said just carte blanc before, your best gift that you can give your kids is a healthy relationship. It's healthy for them in every stage of childhood, teenagehood.
Speaker: in beginning adulthood, but then when they go into their own relationships, what kind of relationship do you want your kids to have with their spouses? Well, have that kind of relationship with your spouse, like work, work on that, work toward that because that is, oh man, it's so fun. What can go wrong? How can you not enjoy a relationship? That's so important to you and you're making time and space for it.
Speaker: I mean, I just can't think of a disadvantage of going on working, going on an extended getaway with your spouse. And like I said, I have, I don't know if I could go back in time, if I would do it differently and try to get in somehow more of these getaways, marriage getaways, because really we were in, um, there were some things that we couldn't change, um, that made us not be able to do these trips before. But I definitely now that we're,
Speaker: Now that we're on the bandwagon, we are definitely going to keep going forward. We are definitely going to keep this up because it's fun and it's awesome and I love it. And I think my spouse is pretty into it too.
Speaker: Oh, one final thought is if you are in a stage of your relationship where you feel like you don't even know where to start for a marriage getaway, maybe you just start with the date nights. If you're not doing regular date nights, this can be kind of a mini getaway, right? It's just three hours, two hours. You don't even really need a decent babysitter, just the 12 year old down the street.
Speaker: because sit with your kids while they're sleeping. Start with those. That's a really, really easy, simple way to reconnect that relationship. And as you do those more often, you'll probably find yourself craving a little more time alone with your spouse, and then you can kind of address this possibility of getting away for an overnight thing. But our relationships are just so important with our spouses. We can't let them fall by the wayside. Well, that's it for this episode, you guys. We really encourage you to work on your marriages, on your relationships. It's worth it. And we wish you the best of luck.
Speaker: Thanks for listening, friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week. All right, fourth thing we want to discuss is do something adult and we're not talking about those XL XL bars or whatever they call them.
Speaker: I don't know, obviously I'm so out of this. I don't know what those are. It's like triple X or something. Oh, triple X. Oh. I was going to say XL, XL. They're just really big girls or something. I don't know. Probably we're going to have to edit that out. Oh, my goodness. No, you don't frequent those, which is good. That is awesome.
Speaker: Hang on, let me start that one over.
