Family Day

Its amazing what inspires you to do different things in your life or attempt something new. My husband will tell you, I am the dominant person in our household. Obviously my husband has a voice if he is adamantly against something, but for the most part, I decide what happens in our lives. I decide what we do on the weekends, how we will raise the children, what religion my children will be, and the list just goes on and on. In all honesty I don't think he cares about most of the stuff I make decisions on just like I don't care what brand or type of television we have as long as it works. In any case I will get to my point.

After watching an Oprah show one afternoon, I was inspired. Not by the content of the show, but what a therapist challenged a husband to do. He was to plan a date for the couple since typically the woman in the relationships dominates everything they do. I immediately thought that it was a fantastic idea! One little flaw to the date night plan was, we had no babysitters available the upcoming weekend and I wanted to do this experiment NOW! So on a lazy Monday morning, my husband gets an email, "I saw an Oprah show and it inspired me. Per the show I got an idea that you should plan a family day for the entire family this Saturday and it can't be us sitting at home all day." He responded with "okay." It was my desired response back since it had no exciting tone, even for an email tone, but at least he said he would.

Throughout the week leading up to the Saturday family date, I was a bit nervous. I was wondering what he would plan. Would he plan something that was child friendly? Would he follow the rules of being some type of outing that wouldn't consist of a Costco trip? Would he remember to plan something? Obviously I was not in control of the planning, so I was a bit out of my comfort zone. I just wanted my experiment to work.

Saturday mid morning/afternoon the baby and I awoke from our naps. My husband was eager to get us all out the door for his planned family day. I was pleasantly surprised that he remembered and seemingly had something great up his sleeve! He reassured my first set of worries. I quickly got myself and the baby dressed and we all headed out for an afternoon of the unknown. We first went to a new favorite restaurant of mine. I thought to myself that this deserves kudos, but would this be it? Would he decide that afterward we should all go the nearby ice rink for some ice skating, which was so inappropriate for the age of my child? Nope. He had other things in mind. After a delicious and wonderful lunch, we headed back to the car and we headed down the road once more. SCORE! My husband took us to a local zoo where we would admire the exotic animals and feed the animals in the petting zoo. The entire family enjoyed the event. My baby (okay a much bigger baby) even squealed with laughter at all the animals! Plus gazillion points for my husband!

After we were all done with the zoo and a short trip to walk around a local outside mall to just enjoy the scenery, we all headed home. It was a fantastic day and my baby conked out early from all the wonderful outside air, which was another bonus my husband did not plan on.

In all my hubby planned a fantastic day for his entire family. I was worried at first, but he didn't let me down. He rose up to the occasion and made a really special day out of it. He even loved getting the attention and praise that I gave him for making our day extra special. I think I may be giving him more family date opportunities in the future. It was just nice not to have to the planning for everyone and give someone else the reins for awhile.

So go out there and challenge your significant others on planning a day if you are the one that is always doing the planning. It is well worth it!