Great Escape: Plan a Candlelight Dinner

Each week, Patch sets out to come up with one idea for grownups to use to get away from the daily stresses of being a parent. Sometimes we suggest you go places overnight or for a weekend and sometimes our suggestions are just a a short break of a few hours. Whatever the great escape idea, be sure that you hire a sitter and do it without the kids. Taking time to be an adult separate from being a parent is important for us as parents as well as for the kids. 

This week, the suggestion is a stay-at-home one. This is because many of the parents who really need the break from being a parent are new parents who can not yet leave a baby or those who have a child with medical concerns, or even those who just do not have the ability to leave their kids yet for other reasons. Sometimes the parents who need the break the most are unable to get away.

Patch suggests you plan a wonderfully romantic dinner by candlelight. Do it like they do at restaurants and serve it by the course rather than all at once. Have some bread and wine, then a salad, an entree and dessert. Take as much time as the kids will allow you to. If you do it after the kids go down to bed, you just might get a few hours of peace and quiet together. Worst case, you can hire the teenager who lives down the street to help out. Even if you are not ready for a babysitter so you can go out, maybe you can have a sitter there if you are still in the house. 

There are two ways that this dinner could be done that would make it a lot of fun. You can surprise your partner. Don't say a word. Either bring home all of the supplies and as you go to cook it, tell your spouse to go relax in the bath or to just sit and chat with a glass of wine while you cook the whole meal and pamper your mate. Another way that would be a lot of fun is to plan the meal together and cook it together. Spend the evening cooking and laughing and talking in the kitchen together as you prepare the meal for the evening. However you do it, make it fun.