dating my kids

I'm not big on new year's resolutions.  They always seem to be the same--pray more, eat less--and they rarely pan out for more than a month.  But this year I am making a promise, both to myself and to my little ones.  I am resolving to date my kids.

While pregnant, I did lots of twin research.  Most of it has been forgotten (along with almost all other parenting research I pored over), but one thing stuck with me.  A book written not by a doctor or psychologist or specialist, but by a mom, recommended that you make time for each child individually. That you make sure that each twin has one-on-one time with each parent every once in a while.  This probably seems super simple to most of you with multiple children...while the older one is at preschool, you get alone time with the younger one; one parent takes the younger one to his music class each week.  But it's different with twins.  Because they are the same age, twins are constantly enrolled and involved in the same activities.  They go to the same mommy-and-me class, the same music class.  They want to play and eat and nap at the same times.  Since they are identical in age they are usually identical in schedule, which makes carving out individual time much more difficult.

So this concept stuck out to me when I first read it, and I noted in my head that I wanted to make this part of our routine.  But ease won.  Though we sneak in individual time as often as possible, we have failed to make it a priority.  So now I am resolving to be intentional, deliberate, about planning special alone time with each child.  Once a month, we're going on separate mommy/daddy/baby dates.  It's not a lot, but it's a start.  And hopefully it will become ingrained into our family culture, and as the twins grow older, it will remind them that they are loved and valued not just as a pair, but as unique individuals as well.