Have You Heard? Car Dates Are A Thing, And This Is What I Love About Them

Car dates. They’re a thing. At least for me and my husband. You, too, can experience glorious car dates with just a few easy steps. Here’s how:

When you realize that bedtime is going to be a complete disaster, quickly text your babysitters and ask who’s free later that day. Britney, babysitter extraordinaire, you’re free? Great! We’ll see you at 5:30 then. Babysitter arrives just in time for all the kids to fall apart. (That part isn’t really necessary per se, but it is a possible side effect of car dates.) You and your husband sprint to the car, carefully peeling off any toddlers who may be dangling off of you.

Can you smell that? I can, friends. It smells like sweet freedom. Freedom within the confines of those car doors, where no little hands can touch you. Freedom from the bedtime grind, freedom from the witching hours. Blessed is the silence, y’all.

Next step, where should you go? You’re not hungry because you snacked on the kids’ dinner. It wasn’t even that good, but you were frazzled and hungry so you somehow gobbled up a handful of nuggets, fruit, and mac and cheese. Do either of you have any errands to run? Not really. Should you get some fruit from the fruit stand? Nope, you covered that earlier in the day with a Costco trip. Want to check out that cool new restaurant downtown? No…don’t feel like looking presentable or finding parking.

There’s only one thing left to do: Sit in the car and have a car date.

We’ve done this a lot lately, and I’ve come to love it. Sometimes we grab coffee and sit in the car. Another time, we sat in the grocery store parking lot and did all our Christmas shopping in one fell swoop while talking and staring at our phones in the dark.

On car dates, you can talk freely and without interruption because there’s not a single distraction. It’s just you, your husband, and paper cups of coffee. And it’s pretty awesome.

Between kids, work, and everything else, it often feels like my husband and I are working different shifts, and car dates give us a time to really catch up, laugh, see what we have going on in the upcoming weeks, talk about anything going on with our kids, question when it will get easier with said kids, and dream about a trip to Napa. We talk, we laugh, we just exist — together. Existing together, without distraction or interruption, reminds me of who we were before we had half a dozen kids; it brings our relationship back to the forefront, if only for a few hours.

So the next time you see us sitting in a grocery store parking lot, just throw us a wave because, no, we’re not getting out of the car. We’re staying in the car, on our car date.