When we were new parents, we were also really broke.  I mean really broke.  And we also happened to live in one of the most expensive cities in the country.  Ten years ago, just parking in the movie theater parking lot cost $9.  We quickly learned how to add a little spice to our young marriage, and often for free.

When our first two boys were two and a newborn, we moved to a more rural setting.  Some of what I'll share below will be location-specific.

♥Put the little ones to bed (incidentally, this is the first step to a romantic evening).  Pull out a pint of Ben and Jerry's (on sale occasionally at Safeway for 3.50), sit on the couch and eat the whole thing with one spoon.  Smooch often.

♥Choose a book both you and your spouse would like to read together.  Finish all the day's tasks, then climb into bed and read it aloud to each other.  We've read Bruchko and several Grisham novels this way.  Lots of shared laughs and stories.

♥Take a glass of wine out to the back porch on a balmy evening.  My poor husband has to sip his alone- I've never acquired a taste for wine.  But I grab a sparkling water and we enjoy quiet conversation.

♥Take a virtual vacation together.  When we were dreaming about a vacation to New Zealand, I pulled up a bunch of New Zealand travel sites and we browsed them together in bed.  When we returned from New Zealand, I checked out a video from the library and we "relived" our trip one night, oohing and aahing over all the places we'd visited.

♥Figure out how to make a homemade version of an expensive coffeehouse drink your spouse loves.  My husband thoroughly won my heart all over again the night he concocted a perfect homemade version of Starbuck's now obsolete Chantico.  He'd make it for me and then I'd become his for the rest of the night...

♥Take a blanket out on the back lawn and lie down for an evening of stargazing.  This, too, goes well with either wine or Ben and Jerry's.

♥Several years we couldn't get a babysitter (or couldn't afford one) on our anniversary.  So I would feed the kids early then bathe them and put them down.  My husband would pick up dinner for the two of us and we'd enjoy a nice, quiet restaurant date at home.

♥And now, with older children who stay up late, sometimes the shower is the best place for a date.

I've had mixed feelings about this post, but I finally concluded this morning that it might minister to someone else.

Morning sickness has a firm grasp on me everytime I am expecting.  Yesterday several women at church asked me hopefully if I was almost done being sick, only to learn that no, I typically endure this until weeks 16 to 18.  It is a long, long time to be ill.

There are several struggles here: one, the sickness itself, which must be constantly managed and even then can overwhelm me in the evenings.  Then there are the hormones and Satan's attempts to use this time to bring me down.  And it works, usually.  I feel as if I am descending into a black hole.

But the other aspect of it is the responsibility I carry.  My husband said to me last night, "If you had cancer, everyone would just expect you to be ill.  They would allow you to be ill and not have any expectations of you."  It's true.  But with morning sickness, I am still expected to care for six children, provide meals, keep the house clean, keep the laundry running, plan for the school year.

Other expectations are purely social.  I've heard whisperings of, "What's wrong with Kendra?" at church.  And accusations of being "aloof".  It's difficult to be at church in the first place, but I do miss corporate worship and the administering of the sacraments, so I go, but I'm not very chipper.

When I was expecting our first and didn't know it, I kept thinking, "What's wrong with me?  I'm not prone to depression, and yet I feel like I'm descending into hell."  Last night I was there again, in the abyss, wanting to just leave earth and be with Jesus.

So have I succeeded in thoroughly depressing you?  That was not my intent.  I do so understand a few things now: the struggle of long-term illness (I've done this seven times now- that's almost two-and-a-half years of illness), depression, and even the desire to leave this world prematurely.  Not being super compassionate by nature, I need these lessons.  God's lessons aren't usually easy, but they're good.  They make us more like Him.