Brown cylinders and date nights

Will and I stared into the tub, willing those dark cylinders at the bottom of that murky water to be lego figures. Please be legos, please be legos, please be legos.......
ALEX.......are those your toys?????
MO.
He was not lying.
Sighing deeply, Will and I looked at one another and our minds synchronized as only fifteen years of marriage can allow our minds to do and we both silently/not so silently called it.
WE NEED A DATE. 
I read an interesting blog article the other day that talked about married couples and date nights. I think the general gist was that an hour in a restaurant does not make a marriage (which is exactly what the title said); she doesn't date much with her hubby, and it's about living the vows they made daily, in the trenches...date when possible, but not to waste their days....
I get it.
I appreciate the writer's sentiment and I agree with her that marriage is fun and meaningful with or without date nights. There is nothing that makes me love my hubby more then getting down and dirty in the trenches of our sweet life and doing that life together. I appreciate Will and the sacrifices he makes. I adore when he comes home after running to grab eggs(Cadbury included) at the store,  gives the little one a bath, and doesn't utter a single complaint about eating pasta from a box....again. One of my favorite things to do is to sit on my rocker with him on our tiny porch drinking a cold beer while we both watch the kids play on our patch of grass. Both boys would pile into our bed every night if given the opportunity and our sweet Alex, our sleep struggler often times always ends up snuggled between Will and I. Every. Night.
A dinner out in that corner booth the writer was talking about will not save an unhealthy broken marriage. A dinner out in a corner booth will definitely breathe a breath of fresh air into a marriage that needs a minute from the murky cylinders on the bottom of the tub. A dinner in a corner booth where you can hold hands with your spouse without speaking may be just what the Dr. ordered. A moment to pour open and vomit out thoughts, feelings and emotions that have been piling up for a few weeks may be imperative.
With all that being said -date night does not have to be a dinner out in that elusive corner booth...Perhaps we need to rethink what a "date night" means. What it comes down to is carving out that time. Being creative. "Penciling" it into the electronic calendar. Writing it down will be a reminder to me...Aly, wash your hair. GET OUT OF ACTIVE WEAR. For me, these scheduled pockets of time are times of refreshment, revitalization with the outcome of being a better self with my love and a better mom for my kids.
Without these scheduled periods of reconnecting I feel spent, tired and a little bitter if I'm going to be honest.  For the last few months I've ordered date boxes for Will and I to have a night in, sans kids (i.e. continued yelling at them to leave the room we're sequestered in) and to reconnect with one another after a tiring couple couple weeks at our jobs. It has been so much fun, and he's been a great sport about rolling with it.
Whatever it is do it. Carve it out. Your marriage deserves it.