According to pop culture, romance means candlelit dinners, walks on the beach, and sprints through airports to confess everlasting love. But as mom Julia Koumbassa puts it, romance when you're a parent is "when a trip to the grocery store without the kids counts as date night."
In the Valentine's Day spirit, we asked the HuffPost Parents Facebook community to show us one photo that represents romance once kids are in the picture. A screenshot of Netflix garnered dozens of "likes" in solidarity, but overall, the candid images show that love doesn't have to fade post-baby, it just changes.
Scroll through some of the submissions below, and Happy Valentine's Day!
This is what a parenting date night looks like! We rock the supermarket!
Alone time comes with the disclaimer: "Kids included."
We color together after our 2-year-old is in bed and talk about anything but him. (OK, we usually end up talking about him! But we try not to.)
After having a baby almost a year ago, the romance has shifted but grown exponentially.This is my husband Matt, who used to play guitar for Luna when she was still curled in my belly. Now she's walking to the guitar and smacking the strings until daddy plays for her. I can't think of anything more romantic than watching these two play music.
Stealing kisses over our sleepy little pumpkin.
When a trip to the grocery store without the kids counts as date night.
I am not sure I need to comment on how our romance is...
Making sure you and the kids are happy.
Romance is rigging up this contraption to hang the tablet from the ceiling so we could cuddle and watch Netflix. Our boys were watching a movie on the living room TV so we(he) had to get creative.
Super Mario World on a Friday night together.
Romance is folding the laundry together, in the hopes that you get to take advantage of the bed, before any of the munchkins wake up and knock on your door!
Step 1) Escape children. Step 2) Margaritas. Step 3) Make eachother laugh! (Sombrero of shame is optional.)
Sneaking off to a hotel for some grown-up time!
This is what ours looks like.
Daddy/daughter dates now occur five times more often than Mommy/Daddy dates!
A nice, relaxing birthday dinner, where everyone behaves.
Sneaking kisses.
It's splitting a bottle of champagne on NYE, flirting and talking for the first time in ages then the baby waking up at 11:54PM and the three of you ringing in the new year together!
Romance is the fact that they haven't been "grossed" out yet!
Wine, feet up, cooking show, cuddling.
See that red wine? We both work outside the home, so after the chaos and child wrangling that occurs between 4 and 8 PM, it's all about finishing the daily chores AND red wine... Romance!
Cooking together!
Romance is still having fun together at weddings 12 years later.
We volunteer, have dates, enjoy kids but most of all we make time for each other nightly and go on a date once a week.
Romance now is a quick dance in my house slippers while wrangling the kiddos. Still so in love!
You have to make time for your spouse because without them, you have nothing.
Our baby is 4-months and the three of us took a staycation to a nice hotel.
First date night after baby who is 6 months old! It was great and much needed!
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