Nostalgia for Newlywed Life

This morning, I was reading this blog post by Emily of My Song of Joy about what she missed about life with her husband before her kids were born.  I realized that there are a few things I miss about life "just the two of us" too.  It's not that I wish I could still do those things, because I love life as a family of three and acknowledge that it requires some fundamental changes about our relationship and what we can do together.  I just think fondly back on those memories.  They had their time and place, and the moments I miss were so integral in building our relationship into a strong foundation onto which we could support a family.  These are the little moments I miss:

When we were first married, David frequently brought home flowers for me.  They were almost always roses (my favorite) and they seemed to show up almost once a week.  One of my "love languages" is gifts and I could have just burst with happiness when he came in the door with them.  When we decided to start trying to have a baby, the roses were an expense that we couldn't justify anymore, but now we have our own little Lucia Rose, the greatest gift David's given me!

In the early months of our marriage, I worked odd hours at Starbucks and David often had to go in to work on experiments at all hours of the day and night.  But the odd hours didn't matter, because there were only two of us  and we were young enough to be able to work around the hours to find plenty of time together.  When I worked in the evenings, David would often come to Starbucks with his computer to work on his homework.  We really wouldn't have the chance to talk, but it was comforting to be able to look up whenever I wanted and see my husband.  Similarly, if he had to go into school on days I was off or evenings when I was home, I would often go with him.  Sometimes I'd join him in his office or lab, but just as often, I would stay in one of the study rooms on the floor above.  Again, we wouldn't always be able to spend that time together, but just being in each others' presence was enough for us, especially after having just spent two years living several states apart.

our first meal homemade meal as a married couple

If neither of us was working in the evening, we would go to the grocery store in the late afternoon to pick up ingredients for dinner.  I loved our daily grocery trip and then making dinner together afterward.  Sometimes we would pick a complicated meal (the first meal we made together as a married couple was a risotto), other times it would just be spaghetti and pasta sauce.  With a little one, getting out as a family to shop isn't as practical.  Neither is cooking dinner together, since someone needs to be entertaining Lucia (although we recently had some success bringing her in the kitchen with us and handing her kitchen utensils to play with).  Now that we are a family of three, we are watching our budget more closely, and choosing meals out of a cookbook and on a whim just aren't as cost-effective as meal planning around sales.  Someday, when David retires, I think this will be a newlywed tradition that will be resurrected (well, I wouldn't mind bringing back frequent flowers either).

After we decided to start trying to get pregnant, we cancelled our cable and internet.  For a few months we didn't have an antennae either, so television was completely off the table.  It was so fun finding things to do together - we would play board games and card games, we would cook elaborate meals, we would hang out late at Starbucks, drinking coffee and surfing the internet together.  We would watch one episode a day of House from my DVDs of the first three seasons (everyday we just couldn't wait for the next episode).  We would read.  We would pray.  We had so much time together, time to learn who we were as a couple, time to learn who we were as individuals, time to learn even more reasons we loved each other.  To be honest, when I think back on this time, I dream of a house without television (I'm not a particular fan of our children watching television anyway).  At least for the time being, internet is a necessity in the home so that our families halfway across the country can see our little Lulu, but I wouldn't mind getting rid of it once (if) we live by family.  Our time together is precious and irreplaceable. 

as newlyweds

The first six months of marriage were difficult.  It was hard to learn to live with someone else, not just in a roommate sense but intimately.  To be honest, I don't remember many of the difficult moments.  Instead, these are the moments that I remember of newlywed life.  Our wedding ceremony made us Mr. and Mrs., but it's through these moments that God taught us what is is to be husband and wife.

Those of you that are married, what do you miss about newlywed life?  

How do you keep the "newlywed" spark alive?  

If you are a newlywed, what do you think you'll miss? 

If you aren't married yet, what do you think you'll love most about newlywed life someday?