Time to just be Mike and Jen

There is a pretty scary statistic out there stating the rate of divorce between parents of children with Autism is greater than those without.  I've also seen reports debunking this.  Whatever the case, parenting a child is hard. And marriage is hard work too.  And despite all that is hard about it, throw in Autism, and the waters can get a bit rougher. 

I recognize it is hard.  I recognize that I may not always be the best wife.  Hell, I may not always be the best mother for that matter.  And to say this year hasen't been trying on our marriage would be a lie.

But we still love each other.  A lot.

So we took a trip.  We are lucky to have a wonderful babysitter and friend who loves our son.  She watched him over the weekend.  (They had a blast).  In the meantime, my date picked me up after work on Friday, and we high-tailed it to Chicago.

Did we see shows, museums, the sites?  No.  We ate.  We went to multiple restaurants (The Purple Pig, Frontera Grill and Graham Elliot), walked Michigan Ave, took a nap, and just enjoyed being together.  And I feel like every other sentence out of my mouth was, "I'm so glad we did this." 
Update: Here are the links to Mike's blogs about our meals:
The Purple Pig
Frontera Grill
Graham Elliot

Moral of the story?  Marriage is hard.  Parenting is hard.  Autism is hard.  We've got a lot of obstacles in front of us.  But we're still the same people deep down that saw each other from across a room, eyes locked, heart beating fast, all noise blocked out....I looked at him and never looked back.  And I'm glad we had a refresher weekend to remember that.  We needed it.  We needed the time together to just be Mike and Jen.