1. Pretty much everything must be planned in advance.

Remember those carefree evenings when you would go out on a date and you'd be able to let the night linger on forever - even if the date was mediocre - because you had nothing else to do? Yeah, those are the paleolithic years of my dating life. Now, I can't just drop everything that I am doing to hang out with a man for hours at a time. Outside of the usual and already time-consuming date night prep (like, you know, shaving my legs...), I have to make sure that my kid is well-cared for while I'm out, since I'm not the only person at stake here.

Children can take a lot out of you mentally as well as physically, so if there is ever a child-free moment in time, I typically prefer to spend it laying on my couch, binging on Netflix shows and drinking copious amounts of wine. But let's be real: There's most likely some serious housework that needs to be done. Yes, folding a pile of laundry is probably not as fun as going out on a date, but if it needs to get done, I'd rather just knock it out then go out with someone who might not be worth it in the long run at all. To that point, I really appreciate it when someone puts in the effort to try and make our time spent together well worth it...because there's nothing worse than thinking I could be doing laundry while I'm on a date.