Mom's Talk: How Do You Keep The Romance Alive?

I have a five-year-old son with Asperger's and when he was diagnosed, it was tough on both my wife and me. When you're confronted with personal challenges, having a support group is important. Sometimes you want to hear from other people who have gone through the same challenges. Sometimes you're looking for a friendly face or someone who'll listen to you complain without judging too harshly.

I've learned the importance of having a support group and that is just what I hope we're creating here at Rosemount Patch with our new Moms panel.

Each week, Rosemount Patch will speak with a group of local moms about the issues they wrangle with on a daily basis. You'll hear both from our rotating panel of Rosemount moms and from your fellow readers.

We want this feature to be about the moms in Rosemount and the issues they think are important. We'll talk about everything from money and discipline issues to how you're able to carve out a bit of "me" time during the week.

Rosemount has a great mix of mothers with every background imaginable: Married, single, divorced and widowed. Moms with one kid or with five or more. Working, looking for work or a stay-at-home moms. One of advantages of this mix of experiences is that you'll some stories you would never be exposed to in the normal course of your busy week. We want this to be one of the places you turn to for advice and only you can help make it a success.

Each Wednesday you'll find a new column with a question of the week. We'll gather comments from some moms for the article and we also hope to see everyone joining the conversation in the comments section below.

If you would like to join our regular panel of moms, please email me at rick.ellis@patch.com. In the meantime, please weigh in below on this week's question.

How Do You Keep The Romance Alive?

Valentine's Day is coming up and in theory, it should be a day to celebrate the romance in your life. But whether you're married or single, it's a struggle to think about romance when you're confronted with all the distractions and tasks that get crammed into the day of an average Rosemount mom.

So how do you keep the romance alive in your life? Are you able to think about romance at all? What could your partner do to help spark that romantic feeling?

Deb Martin: I love my husband and I feel like we both want to be romantic. But with the long days and busy schedules...it's just been tough. My birthday was in January and my husband found a babysitter without telling me. He took me to dinner and while we only had a few hours alone, let me tell you...it was a very sexy, romantic evening. Now I have to think of some way of returning the surprise.

Angela R: I can't remember the last time I felt romantic or sexy. I'm a single mom and it's hard enough to date. Feeling romantic or doing something romantic just seems like a dream to me. It's kind of pathetic. A platonic friend of mine recently sent me a mushy card thanking me for a favor I had done for him. Reading it just made me cry and cry. It had just been so long since anyone had done anything that kind or caring. So I guess my answer is that I haven't kept the romance in my life.

Join the conversation below and keep checking back to see what your neighbors have to say about this week's question.