Thursday, December 30, 2010

Let's get down to it

Ok – lets talk turkey. Well, not turkey in a literal sense. That topic is SO 6 weeks ago.


 
Let me re-phrase: Lets have a down and possibly dirty conversation. And yes – if you are my parent or in any way or shape possibly offended, disgusted, embarrassed or otherwise made uncomfortable by a candid conversation about sex then STOP READING NOW.

 
Alright. Now that we have the squeamish taken care of, lets get down to business. I feel like at this point I should have the ability to talk in a public forum about this stuff. I am 35 years old, married with 2 children. So, yes. I have had sex. More than once in fact. Hell, even more than twice. And as evidenced by the two little mini-Joe’s running around, I had it before I was married. Shame, shame, shame. But I digress.

 
I really like sex. A lot. In a perfect world – I would have it daily. But this entry isn’t about a perfect world. Far from it. This entry is about the less-than-perfect; 15 lbs heavier than you want to be; slightly lumpy and stressful world that some of us call reality.

 
There is this prevailing thought that I believe most first time parents have. It goes something roughly like this “My life isn’t going to change. I am going to be the same person, do the same things and live like I always had. I will just have this precious, well-behaved little person with us.” And they genuinely do believe that to be the reality that faces them. My guess is (and I base this on my own mental state at the time) that many of them extend that thought into the bedroom. It just sounds more like this “We will still have sex whenever and wherever we want to. As loud as we want and with the total monkey-abandon that we have always enjoyed. We are keeping the sex-swing and nothing will convince me otherwise!” – and for the record, I don’t have a sex swing. Its creative license people. Reads better, trust me.

 
To that I say --- pppsssshhht. What-evah!!

 
Here is the slow evolution of your sex life once you have kids. Actually – from right before you have your first one. You are overdue. You are trying anything and everything to get the kid out of you. Power washing your house while drinking pineapple juice and doing jumping jacks? Check. Walking the length of the mall and back again? Check. Attempting head stands and well balanced tree-poses from your prenatal yoga DVD? Check. And the sex. Everyone tells you to try sex. Here is what they don’t tell you about this glorious, life-affirming, embrace your womanhood part of your life. You are the size of a double-wide. Just getting out of a chair is a 12 step process. And you want to throw SEX on top of that? Yeah. It’s the sort of balancing act that you never imagined yourself to be in, prenatal yoga DVD be damned. Much less willingly doing. And for the record, I don’t think it works.

 
You get home with your new precious bundle of joy and the idea of sex is somewhere in the outer stratosphere of your existence. Your v-jay is like, down to your knees and is weighing in at 30 lbs. You just squeezed a living being out of the nether regions. You are affixing a “Dead End” sign at your ankles and nothing is getting past it. All your partner or husband heard when you left the hospital was “no sex for 6 weeks”. In his mind, the clock is ticking, down to the second and never in your whole existence has he been more interested in a doctors appointment. So you go to the appointment. And you get the all clear. And the reality of things is this –

 
  • The only person making as much noise in the middle of the night in the house that they want is your newborn howling their head off .
  • The room that housed the sex-swing is now a laundry sorting facility and the swing itself is now buried under 18 receiving blankets and the 13 of the 42 outfits that your bundle of joy has gone through in a day.
  • You haven’t showered in 4 days.
  • You haven’t shaved since, well, god only knows when. Probably in the last 6 months as that was the last time you saw your bellybutton. -
  • Your hair is perma-stuck in a ponytail shape as that is the only hairstyle you are now familiar with. You might have dried up throw-up in your hair. You are not sure.
  • Your super cute, vintage tops and designer jeans are still in a tub marked “my old life” and have been replaced with your husbands ratty college fraternity t-shirts, that now sport two rings of dried boob-milk stains where you have leaked on them, yoga pants and of course, flip flops. And possibly more throw-up. Again, you are not sure.

 
And you think to yourself, if ANYONE can find this attractive (you motion to your whole self) then sure, I will give it a whirl. And low and behold, your dear husband sees past all of this and thinks… “Sweet Jesus, it has been at least 6 weeks, if not longer. If I don’t have sex soon, I will explode” So you do it. And it sorta isn’t fun. Not like the first time suckiness, but not really how you remembered it.

 
And over time, as you get used to this new reality, you begin to shower. Hell, you might even begin to shave. You start to fit into some of those old clothes. Although, they never really fit right again. Even after you lose the weight. And sex starts to be something that you might, maybe, want to consider having again on a regular basis.

 
And here is the new challenge. You now have something of a routine working out. You are starting to feel human again. But now you have a kid. A kid that at some point becomes mobile. A kid that while they sleep through the night, is still prone to waking up whenever. So you sneak around. You go for just doing it, rather than doing it well. Foreplay has become urban legend. Not that it matters anyway, ever since the baby your boobs are a no-fly zone. Somehow the idea of them as a food source and a sex object is just too much to process. The areas that you tended to for years with waxing, shaving, sculpting and lord knows what else, now look like some sort of 70’s porn bush. You would love someone to spend some quality time down there, however you feel bad about even bringing it up due to the aforementioned lack of grooming. But who has 20 extra minutes in the shower? All the extra time and money for trips to the salon now that all your extra time and money go to the money suck that is children?? Because, I certainly don’t. I am however, open to suggestions if anyone has them. Bottom line, you could double in a National Geographic special where the indigenous tribes run around naked without a grooming care in the world

 
And if you manage to do the deed once a week, you feel pretty darn good about it. You think you are getting the hang of this new sexual reality. You are having fun, you are in the mood, he is in the mood, You are really getting into it, when you hear a cry from another room. He says “just let them cry, it won’t hurt them for 20 minutes”. And who are we kidding, 20 minutes is about all it takes given the current environment. Maybe a guy can do that – but all I hear is a crying kid. And if I am not in the moment, I don’t care how much fun it would be, I am not going to enjoy myself. So you get to be the bad guy, stop what is shaping up (literally and figuratively) to be a good time and tend to the demanding voice from the other room. It doesn’t seem fair, you think as you are scrambling to find your underwear before you go into their room , and flip the switch from lover to mother …. why should you have to pick between these two things that you love – and yet are constantly at odds with one and other? And you are crossing your fingers that when you return to your bed, you can resume where you left off, knowing full well that you have a 50/50 shot at best that he is still awake.

 
So this is my reality today. If you can get me to not fall asleep on the couch somewhere between the Daily Show and the Colbert Report , you are making progress. If you can find 20 minutes of uninterrupted time to charm me out of my pants, you have a pretty good shot of clearing the goal line. Odds are, I will be more than agreeable to a good time. But lets be honest here, if you do charm my pants off, be prepared for the cotton granny panties. The lacy bits and thongs of yesterday are buried in the back of the underwear drawer. One day I will bring them out again. I promise. After I get caught up on 2.5 years of sleepless nights, find my waistline, and get that grooming thing back in check.

 
Now Listening: Lungs by Florence + the Machine

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

A Heavy Heart

I had a really snarky post all planed for today. And I still will get it out there. Not to mention the "guest post" listed below from my beloved husband.
I **had** planned on those things.
And then I saw the news today about Elizabeth Edwards. Quite frankly, I was quite surprised that it affected me so much.
Chalking up the fact that she passed away from the same thing that my mom did. She was 2 years older than my mother and fought her battle for a little less (one year) than my mom.
So why it hit so close to home shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. My heart hurts for her family.
It is no secret that people pass away every day. And people pass away every day from cancer. What this has done is publicly shed a light on something that families are faced with each and every minute of every day.
Cancer is brutal.It is more than a colored ribbon. Its cures are more often than not, worse than the disease. It strikes without prejudice, cause or care. It changes and morphs so that just when we are on the cusp of getting over the "cure" line, it throws a detour in our way. It touches every member of its patients families. It puts caregivers into situations they never would have imagined.
It does something else - it makes you say the things that you should say to your loved ones. It tests your strength and pushes you to personal limits that you didn't think you were capable of handling. It throws into very clear light those things that are relevant, important and that really matter.

So on a day where accolades will be public, the outpouring of sympathy very real and for a moment, this cause of cancer will be in the forefront again...I hope that the Edwards family and everyone that lost a family member today finds solace in their faith, the knowledge that tomorrow will in fact, be another day and that no one and no disease can take away the memories that each of us have. That is one thing that cancer cannot take away.

The Greatest Man in the World

 My husband is the greatest man ever born. He is so sexy it hurts. I wake every morning thanking God He chose me to give life to Joe's seed. He is so hot I often see women drooling as they walk by. You may not know this but he actually turns down People magazine to be on the 50 most beautiful people list. This shows his down to earth attitude.
   Joe isn't just a Prime USDA piece of meat he is also intelligent. You may not know this but he recently had his IQ tested out at 167. This qualifies him as a genius but he wouldn't let you know because he wants people to be as comfortable around him as possible. Joe understands that everyone he meets immediately has an inferiority complex and with good reason. For if Joe is the absolute best at everything. To be in his life is truly to be graced by God.
   So before you go to sleep and after you hit that alarm in the morning, thank the Big Man in the sky for blessing the Earth with Joe. Every woman wants him and every man wants to be him. He is truly an example of perfection.

Mrs. Joseph McConville