Sex after Three

Some women feel no libido after kids; I just can't seem to get away from my kids long enough to act on my libido. I lie nursing my infant daughter, using my feet to play with my toddler son, and in the afternoon I chase after my nearly five-year-old daughter with one or the other baby in my arms. In the evening I watch my hot hubby cooking dinner, aching to wrap myself around him just the two of us, and I remember when we did this almost constantly, and how that's exactly what led to the beautiful situation of having three children, which is also the frustrating situation of not getting lovingly laid is often as would be nice.

With one child, my sex life didn't really suffer. In fact, the sex in my first marriage was either yucky or non-existent, so when I found David and we decided to share lives and bodies forever, lovemaking and related sexy playfulness flowered and we enjoyed the deliciousness deflowering like water for lilies. If I was tired, I drank coffee before bed, because everything, and especially love was new, and I was still dressing (and undressing) to impress nightly. I bragged to my friends about being a parent with a great, active sex life.

When my son was born, I decided that sex wasn't worth the energy; I just didn't have extra to spare. So we did it sometimes, but not constantly, and I felt more pragmatic than romantic. This was also the stage of a relationship where you realize the person you married is not an ideal, but a real flesh and blood person whose baggage triggers your truckload of garbage and you wonder if human intimacy is such a good idea, while you muse that maybe a life of solitary ecstasy in a convent could be a great plan for contentment and happiness.

Now that I have three kids, something's changed, like the turning of seasons, or the opening days of a new year. I feel romantic again. I want to make love even if I'm sleepy. But my infant daughter wakes up when I try to remove myself from her side, and so I lie awake, thinking of my sexy husband and imagining vacations when the kids are old enough to send off on their own adventure while mom and dad play in bed before lunch. And again before dinner. And maybe again before drifting off to sleep, curled in a ball of loving bodies and connected hearts.