Real Talk

Lifestyle

The New-Parent Sex Situation (Spoiler: It Ain’t Good)

Let's talk about the post-baby sex situation, shall we? Spoiler: It ain't good. I know it; all of my parent friends know it; you probably know it. And still: it's easy to feel embarrassed - even ashamed - about how much (or, ok, how little) you have sex with your spouse once a tiny, screaming human arrives on the scene.

When sex suddenly starts feeling less like an awesomely fun pastime and more like an exhausting obligation, it's easy to wonder whether something's wrong with you.

Can we clear the air, please?

DIARY

#MomFail

I posted a video to Instagram Stories yesterday, and I'm really annoyed at myself about it. In the video, taken outside my son's piano teacher's house, I said that I had just realized that I'd forgotten to bring his piano music to the lesson for the second time in a row, and said it feels sometimes like my life is just one Mom Fail after the next. I forget the music. I'm late to pickup. I don't include vegetables in lunch (or dinner, sometimes). I love, love, love it when they're watching TV, because when they're watching TV I can breathe for a second.

The other day I ran into my friend as I was walking away from kindergarten drop-off - I'd been late, and had had to walk my son through the office (tardy slip! #momfail) - but she was later; so late that she wasn't even bothering to rush. We laughed when we saw each other - no words needed, because we've both seen each other be "that mom," the one frantically waving her arms and rushing past the horde of on-time parents walking in the other direction, yelling WAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT! while the door to the classroom shuts in our face.

Back to that video: My "I'm such a failure as a parent" video. I know that it's a teeny, tiny thing, forgetting your child's sheet music (even when you do it often). But as I dropped him off - flustered, my daughter crying from the car because she'd dropped her paper crown and couldn't reach it, hurriedly trying to explain during the second between the door opening and it closing again that it's totally my fault, I'm really sorry, I promise it won't happen again - I felt ridiculous, like a cartoon of a disheveled parent. Surely the "real" moms out there remember their child's music for piano class. Surely they don’t have to scream at their children to walk faster! in order to get them to class before the bell; surely they restrict screen time to an hour per day (weekends only!).

DIARY

10 Lessons I’ve Learned Since Becoming A Mom (Twice)

10 lessons I've learned since becoming a mom

2 weeks postpartum. (Note: This photo is in no way representative of actual life with a baby.)

The first time I wrote about being a parent was the day after my first child - my son - was born. I didn't "write" about it, actually: I just posted a series of pictures, because I had no idea what to say about parenthood, having experienced it for all of 12 hours, and was overwhelmed by the idea of saying anything at all, lest what I said turn out to be "wrong" or "not motherly enough" or some such ridiculousness. As I wrote in this post, "To write about my feelings for my baby is to open up conversation about those feelings, and they are so precious and so mine that it would be heartbreaking for me were they to be trivialized or misunderstood."

I mean, I used to hide pacifiers before taking pictures because I was scared that some unknown Internet Person would yell at me that giving my baby a pacifier was a terrible, horrible thing to do. ...Because what did I know? Maybe it was!

DIARY

From WAHM To SAHM…Sort Of

How amaze is my new crafting room?!?!?!?

hahahahahahaha 

As of today, our childcare situation has shifted pretty dramatically. For the past couple of years, we've employed a part-time nanny to watch our daughter in the mornings (while our son is at school), and then occasionally watch both children in the afternoons, whenever my wildly inconsistent work schedule requires. But over the past couple of months we've realized that Goldie is clearly ready for preschool, which means that both kids are now out of the house until early afternoon - and beyond the prohibitive expense of paying for nanny + preschool (nope), I just felt like I could...make this work. Somehow. I can get most, if not all, of my work done in the morning, then pick up the kids and get to have afternoons with them.

DIARY

Our Very Own Superheroes

Us, 2014

I woke up around 1AM on Sunday night and stumbled out towards the living room, where I found Kendrick setting the alarm and  getting ready to come to bed. "Hey," he said. "Why are you up?"

I pointed at our son's closed bedroom door. "I wanted to go lay down with him," I said.


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