My husband and I used to have an amazing sex life. Truly. We would wake in the morning, take a look at the carnage of sex toys and such around us and say SUCK IT CHARLIE SHEEN, who’s winning now?! We had that sex life for eleven years.
Then we had Monkey.
Monkey co-sleeps. We didn’t plan on co-sleeping. We didn’t plan on NOT co-sleeping. It just came to the point where I could get up every 20 minutes and breast feed him for an hour, or I could just pass the fuck out in bed with him attached to my boob. I fought it for a while, but dude, sleep rocks!
Then I had to have some nasty dental work and take tetracycline for an entire month, so at 15 months we did sleep training and weening at the same time. My husband wisely choose that week to have business trip. I’m thinking the neighbors wish they had been offered that same option.
The weening took, although it was a good year before he could see breasts or cleavage without screaming “BOOBIESSSSS!” which was always fun in public dressing rooms. The sleep training? Well, he did learn to sleep all night without the boob in his mouth, as long as it was in the big bed.
To make a long story that would make my husband cringe short, our sex life has suffered.
I have learned to sleep in the fetal position facing away to protect my vital organs. The Mr has learned to build a protective covering of pillows in his sleep. The picture aboved? That is a self portrait that I took upon waking.
I wouldn’t change it for the world.
When he is asleep, Monkey is still. He is snuggly and peaceful and beautiful and smells good. He wakes and hugs us and tells us he loves us and we talk about what we are going to do with our day.
Then he flings himself out of bed and into his busy morning. He is still beautiful, but no longer peaceful or snuggly. And as for his smell, it’s a crap shoot depending on what the days discoveries have brought us.
Those moments in the morning, those are precious and fleeting. I know the time when he won’t stand to be in the same room as me, let alone the same bed, is coming sooner then I would like and at that point, I can once again start using my bed for playing Hop on Pop, rather then just reading it.
I’m a sex worker and a sex writer and an advocate for creating the sex like you want, but right now? The physical contact I need is the affection and intimacy that comes from the family bed.
Do I miss having an active and varied sex life? Like the muther fucking dickens. But I know I have many years of sitting home while he is off with his friends, heart aching for the time when he would snuggle in close to me and say “What are we going to do today?” in his little voice with his eyes barely open smelling of sleep.
Plus? We have his bed.
We really need to start using his bed more often.
