Dad, you probably shouldn't read this

So, when people find out we have four kids, there is usually some joke made about "don't you know what causes this?"  Our standard response is "Eating after midnight, right?"  That's partially cause that answer is a dumb as the question, and partially because it seems like we eat after midnight more often than we do anything that would actually cause pregnancy.  We referred to Will as Bullseye in utero cause it he was the result of a good shot.

It's an age old joke - put a quarter in a jar for every time you have sex in the first year of marriage and then take one out for every time you have sex in every year after and you'll never run out of quarters.  Every newlywed couple swears this won't happen and pretty much every couple I know that's been married for more than five years knows better. 

With four kids under six, it's probably not a big surprise that my libido is a little off.  Besides my hormones being totally whacked, I'm completely "touched out" by the end of the day.  When the kids go to bed, the last thing I want to do is cuddle.  I want to lay on the couch with my crossword puzzles or the remote control and not move, not get anything for anyone, basically be a lump.  I read in a parenting magazine once (back when I read parenting magazines) that women get all their "physical contact needs" filled by their children and should remember that their husbands have "physical contact needs" too.  I think I stopped reading that magazine about that time.  Cause, really, seriously, the magazine wasn't happy just making me feel guilty for not making homemade peanut butter or doing some other sixty-five step craft with my two year old?  Now they had to tell me I should give more blow jobs?

Then another day, I heard a report on NPR about a study that showed men whose wives felt like the housework and parenting duties were equally shared in their households had more sex.  Now that tidbit I passed along to Jeff.  But the thing I got from it was that sex in marriage is a big enough issue that someone did a study about it, most likely a man.  Which got me thinking, Jeff does plenty of housework and we all know that he's the dad with the most, and he's not getting it all that often, how rarely do the "slacker" husbands get it?

I've done a lot of thinking about this problem recently and I realized something profound just last night... though I do get touched approximately 938,837 a day, rarely am I touched in a way that is "giving" rather than "receiving."  I mean, my kids touch me to ask for a snack, to tattle on a sister, so I can lift them up, put them down, help them jump, hold them steady, kiss a boo boo, and even hugging is more like a contact sport than a comforting thing.  So by the end of the day, my touching quota has been met in spades, but I'm emotionally drained.  (I know, I know, I'm supposed to look at my children and feel overwhelmed with love every second of the day.  Newsflash, a lot of the time, I look at them and just feel overwhelmed)  So though I cringe at the thought of more touching, I need to remember that Jeff is the only one who can really fill tathe emotional quota.  So I asked him for a hug last night, and it was the best hug I've gotten in a long, long time.  It was just a hug, with no ulterior "this backrub could turn into a full body" vibe to it.  I can't tell you how much better I felt, and how much more interested I was in that hug turning into something else. 

So ladies, tell your husbands to do more housework, take more time with the kids, but mostly, tell them to give you a hug!

Perspective is a funny thing

I was just looking at the most recent pictures I've taken of my kids and thinking that I don't remember getting that messy as a kid.  Then I realized that's probably not because I didn't get dirty, but because kids don't see dirt.  They look at a mud puddle and see possibilities.  Moms look at mud puddles and see laundry.

Stop it you StinkyBucketSmeller!

Nanny Nanny Nah Nah!   The universal refrain of childhood.  When we embarked on this child rearing adventure, like all first time parents, Jeff and I had a fantasy about what our children would be like.  For the most part, in the early days, Ellie complied with that fantasy.  Ellie was a lovely baby; smiled when anyone smiled at her, rarely threw tantrums in public, and generally pooped before we got in the car.  She was also very docile.  The first time she tried to put her fingers in an outlet, I shouted "No!" and that was the end of outlet curiosity.  To this day, she's very aware of rules and in general, good about following them.  Except for one.  No Name Calling.

I don't know how it happened.  I don't call her names.  Jeff and I don't fight in front of the children.  All the parenting magazines told me that if we limited her TV watching, fed her green vegetables, and only bought her educational toys this wouldn't happen.  Alas, my darling girl has turned into a name calling, back talking, teasing, tongue sticker outer.  Sigh.

Being teased is a right of passage for all kids, I guess.  And those of you that have siblings know that there is no one God's green Earth who teases you more than your sister.  However, I was a kid that was much more likely to be on the receiving end of teasing rather than the giving end.  A pretty shy kid, I wore glasses, had crooked teeth, and bad hair complicated by a bad decision to get a perm in 1986.  My parents moved us around a couple times and we eventually landed in Cumberland, MD, home of the 1984 State Marbles Champion.  This is where I earned the nickname "Batgirl" for my horrendous octagon shaped glasses, that I got cause I read a book in which a shy girl gets octagon shaped glasses and almost immediately becomes popular.  Not so much.

Needless to say, I'm now sensitive to the issue of name calling.  I try to tread a fine line between intervening and letting it go, and I'm afraid that I'm simply going to confuse the issue.  Besides, it's a terribly complex thing to explain to a 5 year old... some names are okay to call people - smartypants for instance.  And something can be stupid, but someone can't?  What if the name is accurate - calling the lady in the too small outfit a fatso is accurate for sure, but definitely not allowed.  They're often extrodinarily creative names; "fartybabycarrotface", "poopydinnertablesitter"... you almost have to give them credit for originality.

A couple years ago, I was sitting at the pool with my friend and we were complaining about how hard parenting is as we watched our kids, all 5 and under at the time, play in the baby pool.  A woman leaned over to us and said "I hate to interrupt, but this is the easy part.  Little kids have little problems, big kids have big problems."  She's absolutely right, and Ellie's still pretty little.  I'm afraid that this is just the tip of the iceberg for us, and I'm bracing myself for the ride.  Wait until school starts!