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!
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