I distinctly remember being about 7-8 months pregnant with Primo and deciding to put on a garter belt. Clearly I was having a crisis of confidence, a plummeting of self-esteem and I figured the thing to remedy it was get sexy looking. No faster way to feel sexy than a garter belt. EXCEPT when you are 7-8 months pregnant. Then its just ridiculous.
Of course the thing didn't fit on my waist. What waist? I had a baby where my waist should be. If only I had known about Hot Milk Maternity Lingerie.
A preggo friend of mine just told me about it and I think its such a great idea. I found many things about being pregnant totally sucky-- the five months of unrelenting nausea and vomiting, the sciatica pain, the back pain, difficultly sleeping, But I, for one, LOVED my pregnant body. I felt like I never looked better. Of course, when you upchuck several times a day for months, that happens. Not that I'm recommending it.
In any event, seven years too late, I've found a place to get a maternity garter belt. Cool.
Major cyber-action going down on the old parkslopeparents listserv lately. You know things are heating up when you see a long string of anonymous posts. Nothing brings the crazy out in people like anonymity. There’s been a whole bunch of anonymous debates recently but the most fascinating by far had the subject heading, “Desire to Cheat.“
It started with this woman writing in about how she caught her husband browsing the craigslist personal ads and she’s worried that he wants to cheat and that if things continue the way they are, he’ll end up doing just that. And she wants to know what can she do to stop it?
As usual, the responses ran the gamut from really insightful to flat-out nutso. The most wackadoo advice was that the wife should encourage her husband to go to a few strip clubs in order to deflate his overblown fantasies about other women. Of course, the poster warns, she should not, under any circumstances, allow him to go to a “nice” club like Penthouse or Scores, where the other women would meet his expectations, if not exceed them. Instead, send that man to a “local” club, a seedy place with saggy, baggy women who will make his wife look like a centerfold. And, the poster cautions, don’t give him a credit card or he might get into more trouble than you bargained for. OK, so STD-ridden Brooklyn joint. Washed-up strippers. Cash only. And that’ll solve your problems.
Now I’m no Dear Abby but I do say that the above advice, besides managing somehow to insult everyone involved, is the the worst piece of cockamamie crazy talk I ever heard.
There were, however, some useful points made.
A husband wrote in, saying he’d been married for 7 years, never cheated, never thought about cheating but searched browed the craigslist personals all the time. Fodder for fantasy, he said. Someone else echoed this, offering these words of guidance: “It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you eat at home.” Some posters suggested hooking the husband up with plentiful porn, stocking up on sexy lingerie, scheduling plenty of date nights. And some people said infidelity had nothing to with sex but with feeling trapped, insecure, unhappy in other areas of life.
But there were also some posters who pointed out that maybe there was no need to stop the infidelity from happening. Maybe monogamy isn’t the best option, they suggested. It’s only cheating if it’s done deceptively: if both members of the marriage are on the same page, then having intimate relations with other people might be OK. One woman wrote about how she had two monogamous marriages but was now on her third marriage, and finding that being polyamorous was working out for her and her husband. Before she slept with anyone else, she talked it over with him, and made sure he was OK with it. The first time she did it, the fallout with her husband was tough, she said, lot of arguments. But when the opportunity arose a year or two later, he gave her his blessing again and afterwards, it was fine. In fact, the wife says, she feels more in love with her husband than ever, grateful to him for his generosity, and energized sexually by the excitement of being with someone else.
Yes, my local listserv has been better than a romance novel lately. Pretty titillating stuff.
All I really know is that every marriage is different and each couple needs to find their own way forward. If polyamorousness works for you, go for it. If having sex through ha hole in the sheet is what you’re into, who am I to stop you? Judge not lest ye be judged.
I don’t know if monogamy is the best way or the most successful strategy certainly but it’s the only way that could work for me and David, for better or worse. I don’t think I’m self-assured enough, magnanimous enough, or maybe even open-minded enough to let David be with anyone else. Plus, if I did ever give him my blessing, I’m so competitive that I would not rest until I got an equal amount of action, whether I wanted to or not. And then how would I know that person I’d entered into a dalliance with wouldn’t fall head over hells, madly in love with me? Initially, I’m shockingly lovable. And David, though he drives me batty sometimes, is a pretty great catch himself. Chances are his mistress would never nag him about how many beers he drinks or ride him about loading the dishwasher, and this lack of harassment might make him fall in love with her or at least think that his current situation was more of a nightmare than he’d suspected. The last thing I want my husband to have is a wake-up call.
But that’s me and I’m fettered by neuroses. What do you think? Is monogamy impractical? Or just hard? What advice would you give the PSP poster?
We have done it readers. We have moved. And not just moved, but moved on up, to a deluxe apartment, not exactly in the sky, but one story higher than before.
The move is behind us. Shipped the children off to their grandparents for a weekend of non-stop fun or if not fun, at least guardianship (“Mommy, Nana is like the Redcoats, she is always telling me what to do and I have no freedom!”)
Meanwhile David and I packed like fiends. Emphasis on “fiends.” The night before the movers came, I was a mini Mephistopheles, hissing at David to GET MORE FUCKING PACKING TAPE AND HURRY!!!!!!!!!! My neatly-labeled and impeccably-filled boxes became haphazard, desperate. I threw my meat tenderizer in my Uggs and stacked those on top pf David’s CDs and threw in a handful of stray Legos on top. Seconda’s potty went in with the toaster which went in with my wedding album.
“MORE PACKING TAPE AND STEP ON IT !!!”
The movers came with dollies and bins and they transported our goods speedily, carefully, a marvelous job. In three hours we had changed houses.
Then David wanted to have sex. But guess what was the only thing I hadn’t packed?
“How it is that you packed the juicer we have never used but you didn’t pack condoms?” he wanted to know.
“Those are your responsibility!!! I had to pack the rest of the whole house!!!!!”
I don’t recommend this level of bickering as foreplay.
So we decided to drive back to the old place and load up the car with a whole pile of shit we hadn’t taken the time to pack, including the air purifier, bundt pan, iron and condoms. And the broken alarm clock. By the time we’d packed that stuff and filled the car and unloaded it all, it was dinnertime and we hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch so I had to break the news to my husband that before I could engage in anything resembling sexual activities I need victuals. I am a human, after all, and not a Stepford wife.
So off we go to grab a burger at the pub. And then, filled to the brim with fries and cheeseburger, and safely armed with protection, we blessed the new home.
Now I don’t want this shit to end up on STFU, Parents. In the event that you are thinking, “TMI Nicole, TMI,” let me share why I reveal these gems of personal information with you.
In the movies, couples move into a new place and still sweaty from their manual labor, heady with the thrill of their new residence, they fall to the floor and rip each other’s clothes off, Then they lie around afterwards and regard the haphazard piles of boxes and unassembled furniture and smile and make plans for the future.
This is a big ole’ steaming load of bullshit. Or at least, it is after you have kids. Because once you have two children that are two years apart, nobody is having any kind of carnal relations without some protection. That’s one. And finding a condom in a post-move maelstrom is like finding a needle in a haystack. Unless you keep one in your wallet and I thought we all learned in high school that that’s the worst spot to keep a condom. Though I should point out, a potentially distressed but conveniently-placed condom is significantly better protection than no condom at all.
Number two: once you have two kids in two years, you’ve got no time to dream of the future. The future is now and you have 10 hours and counting down to get the furniture right side up and the toothbrushes unpacked before the Jabberwocky and the JubJub Bird get back from their grandparents. So what that all boils down to is a quick burger and a quick roll in the hay and then marathon sessions of Ikea assembling.
But when the wild things did return, their room was fully configured and I swear it looks like some bedroom from a spread in Cookie magazine. Outer space themed. Walls painted ogre-faced green (that’s what Primo calls the color), Silver blackout blinds. Alien decals. And a hanging light fixture which shines little multi-colored moons and stars and plants all over the room.
David and I have room envy/ If our big asses could fit in the twin bed, we’ve trade with them.
The moving is done. Expect a slight decrease in the complaining. But only slight. I’ll be unpacking, after all.
This Father’s Day I didn’t fret about what to get my husband. I didn’t make him a photo book on Snapfish or have Primo paint him a piece of pottery. I didn’t unearth the phone number for this tiny store in Kauai that we stumbled upon during our honeymoon and make arrangements with the manager to send a tiny figurine that ended up having special meaning for us, in time for the big day. I didn’t make him his favorite German chocolate cake. All those gifts were thoughtful, if I do say so myself, and well-received, but they weren’t what he really wanted.
For Father’s Day my husband only wants one thing. From me, at least.
I bet you can guess what it is.
(If you’re averse to TMI or related to me you may want to stop reading now)
I’ll give you a hint. It’s not a palindrome but it starts with a B and ends with a B. It’s free. Requires no shipping, only handling.
It’s what my husband wants for every holiday, in fact – his birthday, our anniversary. Christmas. Its not like these occasions are the only times he’s the beneficiary of such pleasure, but it’s not the sort of thing you can ever get enough of, I guess. Its like as a kid you probably got spaghetti and meatballs pretty regularly but that didn’t preclude it from becoming your favorite food and being what you requested when it was your turn to choose. If I’d realized sooner that sex acts were not only a perfectly good present for my spouse but actually the perfect present, the non-pareil, the piece de resistence, I could have saved quite a bit of cash by now.
But that’s what marriage is -- learning how to communicate, Men-are-from-Mars-Women-are-from-Venus style.
“Why don’t you like the Starry Night tie I special-ordered for you?”
So, I know I said I was time-releasing my haikus, tantric-style, to tease you along, giving over just the bare minimum necessary to keep you longing for more, and more, and more. But I’m the kind of girl that gives it up easy. The kind that gives the milk for free so you never have to buy the cow. So without further ado, here is the fast and furious finish to the What My Son Said Haiku Collection.
No.2
I already know what coffee tastes like Mommy -- smoke and marshmallows.
No. 3
We’re doing a play. I’m Hook, Peter, and Wendy. Sec can be the plank.
No. 4
“Bitch” is not a nice word. “Gun”either. What about “son of a pork bun.”
I’ve got a fever and the only thing that can cure it is . . . more haikus. All it took was that hit I took yesterday and now I’m hooked. Here’s today’s recipe for poetry greatness. Take the fact that Primo says crazy shit and add the fact that I can count seven syllables and you have . . . the What My Son Said Haiku Collection. I will time-release one or two a day. Consider it the equivalent of tantric sex (what my husband, who is not a big fan, likes to call "lazy, blueball sex").
Nicole is a parenting writer who contributes essays and articles for magazines like Parenting, Parents, American Baby and Babble. She lives in Brooklyn with three children, one husband and a morbidly obese goldfish.
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