A mother reignites the home fires after a baby

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They say heaven knows ... so why not see what stars have in store for you today?

In her book The Mother Dance, Harriet Lerner says, “[M]uch of psychology remains a whodunit with the finger pointed in the mother’s direction.” She got that right. Ultimately, we’re the ones blamed when our kids grow up to be on Jerry Springer. We’re the ones trying to avoid that by gobbling up parenting books and Baby Einstein videos and baby sign language classes. Manic mommies everywhere are striving for perfection, in their kids, in themselves. We’re striving to hold it all together, to figure out working and not working, to choose the best schools, the best parenting styles, the best future for the people who mean more to us than anything. It’s a kind of offspring insanity, one that Judith Warner writes about in her book Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. It’s a crazy, beautiful madness that takes its toll, wears us out and doesn’t allow a whole heck of a lot of room to be naughty. Beyond that, with the baby-ization of Hollywood — Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Hudson, and the beautiful Desperate Housewives on Wisteria Lane — we’re supposed to look like a million bucks, too. But we don’t have personal trainers; we have potty training. We don’t have our own Nanny 911 or personal chefs; we have Chef Boyardee, and we have our hot local firefighters show up while we’re in the bathroom because our toddler dialed 911 by accident, again. The glossy magazines we zone out on while we’re in that bathroom, hiding out, promise to help us have it all, do it all: You can be the perfect mom and the perfect wife, they assure us. You can be holy, happy, housewifey, and a whore in the bedroom. But four and a half years ago that sure wasn’t my reality.

Four and a half years ago, my sex life tanked because I gave birth to the most beautiful, precious, gentle little person I have ever met, my daughter Ramona. And then I sat dumbstruck and watched as she completely obliterated my love life. Where once my husband and I had stayed up until 3:00 am bouncing each other off the walls, now we were up at 3 taking turns bouncing her on our knees, desperate to get her back to bed.

Despite getting an extensive sex education, starting with my parents and ending with a lot of personal mistakes, I was totally unprepared for the toll motherhood would take on my marriage. This isn’t to say I didn’t receive plenty of information: From the minute my swollen belly announced my pregnancy to the world, people gave me advice about parenting. They told me (whether I asked or not) their thoughts on crib vs. co-sleeping, breast vs. bottle, diaper service vs. disposables. They told me I’d be tired, more tired than I’ve ever been before. They told me I’d never regret it, that it’s hard, that there’s nothing better.

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But no one ever told me I would end up calling my husband “Poppy” when I used to call him “lover.” Or that soon I’d find sleeping to be the most satisfying part of sleeping with him. No seasoned mom ever slipped a bottle of Probe or Liquid Silk into my baby shower basket with a little note letting me know that nursing can cause vaginal dryness. No one explained to me not to do it in front of mirrors that first year, or to avoid walking by stacks of dirty dishes on the way to the bedroom. And no one warned me that having a baby was like the excitement of falling in love all over again, except with someone much younger and better smelling than my husband. No one told me that for all intents and purposes having a baby was dangerously similar to having an affair.

Excerpted from “Naughty Mommy: How I Found My Lost Libido” by Heidi Raykeil. Copyright ©2005 by Heidi Raykeil. Published by Seal Press. No part of this excerpt can be used without permission of the publisher.

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A mother reignites the home fires after a baby