By Aaron Traister,
We’ve seen it all, and that’s a good thing.
When guys are young, we’re surprisingly uptight about sex: It’s all about looking cool, trying to re-create the sex you’ve seen in movies. Nakedness is still an uncomfortably real experience. By now, I’ve seen everything my wife has to offer, physically: the good, the bad, the sexy, and the scary. During Karel’s C-section, they let me look over the partition before everything was back to normal, so my first image of my daughter includes a nurse holding my wife’s innards. For her part, Karel’s had to take care of me during a severe case of stomach flu (enough said). While those trials might seem like permanent mood-killers, the reality is they’ve only loosened us up in the bedroom. Plus, we’ve reached a point where Karel is no longer a vending machine for tiny humans, and this has made me appreciate her body more than ever. I think she appreciates my appreciation.
We want to be your trophy husband.
It’s a rare man who can avoid the weight gain that comes with starting a family. First there is the “newlywed 15,” and then there’s the “new baby 50” (at least in my case). I’ve looked into the void: I’ve seen myself as a bloated, out-of-shape, middle-aged father of two. I don’t like that guy. In an effort to banish him forever, I started busting my ass in the gym. Now, instead of being all about doughnuts, cheese fries, and whiskey, I’m all about crunches, plank positions, and the dreaded side-plank positions. I love fatty food, but I love athletic sex even more-and I’m not alone in finding myself at a point where I can do things that I couldn’t do in my 20s. Also, I’m pretty sure the plank and side plank will eventually come in handy during intercourse. When I figure out how, I’ll be even better.
We’ve finally learned that it’s quality, not quantity.
Say what you will about how hard it is to have a decent sex life during the baby years-at least you can plop your kid in the Superyard XT, flip on an episode of Thomas & Friends, and escape upstairs for a quickie. But there is no containing a 6-year-old to one room. You think you have the all-clear, and the next thing you know your kid is standing in the middle of the bedroom trying to show you his Lego White House. (How the hell did he get through a locked door?) On the other hand, after-school activities and dinners at friends’ houses mean the kids are gone for longer periods of time. And when they’re gone, you can be louder, you can use multiple locations, and you don’t have to stop every two minutes because you think you hear little feet on the stairs. Most of all, you have enough time to fully appreciate intimacy. For instance, do you remember foreplay? Foreplay is back! So buckle up, because soccer practice lasts two hours.
