Vacation Sex

I have been lucky enough to have been on vacation upstate for weeks on end. We were at a friends in Delhi for two weeks and before moving to our communal summer share compound in Roscoe with The Mommy Cult. Now we are 10 adults and 11 kids (including two babies) sharing 2 old farmhouses, 3 bathrooms, and one small private lake. There have been bonfires and s'mores, skinny dipping and hiking, t-ball on the lawn, and frogs and turtles and lizards and fish, blueberry picking and farmers markets and lots of grilled meat, mountain views and bouquets of wildflowers. It is idyllic, perfect, the kids are spending most of their days outside, swimming, building houses for ants and making up games. I drink good wine every night with some of my closest friends. We even had a kareoke party. But the best part for me has been the sex.

I have been having sex with my husband 4 or 5 times a week all summer long. The baby naps like clockwork, and our son is happy to watch a movie or read for half and hour or play with the other kids here at the "commune". It's mostly quickies, and we rarely have time to truly indulge each other, but it has just been amazing. I asked my partner if he thought we were having more sex because we were getting along better or whether we were getting along better because we were having more sex. He thinks the former, I think the latter. And who really cares, when I'm getting laid almost every day?

Granted it's not perfect- one day we snuck away but couldn't concentrate because who can have sex when all the kids are playing freeze tag just outside the window? Another day our son interrupted us and was about to interrupt us again when I shouted though the door: "My iPhone is on the counter in the kitchen, why don't you play Rolando for awhile?" I could hear him talking to his best friend as he walked away, "Did you hear that!? My mom just gave us iPhone time and we didn't even have to ask!"

But this summer is so sweet because we have had some rough times. Some really rough times. Months and months of no sex. A short respite and then another long dry spell. No connection.

Now I'm somehow transported to the summer we really fell in love, when Ken came to visit me from Australia and we had two perfect weeks of sex and museums and movies and concerts and dancing and sex every day. That was over ten years ago, but my desire for him is the same as it was then. I am so happy and contented, what with all that oxytocin from the breastfeeding and the orgasms.

I'm already dreading the fall: the long commute to my son's school with the baby in tow, Ken working long hours, me desperate to find time to myself to work.

I have no idea how I'm going to keep at least some of this sex happening.

HomeBirth Cartoon on SMITHmag

My homebirth cartoon is up on SMITHmag. The wonderful David Heatley is the cartoonist, and his wonderful wife Rebecca Gopoian was amazing at helping me edit the text down. They are calling it a Graphic Graphic Memoir. I like that.

This is the backstory of BEFORE the cartoon starts...

In late September 2008 I was 34 weeks pregnant with my second child, in a cab on my way home from a “non stress test” at the hospital. I called one of my two midwives. I was fine, the baby was fine, but Martine was concerned because I was having contractions. Much to the chagrin of some of my friends and family, we were planning a home birth.

My five year old son Felix was born almost six weeks prematurely in St.Vincent’s in 2003. I had been planning to deliver in a freestanding birth center, I was too nervous to have a home birth the first time around, but he came early and I had the Pitocin and the hospital and it was diabolically painful and traumatic, but my son was fine, and I was fine.

In the cab, Martine laid it out for me: modified bedrest for at least 3 weeks. “I really want you to take it easy. You can get out of bed, but just for a walk to the corner. No subway, no swimming, and no sex.”

“I can masturbate though, right?”

“We don’t recommend putting anything into your vagina.” How did she know what I had planned?

“I can still have an orgasm though, right?”

“No, Christen.” Martine could hear the silence on my end. She sighed, “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t do it. Orgasm releases oxytocin and can induce labor. We want to keep this baby inside for just a few more weeks, okay?”

I knew what orgasm and oxytocin could do to a pregnant woman. I was one of those horny pregnant women.

“You want me to lie in bed for weeks on end and not masturbate?!?! What the hell else am I supposed to do?”

“Read a book Christen,” Martine deadpanned.

And I did know what orgasm could do. I’d read the Ina May Gaskin books about pleasurable natural birth. I’d dreamed of staving off the pain of contractions with my Hitachi. I had planned a hippy happy sexy home birth and I wanted to orgasm all the way through.

She continued, as my belly rode the potholes, “You’ve had a previous premature birth. If we can keep this baby in until 37 weeks, then we can have the birth at home. Even at 36 and ½ weeks. But any earlier than that and you are going to be in the hospital again. You don’t want that, do you?”

No, I didn’t want to be in the hospital again. We were prepared for our home birth. The living room was full of birthing supplies—a birth pool, birth ball, shower curtains, old blankets, stained sheets, rubber gloves, flashlights, thermometers, extra towels, waterproof pads, iodine, Vitamin K drops, a container for the placenta, a scooper for birth and fecal matter, labor tea, baby clothes, diapers. We had the best midwives ever, Martine and Karen from JJB Midwifery.

I wasn’t going to masturbate and fuck this up. I stayed completely celibate for over three weeks. (It was during the lead up to the US presidential election so I watched Jon Stewart on my laptop and obsessively googled this new Sarah Palin person, whom I despised and was sure wasn’t the mother of her new baby.)

And then on October 14, 2008 I was exactly 37 weeks pregnant. Full term. Finally.

That day, my midwives Martine and Karen said I could start being a little more active. “Don’t over do it though,” Karen cautioned, “we still want that baby to be fully cooked.”

So I didn’t overdo it. I got out my Hitachi and I masturbated, once. Okay twice.

Then I took a cab to the pool and swam really gently for 15 minutes and then I took a cab home and met Felix and his babysitter at our local café Espresso 77 and then we went home and there I was, at 5:30 pm, sitting on the couch with Felix, all of the sudden thinking, “Am I wetting my pants?” Why do I always think I’m pissing myself when I’m about to have a baby?

And then magically, it comes to life as an illustrated cartoon!

Martine said to me later, after the birth, when I was all raw and bleeding, "Oh, I hope you guys had sex." And I was like, "Ummm, no! You told me not to!"

Keep looking at the Sexy Moms 2009 blogs!

Moms get %10 Off Sex Toys!- Babeland sexy moms 2009

Use the code above and get %10 off sex toys at Babeland!

I've been asking some of my friends how they keep their sex lives going and I especially liked these two answers.

1.) Friends: I guess this isn't news to anyone who read that New York Times article about how friends keep us healthy, but some of my mommies say that other moms are their livesavers. "I wouldn't still be married if it weren't for my friends," said my friend E. "They get it: the anger at him for feeding the baby a bottle right before I came home to breastfeed, the boredom of the repetitive nature of mothering, the cyberstalking of ex boyfriends who adored me."

I definitely understand this logic: my sex life improves if I feel better about myself, I feel better about myself if I spend time with my friends, therefore my friends improve my sex life. And I have done the ex boyfriend thing too, which I think is pretty harmless. After Vera was born, I spent an entire nap time watching videos on an ex online. I think I just wanted to be in a world away from children and responsibilities, and anything having to do with them.

2.) Sex on the go: One of my mommies isn't feeling it so much herself, "My libido is nowhere to be found!" While she laments this, she doesn't let it stop her from having an intimate life with her partner. They have a regular date night which always includes sex, since they don't wait 'til they get home. "We have sex in restaurant bathrooms all the time. Quick blow jobs. The bathrooms in the Modern, the restaurant at The Museum of Modern Art, are great. We get dressed up, order drinks (it's expensive!) I leave to use the loo, text him that I'm in the sixth stall on the left and he joins me there."

I definitely need to give that one a try.

A first draft of my new show (What I Know About) My Parents' Sex Life goes up at P.S. 122

on Thursday.  From nursing homes to granny porn, from my father's Viagra prescription to my mother's racy letters: my new show explores senior sexuality.

And I'm not the only one writing about senior sexuality, take a look at this article on Slate.

Bubble bath and Edgy Moms

As part of this sexy mamas blog, Babeland sent me some products (and I have some to give away!) including  Evening Rapture Bubble Bath.  Now I know they meant this as a way to get me in the mood with my partner, but I confess...I ran out of Johnson and Johnson's so I used the Babeland product for Felix.  I got in too, to make me feel less guilty about sharing something that was supposed to be just for grown ups.

He proclaimed it "excellent...lots of bubbles....we can make bubble sculptures mommy!"  And so we did.  We both smelled nice afterwards and our skin was not dried out.

I did the Edgy Moms reading at the Montauk Club in Brooklyn tonight.  The packed audience went from raucous laughter to teary silence; Amy Sohn and Louise Crawford organized a super event.  I read an awfully randy scene from BabyLove, Amy read a funny essay about a 2's programs application and competitive motherhood; and Louise told a story about watching her son perform at Bowery Poetry Club.  Also on the bill was Amy Benfer, who I loved.  She read a very moving account of her teen aged pregnancy, and her 18 year old daughter was there too.  Also: Michele Madigan Somerville, who has ensured that I will never look at Elmo the same way again; Lenore Skenazy, who controversially let her 9 year old son take the subway by himself (I'm planning on letting Felix start when he's 7); Sophia Romero the Shiksa from Manila; and Louise Sloan, who hilariously told a tale from her book Knock Yourself Up.  It was a wonderful evening and I was thrilled to be a part of it.  Claire Cavanagh was in attendance as well, getting ready to open a new Babeland store in Park Slope.  Hmmm...perhaps call it the Horny Mom store?

  

BabyLove opens Off Broadway

After many years of development and touring and one night stands, BabyLove is getting a run at 45 Bleecker, presented by 45 Bleecker and Hourglass Group. Yay! More here www.babylovetheplay.com