Moms - Remember That Thing Called 'Libido'?

Pre-Childbearing: Libido Minus Kids and Mom-sponsibility = Passion. Romance. Spontaneity. Bordering on Pleasure Overkill (if there can be such a thing).

Post Childbearing, Then Three-in-a-Row-Child-Rearing: Libido (What’s that? I can’t remember?) Plus Motherhood = the Opposite of Arousal. Tuned Out. Turned Off. Drop Dead.



Fade eerie dream sequence music and enter my soon to be romantically elevated reality tonight.


“I’ll pick you up in an hour,” the Hubster warm-breath whispered in my ear moments ago. “Wear something nice.”

“Whaddya’ mean? Where are we going? We have no sitter?” I said, utterly perplexed. “We had plans?”

“Don’t worry about it.” he said. An I-know-something-that-you-don’t smile tautened his short-shorn russet beard hemmed cheeks. “I’ve taken care of everything. You’ve got a couple of hours to get ready. I’ll pick you up, let’s say, around 10 tonight. Meet me at the door to the back hallway. We’re having a date at home tonight.”



“Oh, now I get it,” I thought to myself. My husband, historically light years more romantic and tender surprise engineering than me, is planning a hot, at-home date (HAHD).

(The long-mom-dormant journalist in me can’t help but employ hugely un-sexy acronyms for multiple references in a single post, even a post about post-baby booty calls. Acronyms are a literary buzz kill, but worth the key stroke conservation, and let’s face it, my post tonight is anything but literary.)

Anyway, the Hubster and I haven’t indulged in nearly enough HAHDs since moving into our home two years ago, and could use a whole lot more them.

Preparing for a HAHD is (mostly) easy.

HAHD Pointers for Wife/girlfriend/lover (No more alternatives to "wife" for too tired tonight, please! I can’t be so consciously all-inclusive that I can't get past this sentence simply because I’m over doing it with open-minded, non-offensive, politically correct terms for contemporary labels like 'Baby Daddy and Two-Dad Duo):

1. Splash your overtired, overwhelmed, bordering on perma-frown mommy face a few brisk times with freezing cold water. Even though it’s the end of the night and the kids are laminating their pillows in drool, you’d better be ready because it’s time to WAKE THE HELL UP, GIRL!

Dig deep and channel your nagging mom leaning over your bedside, threatening to toss ice cubes beneath the covers “if you don’t get up and get ready for school THIS MINUTE, young lady!” At least pretend that you’re awake enough to participate in, and maybe even take a domineering role in tonight’s HAHD.

Remember, romance isn’t such an energy sabotaging chore when instead you could spend your night filing smiley face-stickered kindergarten busywork away and stuffing envelopes for an upcoming preschool fundraising push. Break out the pitch black coffee if you must, unless of course you are an all-out caffeine junky like me who pounds a pot and a half of coffee by 10 a.m. You’ll need something stiffer, like maybe a Red Bull.

2. Remind yourself while ignoring two saggy, shapeless post-human-milk-factory nursing relics sadly drooping like overstretched Silly Putty toward the scale beneath your toes that you once had it “goin’ on.” Well, perhaps “goin’ on” enough to attract and long-term retain the attention of your husband/partner in the first place.

Quickly convince yourself that sporadic b-acne, oozing over-the-belt love handles and crinkle-cut French Fry shaped tummy stretch marks are smokin’ hot. While you’re at it, convince yourself that your pregnancy battle scar Mom-cessories are hotter to your lover than Pamela Anderson’s jugs, with or without basketball-sized sacks of silicone.

Try singing this Buster Poindexter chorus/mantra if you get a touch desperate in the final countdown leadin gup to your hot, at-home date: “How you feelin’? Hot! Hot! Hot! I’m hot! She’s hot! He’s hot! They’re hot! We’re hot!” A kid-finger printed and Very Berry Kids Oral B toothpaste smeared bathroom mirror helps here. (I'd feel pretty silly singing in the mirror like that ... now that I'm on the other side of 30. Brings me back to my childhood when I used to lipsync Cindy Lauper's True Colors and Girls Just Wanna' Have Fun in my behind-the-door, ceiling-to-floor bedroom mirror.)

3. Hop in a near-scalding shower and take a deep sigh of relief knowing that none of your children will interrupt you, perhaps to confess that they’ve just eaten two pieces of Day Glo sidewalk chalk and crammed uncapped permanent markers up their noses.

Wash up extra squeaky clean and don’t forget to shave whichever of your body parts are in desperate need of shoring up, slap on some lacey two-sizes (and kids) ago lingerie and lay the makeup on thick with Madonna-caliber ruby red lipstick and stand-out liquid eyeliner. Who cares how overstated your make up appears when i/ts for his eyes only?

4. Remember, he doesn’t care that your body is night and day to what it was pre-kids. He’s just pysched to be feeling the love and not having to take an attention number at the end of the line for once, that is if you don’t succumb to the exhaustion of your three-kid day before the arranged hot, at-home date “pick up” time.

Lest I should forget the pointers for your husband/partner/lover:

1. Lovingly spread out a quilt with sentimental value to you both (the wool plaid one the cops busted you on in 1996 making out by the river’s edge) on the playroom floor. Having grown bored of your bedroom, the playroom will have to do, even if fooling around within inches of your daughter’s Dora the Explorer doll that incessantly chirps, “Do you like Daddy? I like Daddy. Do you? Do you? Do You?” Map-fatuated Dora might as well shout, “Who’s your Daddy?!” for the kid-free HAHD moments soon to unfurl.

(I just realized that HAHD could be used to shorten "Had a Hard Day" or "Husband's are Hairy Dudes."

2. Melt a chemically stinging Listerine Breath Strip on your tongue while lighting the few candles not yet nibbled on by the kids. S.O.S. to the meddling chitlins: Just because it looks like chocolate, smells like chocolate and vaguely tastes like chocolate doesn’t mean it IS chocolate. Haven’t you ever heard of hardened wax? Quit pulling all the wicks out and trying to floss your teeth with them while we’re at it.

3. Take a moment to be thankful that the kids haven’t yet stuffed the brand spankin’ new CD player with rock-filled mud pies like the last one. Press “play” to cue up “Your Body is a Wonderland” by John Mayer. Hit “pause” in waiting for your surely-by-now-pruney wife to finally climb out of the damn shower. Stop for a split jealous second to wonder why your wife finds wavy maned John Mayer so smokin’, so irresistible. Jesus, she’s almost obsessed with him. With those lips. That hair. That smoldering, velveteen voice. Next, scheme of ways to conveniently “lose” said John Mayer CD and see how long it takes the wife to notice.

4. Light some earthy yet mild incense, but not too close to the smoke alarm this time. Recoil for a second imagining the blaring smoke alarm beeeeep-beeeeep-beeeep sending the kids leaping from their beds, right toward your carefully planned seduction scene.

Wait … One final pointer for the wife/partner/lover preparing for a hot, at-home date, don’t get caught blogging when you are supposed to be making headway on wife pointer number 3 (“hop in the shower”). Getting busted not at all preparing for a HAHD is the least sexy activity of all. I’d better go now if I know what’s really, really, really good for me.

Planning this much for a (moody) booty call should be illegal. Scratch all the above lame pointers and start from scratch, wherever it may lead. Even if it's too the toy-littered playroom floor.