Love…After Kids
Valentine’s Day, the holiday of love, is upon us. With the candy aisle front and center at the “big box” stores, and Victoria Secret emails hitting your Inbox every hour, you probably couldn’t miss it.
Ahhh, love is in the air. But so is the smell of dirty diapers and some extra weight around your mid-section. Throw in a “little” leg or elbow to the rib cage every night, and well, celebrating Valentine’s Day is a bit different when you’re a parent. Then again, so is just about everything!
Before my husband and I had kids, I loved Valentine’s Day. I was always searching for something new and sexy to surprise him. Something different from my normal sleep attire which often consisted of one of his old t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants. And something that would inevitably end up on the floor at the end of the night. But these days, what ends up on the floor is ME, ultimately searching under the bed for the match to one of the kid’s socks (darn things are constantly getting eaten up by the dryer or at least that is what I tell myself).
I talk to my girlfriends about my on-going efforts to “spice” things up. What I don’t tell them is that after working a full day, giving the kids baths, getting them off to bed, washing dishes, sorting laundry, and straightening up, I AM EXHAUSTED. By the time I get into bed, I can barely keep my eyes open. The only thing I want to do is sleep.
As the mother of two young boys, I have yet to find a balance between being a mom, wife and working woman. I keep asking myself, do I have to put one on hold to “perfect” the other two? While there is no true right answer, I have found that by treating them all as three separate people with three separate needs, I’m bound to divide and conquer somehow…right? Or perhaps I’ll end up in the funny farm where they will be treating my multiple personalities!
One thing I know for sure is that now that kids are in the picture, we have to try harder at us. We steal a few quick kisses here and there (my boys think it’s hysterical when mommy and daddy kiss, often bursting into the most amazing belly laughs when we do it in front of them). We have to make more of an effort to plan adult-only “play dates” with friends, one-on-one “date-nights,” and weekend getaways. They are equally as important as the things we do for and with the kids. These things allow us to “recharge our batteries” (no pun intended) and ultimately make us better parents and partners.
I don’t foresee a crazy night “swinging from the chandeliers” for this Valentine’s Day, but I will gladly trade that in for the handmade cards from my little guys and kisses from all three of them. I do love being the only woman in the house — a princess among her princes.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll put the sweatpants aside for one more night. I’ll switch them out for stretch pants – hey, don’t judge, these days, that’s living on the edge!
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!
Photo credits: Kim Como
