A Tale of Two Sickies

Now. I’m not saying there’s a connection, but Sunday my family had dinner at my mother in law’s. By 11:00 PM, I was violently vomiting into a bucket. Coincidence? You’d have to know my mother in law to guess for sure, but the circumstances certainly are suspicious.

Sunday night wasn’t a good one. I felt rotten, couldn’t keep warm and found myself in bed by 9:30. Sleep didn’t really come as I had to get up every couple of hours to settle my churning stomach. My husband and son, on the other hand, slept fine.

When I awoke Monday morning, I could barely lift my head from the pillow. Still, I managed to get up and get The Boy to school. My son didn’t feel well and I almost kept him home, but it turned out to be a bit of gas. Mr. N on the other hand was practically moaning and groaning in the bed.

With my husband, who slept soundly all night with nary a drop in the bucket on the side of the bed, claiming death to come at any second, I got my son ready for school and we walked to meet the school bus together. It wasn’t easy, but Mom’s have super powers. Even when they’ve been up all night losing their poisoned dinner.

I spent the morning on the couch where I didn’t move until the kindergarten school bus dropped off four hours later. I spent the day doing what I could while laying on the couch. I helped with homework, played checkers, even read stories. I didn’t see my husband again until after our son was in bed for the evening.

So I ask you. As she who spent all night throwing up, shouldn’t I have been the one to take a sick day? Why is it always Mom who has to function through illness while Dad gets the day in bed?

I suppose I did get the better end of the deal. If my husband did get out of bed, I probably would have had to take care of him too. Meanwhile, my stomach was a mess, I was freezing cold the whole day, dizziness had set in and it was all I could do to raise myself from the couch.

Men. They can’t hack it.

Written by...Babe Deborah -- @ Family & Friends, Love & Marriage, Way Back When | Comments (9)

Now That’s Just Freaky!

For the last five weeks my hubby and I have been unemployed because we are seasonal workers.  We have been spending our time reading, going to the library in town a couple of times a week.  He started out reading Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn.  I read Naomi Wolf’s “End Of America” and Al Franken’s “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them”, before I moved on to several cookbooks.

One day we were watching Iconoclasts on TV. The particular episode we were watching featured Deepak Chopra and Mike Myers.  I had heard a little bit about Chopra in the past, but Jim had never heard of him. In the show, they were discussing a little bit about his philosophy and talked about one of his books, “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind”.  So, the next time we went to the library we checked it out.

Jim is very impressed with the concept of everything being connected that Chopra  stresses in his book. He is especially interested in learning more about Aryuveda, and in the aryuvedic way of eating practised in India.

The freaky thing that happened is that because I had checked out a cookbook on Indian cooking, I had a list in my head of new herbs and spices I wanted to get the next time we had a little money to spend on such things. We were given several Wal-Mart gift cards for Christmas and went grocery shopping with them. While we were there, Jim came over to me in the spice aisle, and said, “I want to get some ginger, some curry powder, and some Chinese Five Spice Powder.”  Those are the exact same three that I had on my list!!! Freaky!!

Written by...Babe Karen -- @ Guest Blogging Babe of the Month, Love & Marriage, Seriously Now, Shopping | Comments (2)

The Sign

Yesterday when Jim and I went out to go to the grocery store, we came upon a young man standing in the island in the middle of a busy road. He was holding a handmade poster, which we assumed before we were close enough to read it that it was a plea for a handout, as in “Will work for food” as you see so often these days. But as we got closer, we could see that it said “Angela and Alexis, please come home, I love you.”  He had also drawn a bunch of hearts. 

This was a cold day, not so much like in Kansas or Minnesota where the temperatures were below freezing, but for Georgia it was pretty cool and the wind was blowing. It went right through my jacket, and I can tell you, it would take a lot for ME to be standing out there, love or no love. 

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. At first, my heart went out to this young man. I thought, awww, he must really want her back real bad to be standing out there in the cold like that. But then the cynic in me took over. I thought about all the possibilities of WHY Angela would have left that guy. It is, after all, less than two weeks until Christmas. It would take something pretty drastic for a girl to leave a guy, and take her baby (I am assuming that Alexis is a baby, because the guy was so young looking) that close to Christmas. I started thinking to myself, “Hmmm, why is he out here standing in the cold, when he should be at work.” 

It was Monday, around 12 noon, and anyone who had a job should be at that job. Maybe she left him because he wouldn’t work. Maybe she left him because he couldn’t  hold a job.  Maybe he did have a job but he spent all the money playing poker so she had none left to buy Christmas presents for Alexis. Or maybe he spent the paycheck on drugs. I was not liking this guy more and more as time went on. 

While I was walking around the grocery store, I continued to think about Angela, that anonymous young woman whose pain was made so blatantly public on the side of the road.  Maybe Sign Boy spent all the money he made on other stuff and Angela had no money to buy groceries or diapers or formula for Alexis.  Since it was the day after a weekend, maybe he stayed out all night on Friday night with “the boys” and left her sitting by herself with the baby. Or worse yet, maybe he was out with another woman, maybe the other woman was a so called friend of hers. Maybe she asked him where he had been and he beat her up, or threatened her in some way.  

While I was making dinner, I was wondering if Angela was at her mother’s house, being comforted by her family. I wondered if she would take Sign Boy back, if she would give him another chance. I wanted to be able to tell her that she was probably making the right decision to leave him. How could he be so stupid.  But then, who knows? Maybe she was at fault. Maybe not. 

What I do know, is that I have been Angela. I had all those things happen to me when I was young and had more love than brains. The only thing my ex didn’t do was stand outside with a dumb sign, begging me publicly to come back. It took me seven long years to figure out that I would be better off without him. By that time, I had two more children. It was hard being a single mother, but it was easier than being a neglected, abused wife. I hope Angela makes the right decision. Leaving is the hardest step. If she goes back, leaving again will be even harder.

Written by...Babe Karen -- @ Family & Friends, Guest Blogging Babe of the Month, Love & Marriage | Comment (1)

Sex, Romance, Lies, and Libido

 

Kate, at Babylune wrote a post that was more or less an extension of a previous post she had written on new moms and sex. I tried to stay away from this post, spending my day at other blogs writing about leftovers, and frugal Christmas gifts from the homestead.  I posted about my chickens deciding to lay eggs all of a sudden to the point that we will be eating nothing but eggs for days…weeks..months..(homemade egg nog anyone?) I wrote about the pitiful state of the American child as far as their reading skills. I wrote on everything I could think of but still I had time to think about this.

It isn’t that I didn’t want to write on it it is that it is one of those areas for me. Where my thoughts tend to be..ummm….weird.  And…here I go, another sex post.
The post is entitled, Has Sex Really Left the City? and is about the changes in sex and libido that seem to be a requirement after one has a baby.  I was interested in what she had to say, and did agree with much of it, but not all.

Having had 8 children and several miscarriages, nursing all of them for an average of 2-3 years, using attachment parenting methods and co sleeping, being married to Marc for 28 years in March,  I feel like I do have some experience behind me in my thoughts and opinions on this issue. ( I am dragging my feet, can you tell?)

I believe that sex is of primary importance to a marriage. By primary I mean like…uh…in the top five. In fact, I would say that a successful marriage can be based on only two things.

1. Communication

2. Sex (which is, of itself) a form of communication.

To dig the hole a little deeper I will even go so far as to say that libido is really a small part of it and certainly not necessary to a great sex life.  I do not think you can have a marriage without sex, and I do not necessarily think that there is only one type of sexual contact that “counts.”  But you can certainly have a great sex life without a libido.

I battled with anorexia in my past, and still my eating habits are random. I may eat a meal or two and then not eat for several days because I just don’t feel like it. I don’t think that it would be fair for me to not cook because I am not hungry.  I love to make beautiful and creative meals with every talent I can call forth from my being.  Libido is much the same to me. I love being with Marc, I love being creative, and doing everything I can do to be his fantasy in every way.  If I don’t particularly feel like it and he does I encourage him to change my mind. Often, though, it is the other way around…and I gladly attempt to change his.

People have asked us if sex isn’t boring after so many years and so many kids, and I have to laugh. To me, sex is the play of adults. It is the only time I can be totally and completely myself, not a mom, or a blogger, not a friend or anything..just the two of us like it was in the beginning…Body issues? Sure! I do not have the 24 inch waist i had at 19, and my size 10 body does not look at all like my size 4 body did.  my hair is not only going gray it is breaking off and getting shorter..sigh. But in my mind i will always be the 19 year old that he fell for, with the clingy red dress split up the thigh.  He will always be the guy who really listened to me and was able to look into my eyes without looking away. I don’t have to compete with t.v. personalities or models or anyone because I happen to know that I am real. Guys are a pretty straightforaward lot from what I can tell, they would much rather have a plump wife in the flesh than a voluptuous model on a screen. (not talking about guys with porn issues, o.k.? That is another matter entirely.) If we understood how our husbands really see us we would be more forgiving of our own shortcomings.

Most women want to be cuddled but when ultimately she is getting poked in the back she turns in disgust and says, “geez! Is that all you want?”  Hubby may have not been planning on taking it further anyway, it is just that the physical evidence of his attraction is uncontrollable. If you want to cuddle you are probably going to experience this side effect. It is a good thing.

From a spiritual perspective the Bible admonishes us not to withhold ourselves one from another except for mutually agreed upon times of fasting and prayer. I think there are reasons for that. It keeps us in sync, emotionally attached, and strengthens both spouses  against temptation in the form of other men and women.

Long term marriage means to live with one another with understanding. Knowing eachothers needs and being willing to fulfill them as best we can.  Sometimes that means not having sex when you would really like to and sometimes it means having sex when you would rather a bath and a book!

Not all men want it all the time. Some women cry themselves to sleep at night wishing that their husbands would respond to them sexually. I know this because there was a period of time when I was that woman. Marc could not blame post partum issues, nor being tired, nor anything..he just didn’t feel like it. We had to work through many things, hard things, to come to a place where we could understand that sex has little to do with the way it is portrayed in our society but has everything to do with deep commitment and communication in marriage. I felt unattractive, unloved, unwanted, and jealous of women that complained that their husbands chased them around the house.

Sex is in the brain.  Thinking about your husband, thinking about what might happen later, preparing yourself mentally is the way to keep things on fire. Be imaginative, creative, and don’t be afraid to try something new (unless it is something that you have problems with ethically).

Kate wrote:

I suspect that if there is a solution to this dilemma, we won’t find it in popular culture. Sexual desire, sexual politics, firey flirtation and displays of desire are always being played out in front of our eyes. But, those are played out by the young, the single and the physically flawless.

I beg to differ, Kate. I am not young (48 in April), I am not single, nor am I physically flawless but fiery flirtation is alive and well in our home from the time the alarm rings and we snuggle a few minutes, to the rather racy emails we send eachother, to the long and passionate kiss when he gets home. Our kids roll their eyes. But they smile while they do it.

Kate wrote:

What we don’t see are relationships turning in, one person toward another. We don’t see desire developing into devotion. We don’t see intimacy growing into trust, mutual support and constant communication. We don’t see attraction turning to adoration. And yet, are any of those qualities less wonderful than the display of how we understand modern sexuality.

Those things grow out of a great sex life, not alone. Most young women that have come to me for counsel on their marriages have the idea that the second can somehow be created without the first and it just isn’t going to happen that way.

When he gets home from work, grab his tie, push him up against the counter and remind him who he fell in love with. You may see roses start appearing on your countertop.  Hey, it worked for me. And there is noone more unromantic that a Marine.

Written by...Babe Marye -- @ Love & Marriage | Comments (12)

I need to go away more often

 

I need to go away more often. Last week, I was in Las Vegas for almost a week while I attended the Blog World and New Media Expo. When I arrived home, I found my husband had installed a closet organizer in our son’s room and his clothes, drawers, closet and toys were all neatly organized. The house was spotless. I mean spotless. PLUS he also installed brand new windows in the basement. For kicks, he and our son built a volcano from spackle. Mind you, my husband isn’t messy or lazy, but he does like to spend his weekends on the couch.

We moved into this house a little over five years ago. Soon after we moved in, Mr. Ng gutted the master bath in hopes building a bigger, better bathroom. Five years later, my master bath is still looking the same. Every now and then my husband will break out the sawzall and do a little more work, but for the most part, we’re a one bathroom family.

It’s not because my husband isn’t handy, either. He worked in construction for quite a few years and is quite the carpenter. When it comes to his own home, he’s not so ambitious. Last year I went away for a weekend with my sisters. When I returned home I found Mr. Ng finally removed the ugly wallpaper in the hall. A year later, I’m still staring at bare walls.

Meanwhile, on weekends when I’m home I find my husband, more often than not, snoring on the couch for most of the day. So I ask you, how can someone show so much ambition when I’m not home? It can’t be our son, because he works just fine when it’s the two of them. It can’t be me because all the nagging in the world isn’t getting him up off that couch. So what do we think it is?

A friend of mine suggested my husband is trying to prove to me he’s more than capable in my absence, the house is spotless, my son is occupied and stuff is getting done around the house. Well, rock on, Mr. Ng, here’s to capability. Now show me what you can do when I’m home.

Written by...Babe Deborah -- @ Household, Love & Marriage | Comments (8)