A love life, or lack thereof

I'd always from couples with children that once you have kids, your romance level drops to an almost flat-line state. And of course, it's true. I blame fatigue. No matter how high my good intentions are to save a little energy for my husband at the end of the day, when our two hours of relaxation time come each evening I'm only up for mind numbing television or three pages of a book before I pass out. This really saddens me, because my husband and I were a very romantic couple throughout our courtship and first year of marriage. I didn't think "the curse" would happen to us.

We are trying to have a date night once a month to have some of that lovely feeling back, but even then thoughts creep in like, "Did the kid go to sleep ok?" and "I sure would like to get a good night's sleep. Maybe we should head on home". I've been making more of an effort to not let that happen, and try to totally enjoy being with my husband for an evening. Even if we stay out late - damn the groggy and cranky experience we'll have the next day! Is being groggy and cranky really that awful? The thing is, it's just a fact that your whole psyche is changed, and you can really never go back to the carefree, slightly wreckless time BK (before kid).

I'm afraid that if I don't make some effort to find some semblance of that time, our lives will be so humdrum and routine that we will lose ourselves forever.

Why I need a nap every day

Because I'm 40 years old and trying to chase around an almost-18-month-old. And because I'm a stay-at-home Mom and I can't make ends meet financially right now. And because I want to have another baby, even though I'm scared to death my eggs are all too old. Especially since the baby I have came out perfect, even though I was 39 when I delivered, so the odds are against that happening again. And I wonder where we'll get the money for another one, when we are barely scraping by while I stay home with this one.

Every day when my son goes down for his nap, somewhere around 1 or 1:30, I lay down for thirty minutes. Some days it's even less, but never more. I don't allow myseft THAT much luxury. But my small toes-up keeps me going through the rest of the day. And I guess helps me stay positive through all the worries floating around in my head. When I play with my son, I mean really sit down and focus all attention on him and him alone, those worries completely disappear. Which tells me I should do that more often.

But now I have to stop typing, and go wake him up. The two hours is up!