I Caught My Wife in Bed With...the Baby! Napping!

When a sex therapist complains about sex, or the lack thereof, it's worth a read. Ian Kerner, a "sex therapist and relationship counselor," two positions for which I'm not even remotely qualified, describes some of the, uh, frustration he felt after his first child was born: "confused and conflicted, not to mention sleepless, sexless and hard up."

The birth of his second child took his "randiness to new dimensions of dementia."

For me, admittedly someone who can get in the mood pretty quickly (my wife would say too quickly), I can't remember feeling very randy after several weeks of night feedings and weekends that never ended. Sleep was sex for me, rather than what sleep was before kids (the thing that happens 10 seconds after sex).

I'll agree that I, like Dr. Kerner, have experienced moments "when everything made me think of sex" (feelings I had long before I became a dad). However, I didn't need this anecdote:

One time my wife, Lisa, was reading the Dr. Seuss classic “Hop on Pop” to our toddler, Owen, and I found myself thinking, “Hey baby, why don’t you come over here and hop on this pop?”

Kerner's point is that dads often feel as if their wives are having an affair — that is, creating an emotional and (I hope in a different sort of way) physical bond — with a rival; in this case, the baby.

The problem with this kind of conflict: I can't brag about how I can bench-press more than the baby, know more about literature than the baby, have more hair than the baby. And I can't leave angry messages on the baby's answering machine to leave my wife the F alone.

I shudder to think what was going through Kerner's mind while his wife was reading other stories to the kids:

• "Why don't you feed this hungry little caterpillar?"
• "Why don't you put your cat in this hat?"
• "Why don't you say goodnight to this moon?"
• "Why don't you say goodnight to this gorilla?"
• "Come over here and I'll show you what this brown bear sees!"
  

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