Sep 29, 2008

Brand New Baby...

I'm happy to announce the upcoming birth of my newest baby, Love in the Time of Colic: The New Parent's Guide to Getting it on Again. You can pre-order on Amazon now!

Here’s the Birth Story: Seven years ago, after the birth of my older daughter, Ramona, I suddenly found my once level libido was missing in action. Where once my husband and I had enjoyed fun nights of sexy naughtiness, now it was just more . . . not. Thus began an ongoing exploration of hanky panky and hokey pokey that began with an anonymous online column and ended with a memoir about my bumpy path back to the bedroom. While I received great thanks and feedback on Confessions, I was also quickly bombarded with two questions: “Where’s the how-to manual?” and “When does the guy’s version come out?” Not being a guy—or a doctor (although I like to play one sometimes…)—I figured the jig was up. And then I met bestselling author and therapist Ian Kerner, PH.D. Not only was he a real life sexpert and a man, but a new dad, too. And how can you go wrong with someone who writes a book called: She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman?
Within weeks we started collaborating.

In many ways Colic is a sequel to Confessions, a natural consequence of my first book…sort of like my one-year-old daughter Mercy is a natural consequence of finding that lost libido again. And a natural way to put new challenges to again as well. As parents and professionals, Ian and I are living this topic every day; we’re dimpled knee deep in it too! Happily, we’ve both learned (each respectively, thank you very much) the hard (pun) way that it really is possible to do the hokey pokey and keep up the hanky panky, or to read the children’s book Hop on Pop, and then actually want to hop on pop. In our book we often reach this conclusion from very different perspectives at times, but what we both agree on is that sex matters . . . a lot. Parents can give their children everything, but nothing is a substitute for parental happiness. And in our opinion, sex is the glue that holds couples together and keeps lovers from simply becoming roommates or co-parents. It’s also the good sticky stuff that dries up if left alone for too long. Here are some signs your love life has gotten a little stale after baby:

•   The mind-blowing sex you used to have now just blows
•  The TV is turned on more than you are
•  You want to want sex, you just . . . don’t
•   You’d rather go on a play-date than another bad date-
night
•  The baby gets more kisses and cuddles than you do
•   You’re beaten down and (beating off) from always having 
to initiate sex
•   You have a user-id like “sexydad” or “hungrymama1”
•  Foreplay has become chore-play
•  “Let’s get it on” are now fighting words
•  You’d rather sleep than sleep with your partner

Sound familiar? Don’t panic—you don’t have to throw out the baby with the dirty bathwater. The good news is, because we’ve been there ourselves we won’t try to sell you a bill of goods we know won’t work; we both agree we can’t you a quick seven step program or promise great sex in just ten days. But by joining us, you’ve taken the first real step in making things right. You’ve started a lifelong conversation about sex and long-term love and how to keep that from becoming an oxymoron. Although we’ve purposely kept the tone of this book light and breezy and fun, the truth is, as we like to say here in Parentland, it’s not all fun and games. What we’re really asking you to do is take a good hard (hopefully!) look at yourself and your partner—to actively participate in the exercises and open this seriously sexless can of worms. Yes—It takes courage and strength to go there with us, but it’s worth it. As you read this book, you’ll learn what pitfalls to watch out for, what you can do to get sex going again, and hopefully, a little about yourself and each other that you didn’t know before.

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