Go Ahead, Have A Quickie

My prenatal yoga teacher trainer included lots of tidbits in her course that, at the time—as a very pregnant student trying to complete the certification before my baby was born—I found quirky and cute, but not particularly yogic. One of her frequently offered gems was about sex.

“It’s all about the quickie,” she’d say. “You have to forget about drawn-out, romantic lovemaking for a while. Just take a quickie whenever you can get it.”

Almost a year later, with a 9-month-old in a blur of motion every waking moment, the yoga of her advice for parenting with a partner has become resonant and clear. In bed, certainly, but also in the full gamut of mundane, busy moments of parenting together—a quickie can be the difference between isolation and connection, a cup draining empty and a cup being refilled.

This first started to sink in for me when Asher was just a few days old, and the strain of night feedings was beginning to make itself felt. During those first few weeks, while Joe was also on leave, he would get up every time I did and play guitar or read to me, and every single time Asher nursed, Joe would thank me for what I was giving to our son through my milk.

As Joe returned to work and we decided he should sleep as much as he could at night, he would still whisper these words of gratitude each time I crawled back into bed. Even now, as Asher sleeps through the night and his nursing sessions have the comfortable ease of well-worn slippers, Joe will still look me in the eye every few days and say, “Thank you for feeding our son, Mama.”

It takes five seconds, maybe ten? And it makes me feel seen, loved, and appreciated, every time.

A quickie can take many forms—an eyes-locked kiss before getting out of bed to retrieve a squawking baby, a long hug after putting him down at night, a moment of holding hands and saying a blessing before dinner, looking at each other while you laugh at the food pasted all over your baby’s hair, sitting next to each other for a deep breath before moving on to the next thing on your to-do list, a flirty ass-grab while cleaning up the kitchen. It can be sexy or sweet, serious or silly.

But just by the act of doing it, you will build an energy of connectedness in your parenting together, which will serve you well in the moments that don’t feel very hard and even better in the moments that do.

So go ahead. Have a quickie today; have a few, even. And notice how it makes you feel.