mastering the art of seductive

I'm not shy or lacking in self confidence, normally. I was cool with the knife fighting from our Stiletto Spy School classes, I'm fine with self-defense, lie detection, male Elvis strippers, crazy casino antics, all the rest. I loved it all, in fact. I still look back on those moments and chuckle to myself.

But.

The section of the spy school that featured "the art of seductive dance" was definitely NOT in my comfort zone. Especially not with tons of other people watching, several of which I hardly knew. Did I mention I'm a terrible dancer? I mean, I have the beat, but beyond shaking my hips and moving my legs a little, I'm not much for the moves. Plus, the bride and several of her friends live in Los Angeles. They take pole-dancing classes for fun! I'm way behind on my skills.

Our class was taught by an Australian stripper, and it took me a few minutes to even catch on to her accent, especially since she would refer to our "knickers" and "snap-off thongs", terms I don't normally use in my every day life with the two kids. Unfortunately.

Anyway, she started out with a dance routine to You Can Leave Your Hat On, and folks, this was not for the shy of heart. This was a straight up strip tease/lap dance, complete with removing all articles of clothing, rubbing our hands all over our bodies, flinging legs in the air, dancing on top of chairs. It was... something else.

I'm a good sport, though, and I pushed aside my discomfort and went with it, even though as I look back on pictures I'm realizing that when everyone was bending right, I was bending left, and when their arms were wrapped around their bodies, mine were still holding on to the chair, when they were on their knees, I was still in the turn. I'm sure it looked awful, but I persevered.

I even whipped out my perfectionist tendencies and asked specific questions like, "when did you say we should take off our underwear? Did you want us to rub all over our bodies or just through our hair?" My girlfriends got a good chuckle out of those, for sure.

I still haven't performed my moves for Josh, and I've practiced a few times and cannot for the life of me remember all the dance moves, but I did learn some valuable tips for those of you who would like to perfect the art of seductive dance.

1. You have to OWN IT. Who cares if you feel silly? BELIEVE that you look good. Believe that your significant other has never seen anything sexier. Rub that booty!
2. When all else fails, run your hands up and down your body, tousle your hair, crawl on your hands and knees. Again, they'll love it.
3. Turn down the lights, set up the candles, wear something sexy, put on a hot song. You Can Leave Your Hat On is good because it gives you cues on what to do, if you're at a loss.
4. Feel sexy, walk slowly, throw your hips around, and you will be sexy. I saw all those girls in the class transformed from shy girls into sex goddesses in just a couple of hours. Seriously, it was miraculous.

I'll let you know how I fare with my routine, I'm planning to go through with it this weekend after a couple of glasses of wine. I need to find a hat before I can really complete the effect. Anyone have a fedora they aren't using?

thankful for sex

Shocking, I know, but having a baby puts a damper on your sex life.

(Are you laughing yet?)

When I was pregnant, I listened to friends complain about how pregnancy was disrupting their, um, frequency with their husbands, and I smugly thought that since it hadn't happened to us, we were immune. I felt great, generally, throughout the pregnancy, and we were still having regular sex up until a couple of days before I gave birth. I felt certain that this boded well for our postpartum period. I'd recover quickly, and we'd go back to our regular routine.

And then I squeezed a human, a tiny human, but still a human, out of my BODY. Along with that came stitches and pooping problems, and bladder pains, and general soreness, and well, lots of excess weight, and I felt like someone else. Definitely not the me that existed before December 28th. Plus, I felt consumed by this fiery new love for this defenseless little thing. That, coupled with exhaustion and the round the clock breastfeeding, and I couldn't imagine anything I'd rather do less than have sex.

But time changes everything, I guess, and slowly things got better. We worked out the new kinks, especially those associated with breastfeeding, and when I got my period again, my libido made it's lovely return appearance. Libido wasn't quite the same as the last time I'd seen her, but we were happy to see her nonetheless.

The truth is, though, Gabe still wakes up once a night, more often than not, and by the time Josh gets home at night and we put Gabe to bed, I'm beat. Exhausted. Grumpy. And definitely not in the mood. I try to rally for the team, but I need tips on how to get myself off the bench and running the bases more often.

I read an article recently on trying to figure out what makes you feel sexy, and trying to do that as often as possible. So I got my legs and bikini waxed, I bought cute pajamas, I'm trying to go to sleep earlier. Oprah says you should read romantic novels, but it isn't really my thing. I'm willing to try anything, though, so if you see me at the library picking out trashy novels, please look the other way.

At the risk of having Josh kill me for exposing our whole life to the Internet, what else should I do? What has worked for you?

And be graphic, please. I'm begging you.