We’re an average married couple in our late thirties with two elementary school kids. As anyone with small children knows, alone-time and couple-time can be a little hard to come by.  And when one, or both, kids are sick… all bets are off!  Forget the sex life until the whole family is well again.  If you don’t have a sick kid in your bed or needing some bedside TLC, then you’re listening to the sounds of the current illness (coughing, wheezing, retching… you get the picture).  The strain of listening and wondering when the little lovelies will decide to give you the next nocturnal visit REALLY puts a damper on a wild romp with the spouse. So in addition to the sleep deprivation, you have a little deprivation of another sort.

That said, I recently noticed my husband’s truck in front of the house as I returned from a round of tedious errands. My first thought was “Hmmmm! Let’s see, no kids, errands and chores are done (sort of…) He must be here for a little action!”  Cool! Having revved myself into a sexy mood, I oozed into the house to find him… seated at the table having lunch and doing some paper work.  I wasn’t quite prepared to hop up on the table and offer him a side of thighs with his meal (although in retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea…) So, a little small talk was in order to turn his attentions to the opportunity at hand. Try as I might, he just wasn't getting the hint, so as he was getting ready to leave, I simply smacked the big lug and told him to get his friggin' clothes off and do me NOW! The garments indeed started flying as we made our way to the bedroom and we were pretty heated up when the phone rang.  Neither one of us was in a position to answer it (so to speak), so with a small break in the action we listened to the machine blurt out:

 “Mrs. XXX, (cough, cough) I have your son here in the office (cough, cough, wheeze), and he’s not feeling well.  Please give us a call or come to the school to pick him up (cough, wheeze, hack!).” 

“Just GREAT!” I thought.  “I can’t even get laid when they’re at school?!”  My poor sex-starved hubby protested  “I am NOT stopping now!  He can cough and extra 10 minutes in the office.”  I whole-heartily concurred (after all, he wasn’t going to DIE in the next 10 minutes, was he?).  We hungrily finished our ten whole minutes of lust, just happy for the opportunity.

A few nights later, we were in the mood to extend the fun from our lunchtime quickie, so we gave the sick little one the “sleepy-time” version of cough medicine (c’mon - we were getting desperate).  All was proceeding like a hot porn flick when… the coughing started (accompanied by a whimper).  We stopped the the moaning and groaning, held our breath and waited for the hacking to subside. He was either going to climb into our bed or settle down.  Five minutes passed and YES, he settled down!  We started again…. Cough, cough, HACK!…Once more, we held our breath and waited.  Ten minutes go past and the coughing subsides. We started again. And so on. This must have repeated another 3 or 4 times.  Finally, we were in full-blown pounding hot sex and… cough, cough, COUGH! By this time, obviously, the mood is completely shattered and we could only lay there and laugh.  I now want a set of earplugs and a two hour massage, though I did encourage my husband to finish himself off (we call this a “freebie”, he gets off; I don’t).

As I write this, our kids are still sick and sex is an indulgence that’ll have to wait.  I know it’s not a FUN sex toy but, I think I’m ready to try trade my vibrator for some earplugs.