Dear Dr. Miro, I just had a baby and do not associate my lady bits with getting sexy anymore. My nipples are now the domain of my little one and I do NOT want them incorporated into Mommy-Daddy Time. Even my vagina seems more like a place for my sweet child to exit rather than a pleasure center. I used to be horny ALL the time and now I avoid my hubby when he starts to get that look. How do I get my sexy back? Sincerely, Lost My Groove Dear LMG, This is a common problem that comes up for many moms. Of course you are going to be focused on how to keep your little bundle of joy alive and the sexy stuff can easily slip to the way side. This is understandable. It is fantastic you acknowledge your need to re-engage in your marriage, and your SELF, sexually. This process of re-eroticizing can be difficult but in the end, rewarding. Self-pleasure is always the place to begin. Get out that dusty vibrator and remember how much fun you had pre-baby. Take, for want of a better term, baby steps. You know how sometimes you have to fake a smile to pave the way for a more pleasant experience? This can be applied to sexuality, too. If you can kick start your libido with some fun alone time – you and your vibrator, that is, you may find it will ignite a bit of that forgotten Sexy you so desire. To be blatant: get some blood back into your clitoris with what ever means necessary until you bring yourself to orgasm. Only after that will you be able to engage with your baby’s daddy in a relaxed and sexual way. PLEASE do...

Frankie says… Parents are people, too. Since I recently wrote about my daddy issues, I find it only fair to write about my mommy issues as well. Now my issues surrounding her are not so definable – they’re much more convoluted and intrinsic to that weird and confusing bond between a mother and a daughter. I can tell you this, though: it makes me not want a daughter. Harsh? Well, it’s how I feel, at least for now. After all the stages daughters go through – immense attachment (0-8), awkward friendship (9-13), intense hatred and rebellion (14-18), clarity of collaborative forces (19-25), then the slow and eventual reveal that your mother is actually a person too and does not exist solely in your head (26 on) – it’s a wonder we’re not all more messed up than we are. This last stage, this is where I am at. I obviously cannot talk about what happens after, since I have not experienced it yet, but I’m hoping pretty hard that there are some more stages because the one I’m in sucks. Now that I am fully an adult, (in some circles) and am making life decisions on my own that will affect my existence from here on out, it’s come to my attention that my mother at some point had to make these same decisions. Not the exact same ones, but similar in the fact that they would impact the rest of her life. At 28, already my mom had three girls from her first husband (an abusive alcoholic) whom she was about to divorce in the next year or so. After that, she would join a commune in southern France, leaving her girls to essentially fend for themselves with the grandparents and not-all-there father...

Apocalypse… Meh During Hurricane Irene’s reign of terror on the East Coast, I was visiting my sister in Camden, NJ. Surprisingly, there is a really nice part of Camden and my sister’s apartment has tremendous 12-foot windows that look across the water at Philadelphia. I’ve often sat on her couch and gazed at the City of Brotherly Love. It’s very relaxing when you aren’t expecting a city-born tornado to come tearing through and send those giant windows crashing down on you and your family. A tornado warning in Philadelphia? I was reminded of the carefree days a decade ago when I ate ice cream on the streets of NYC in October and we all laughed about global warming and the end of the world. My sister’s apartment had already been shaken by an earthquake earlier that week so I knew all bets were off. If Camden is experiencing aftershocks, what’s impossible or even improbable? If New York is evacuating, could the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse be far behind? Perhaps they are stuck in grid lock traffic because NYC had shut down their mass transit system. The apocalypse isn’t nearly as funny when you have a kid. It’s harder to be ironic about the end of life as we know it when you’re wondering if your kid is going to need gill implants. I mean, I’m already worried about paying for college, how am I going to afford relocating to Mars? She’s only two, what has she seen of the world? Sure, she’s been on a cruise, met Elmo, hung out back stage at the Newport Folk Fest with Mavis Staples and marched through the French Quarter in a Mardi Gras parade… Actually, she’s led a pretty full life. Dreading The actual end of...