With a proud smile on his face, Sheldon looked at his sleeping daughter. For the first time ever, he had been able to make her fall asleep with a lullaby. It was the result of long and hard work:

Since the day Rosalind had been born, she hadn't been able to fall asleep without breastfeeding. Which was a problem, obviously. Once, when Amy and Penny wanted to visit Bernadette for girl's night and Sheldon stayed at home for looking after the baby, Rosalind woke up and he wasn't able to make her fall asleep again. So, Amy had to come home early for breastfeeding the baby and getting her back into bed. After that, they had tried different methods of making her fall asleep, but nothing worked properly. Sucking on Sheldon's finger came close, but as soon as he took it away, Rosy was crying again. So, this wasn't the optimal solution.

Then, one evening, while she was breastfeeding her baby that was dressed in a pyjama with a puppy print, Amy had suddenly thought of the Pavlovian dog and an idea had occured to her… What if they used classic conditioning to get Rosalind used to something new, that could help her falling asleep and that (in contrast to breastfeeding) could be given to her by everyone? Wouldn't a lullaby be the perfect solution?

After a quite passionate discussion with Sheldon about which lullaby had the least annoying melody and a text that was sufficient to both of their quality standards (for example, Amy found "Hush little baby" too uncritically of capitalism and Sheldon found "twinkle, twinkle, little star" too unscientific), that resulted in them composing their own little piece of music, they had started an experiment and taken turns in singing the newly invented lullaby to Rosalind every time she was having her "Good Night milk".

After weeks of patient simultaneous breastfeeding and singing, today had finally been the day of the truth: Had, with the help of the unconditioned stimulus, the originally neutral stimulus of the lullaby finally become a conditioned stimulus? Would it trigger a conditioned response? Would Sheldon be able to bring Rosalind into bed and make her fall asleep?

Tadaaa! It had worked! It really had worked! Sheldon would never admit it to Amy, but he hadn't been that proud of himself for a long time. What a relief!
Although a little bit disappointing that his daughter was so easy to manipulate, something that never could happen to himself… But he had decided to accept that. She still had so many years to learn all the important things that she needed to know as an adult from her Daddy. Sure, he was already looking forward to the time when Rosalind would be grown up and (hopefully) enrich the world with her wisdom, making Amy and him proud and being there for them when they were old. After all, that's why he originally wanted to have kids. But during the last weeks, that he had spent with his baby, he had understood that a child was not just an unfinished person that just needed to grow and learn. Childhood had its own value, maybe it was even the most important section of live and he loved the fact that he would be able to accompany his daughter that he loved so much (oh yes, he loved her, although he normally hated all kids, but he made an exception for her!) throughout all those exciting next years. Oh, what a hippie he had become!

Cautiously, Amy, who was already wearing her nightgown and robe, opened the bedroom door.

"And? Is she asleep?" she asked whispering

Sheldon, who was propping his hands on the white painted wooden side panel of Rosalind's crib, turned his head to her and smiled.

"Yes, it worked!"

"Oh my, that's a relief!" Amy sighed and stepped behind Sheldon to take a glance at her daughter. Then she laid her head on his back and her arms around his belly. Sheldon loosened his hands from the crib and cupped Amy's hands in his. He closed his eyes, leant a little into Amy and dragged her arms tighter around himself.

Amy enjoyed the feeling of his body so close to her. It had been a while since she had felt him that way. In the last weeks of pregnancy her desire for him had been unusually high, but unfortunately her physical condition hadn't allowed her to engage in lovemaking anymore, she was out of breath too quickly and her heart would hammer as quick as her mother's sewing machine.

Then, after the awful birth giving, she just didn't want to have sex at all, it was the least thing that was on her mind, and she wasn't even sure if she would ever want to do it again, regarding the possible consequences…

But recently, there had been some special sort of dreams in the night. Dreams, that made her wake up with a blazing fire in her loins, dreams that showed her that her body and soul were aching for her husband. They had always been a save indicator for her having some urgent needs.

Tenderly, Amy let her thumb rub up and down Sheldon's waist. "Did you know I've dreamt about you last night?", she asked.

Sheldon turned around in her arms and laid his hands softly on her shoulders. "So, I'm still the man of your dreams? That's good to hear. What was the dream about? What did I say or do?"

"Actually, you didn't talk at all!"

"I didn't talk at all? That dream doesn't seem very realistic to me, you know how much I like to spread my wisdom and make everyone happy with it!"

"Well, in my dream, you let your body speak…"

"My body talked? And what did it say to you?"

"Hm, something like this, if I remember correctly." Having said that, Amy stood on her toe tips and kissed him tenderly. But not in the "thank you, I love you"-way or in the "goodbye, see you later"- way they had grown so used to recently. No, it was the "I'm craving for you and your body"-way. And, like somebody, that only realized he's been horribly thirsty after the first sip of water, Sheldon in this moment realized that he had been hungry for kissing Amy that way for quite a while now. In one second, his hands flew to the back of her head, his fingers buried deep into her hair and his thumbs laid at her cheekbones close to her ears, drawing tiny, but passionate circles, while he kissed her vehemently.

Amy dragged him closer to her body, his pelvis was pressing against her belly now and she could feel the heat that was emerging from there. How much had she missed this! Sure, it had been only weeks, maybe two months that they hadn't kissed and touched each other that way, but the world had become a completely new one for them since then and it felt as if it had been another age of time. She sighed into their kiss. Mmh, this felt good, so familiar and at the same time exciting, not knowing exactly what would happen next, only having a vague, but joyful anticipation. Soon, her hands got impatient and started to wander under his t-shirts and with a growing desire for more, she caressed his hot und smooth skin.

Sheldon was kissing her throat now, sucking on her skin and licking all the way from her collarbone to her chin, then his mouth travelled to her ear, where he nibbled on her earlobe, softly bit into the outer edge and finally traced the curves of her auricle with his tongue. Amy was melting under his touch and searching for more support, she grabbed for him, made him stumble a bit and they both bumped slightly against the crib. Horrified, they looked at their sleeping baby. Had they woken her up? But Rosalind just made a little snoring sound, turned her head and then continued sleeping peacefully.

"I'm sorry!" Amy whispered.

"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have started kissing you that way. Probably it's better we stop, otherwise I really don't know how I can longer control myself", Sheldon whispered back.

"Why do you want to control yourself? The six weeks of waiting, that the doctors prescribed us, are over!"

"Really? It's already six weeks? And – and you would like to…?"

"I cannot tell you how I want to. I need you so badly, Sheldon!"

"Oh, that's such a good thing!", he said with a smirk and then kissed her again, while cautiously pushing her towards the bed. "But we have to be very, very quiet. I don't want all that singing to be in vain."

"Ok, maybe first of all, we just stop talking", Amy suggested before kissing her husband back passionately.

Sheldon loosened the belt of Amy's robe, pulled it off her shoulders and hung it quickly at its hook on the wall, while she was impatiently undressing her flowery nightgown.

Then, Sheldon struggled a bit with undressing his trousers, because he wanted to avoid the belt tinkling, but having finished that and gotten rid of his shirts and underpants, there was nothing holding them back anymore (except for the moment when Sheldon realized he still was wearing his socks).

"Who cares for the socks" Amy whispered with a moan, before she hungrily dragged her husband under the covers and devoured his mouth.

Sheldon's hands were roaming all across her body. How different it felt since he had touched it the last time. Her belly was much flatter than two months ago, of course, but softer and a little bigger than it used to be before pregnancy. He admittedly liked it that way, it was kind of cozy, but Amy often complained about it, that she'd never had the kind of body that fits to general beauty standards, but that after pregnancy it was even worse and that she was afraid she would never lose that extra weight she had put on over the last months, again. And there was the scar of course, directly under her belly, a little covered by her short dark hair, but clearly palpable. A thin red and still slightly swollen line, which was exactly 10,52 cm long. He had measured that some time ago with a metric tape measure. Oh, the metric system, so precise, he just loved it!

"Does that hurt?" he asked softly, while he let his finger slide along the red line cautiously.

"No, not at all. I honestly even didn't know you were touching me there," Amy admitted.

Sheldon gulped. "You didn't feel it? How about here?" He touched the lower part of her belly, where the linea nigra was still visible, reminding him of the seam of some old-fashioned nylon tights that he once saw in an ancient movie.

Amy was shaking her head. "Nothing. The doctors told me the feelings will come back. But it will possibly take some years until everything will be totally healed. The severed nerve tracts need a lot of time to recover." She laid her hand at Sheldon's troubled face. "Don't worry, I will be fine again one day. And those nerve endings are quite functional right now". She pointed to her nipples and raised her eyebrows seductively.

Sheldon's face darkened again. Sure, her breasts looked very inviting. So round and bulging and just… yummy! But not for him, no, this was Rosy's territory now. He couldn't interfere in there, that just didn't feel appropriate anymore... Even if he would cross boundaries and touch them (what he was longing to do, to be honest): what would happen if suddenly some milk would flow out? This seemed quite probable, considering how filled up they looked. Would he freak out? Maybe… Probably…Not to imagine sucking on them with his mouth, Oh God, no, no, why did he even think about it? He couldn't drink Rosalind's milk. Suddenly he felt sick from the mental image.

"Sheldon? What's wrong? You look pale. Don't you feel well?" Amy seemed worried.

"I can't do that, Amy. I… I… When I see your nipples, I always have that image in my mind of Rosalind drinking from them and I feel… I just cannot touch them as long as your breastfeeding. I'm sorry."

"Oh, wow. I've never thought about that," Amy confessed a little disappointed. To be honest, she wouldn't have cared at all, if some milk hat interfered their sexual foreplay. But she had to accept his distaste of it.

"Well, do you still want to have sex?," she asked him, although she already knew his answer, his arousal was barely noticeable anymore.

He shook his head and looked at her apologetical.

"That's alright, Sheldon, we don't have to do it tonight. And for the next time we will find a solution, ok? Maybe I just keep my bra on."

Sheldon nodded, then he spooned Amy tightly and placed a little kiss on her hair. "I love you, Amy. And I love Rosy. I love you both, more than I'm able to mentally process."

Amy let out a little sigh. „I know", she whispered barely noticeable, then they both fell peacefully asleep.