If you want to witness Jessie and I get into a sour and ugly argument, watch the movie “Eyes Wide Shut” with us.  We watched it together a few months ago and all we did the entire time was discuss/bicker about the underlying main plot of the movie.  No, the main plot has very little to do with that weird upper class sex club.  The plot has everything to do with Tom Cruise’s character’s reality about his wife’s identity crashing and burning after her revealing to him an intense desire to be with another man.

In his little bubble-reality, he can acknowledge that he has desires for other women.  He can also acknowledge that other men might desire his lovely wife.  But at no point did it ever occur to him that his wife might actually desire another man, and leave him for that man.  He knows his wife is beautiful and that she is smart and interesting.  He sees her as a sexual creature, but only with himself.  In the course of their long term relationship, he has gone from seeing her as a complex woman with wants and desires to a wife and mother.  To him, the acts of being a wife and mother suffocated the natural human desires in the woman.

It turns out that he was wrong, and he spends the rest of the movie trying to deal with that by seeking the sexual company of another woman and failing miserably.

I know that Jessie sometimes forgets that I’m more than a wife, cook, house cleaner and mother.  I can’t say that I blame him sometimes.  When he gets home from work, he’s greeted by a tired person whose hair is pulled back in a bun and is wearing comfortable but hideous clothes.  I can’t look sexy when I’m in the bedroom watching Adult Swim and folding his underwear.  I can’t look sexy when I’m covered in splatters of spaghetti sauce and on my hands and knees wiping up a milk mess from the floor.  But just because I don’t look it doesn’t mean that I don’t wish for it and wish to seek it out.

I stay home all day and use my time in running a house and raising our son (soon to be two sons).  I take care of groceries, meals, laundry, house cleaning, child rearing, and usually bills.  I also serve as a conversationalist to my husband and his number one supporter.  I sit and listen to the details of his day and involve myself in those details so as to stay current in our conversations.  And sometimes it all bores me to death.

I still have dreams for myself.  I have wants.  I have desires.  I’ve been in the presence of other men and been extremely uncomfortable because of my attraction to them.  I’m committed in my relationship, but damn it, I’m still a woman with warm blood pumping through my veins.  Don’t forget that about me.

The worst part about all of this is when I, myself, forget this about myself.  I forget that I’m more than just Momma and Jessie’s wife.  I’m more than just the person fretting over what to make for dinner that night.  I’m more than the person who takes pride in the fact that I’ve found the perfect combination of laundry detergent and fabric softener that makes my towels smell like heaven.  It’s always in times of desperation and frustration that I remember, usually when I’m upset that someone else has forgotten.  That’s a damned shame, but in the drudgery of day to day life, an inevitability.

So when you see me kissing one of my kids or holding hands with my husband, please remember that there’s more to me.  There’s so much swimming beneath.  I’m still complex, I’m still human.  Yes, I’m a wife and mother, but I’m also still a woman.

Most of you know by now so I won’t beat around the bush with my little L.O.’s gender.  It’s a boy!  It was really nice to have that long ultrasound appointment and see my baby moving.  His little hands and feet, his little face.  It was all so precious.

I was so sure it was a girl.  So as it turns out, I am full of shit.  I’ll admit that I had a little moment when I first saw that little extra appendage.  This is it for me.  The end.  Before I got pregnant this time, there was always at least the hope that someday I would have a little girl of my own, but now that is all gone.  So yes, I had a moment.  And that’s all it was.  A tiny little pang in my heart that faded as I started planning a blue teddy bear nursery and teeny tiny baseball hats and precious little sneakers for tiny little boy feet.  Now that I know the sex of my L.O., I am very excited to meet him and hold him in my arms.

The loss of the prospect of someday having a daughter of my own is still a little sore for me right now.  Last night we were at Walmart doing some shopping and (of course) I made a detour through the baby section.  I was looking at a stuffed dinosaur that played music when I bumped into a rack.  On it were tiny dresses with pink and green flowers accessorized by dainty white cardigans.  I blinked back a few tears and stepped away from the rack, like it was going to bite me.  I may pout about it forever.  It’s in no way blaming my two sons for being sons.  I guess I just wanted to have that extra experience (and pain in the ass) of raising a daughter.  But that possibility is gone from my life.  There is no more daydreaming for me, no more fantasizing about what kind of woman I would release into the world.  That daydream is disintegrating like a wisp of smoke, never to be seen again.

In place of that daydream, I have futures to plan.  I have men to put out into the world this time.  Good men.  Men who will be kind.  Men who will put their responsibilities before their own wants.  Men who will in no way EVER remind me of some of the men that I grew up around.  Good husbands (or partners).  Good fathers.  Good friends.  And most of all, good brothers.

I guess my destiny was to be surrounded by toy cars and dinosaurs.  To have discussions about why it is not appropriate to shake your winky at your grandmother.  To raise men who will grow up and never be able to relate to me as anything more than their mother.  Oh well.  I shrug it off and move on.  I love my Lukas and I’ll love my L.O.  If L.O. giggles and hugs even half as much as his big brother, I’ll have it pretty damned good.

Cute Note* I’m crying a little bit as I’m writing this post and as if to say “Don’t worry Momma,” L.O. gave me a right good kick to my bladder.  I can’t wait to meet him.

I’m coming out of it, folks.  As with Lukas, with the onset of the second trimester, my pills seem to be helping much more.  I don’t have a severe case of HG.  As long as I have my pills and I’m able to get them down my gullet fairly early in the morning, I’m able to have a semi-normal day out of bed and doing my normal domestic duties.  I was getting a little worried that it wasn’t going to happen this time around, but it’s here.  Yesterday I got out of bed, cleaned a few rooms and I even made dinner!  I haven’t cooked dinner in a very long time but it was so rewarding to sit at the dinner table with my little family and eat something that I had prepared.  It was wonderful to feel productive again.

I had another blog post in mind for today, but this little blah blah is really just a platform for me to show off another video of Lukas being cute.  Today we sat in the sunroom and played with some of his toys and munched on some Oreo cookies.  We both share a deep love for Oreos, even though our view on how to eat them differ.  I am all about keeping them whole and dunking them.  Lukas is a split-and-lick kind of guy, which upsets me greatly.  He’s ruining a perfectly good cookie!

Lukas Oreo Face from Somer Canon on Vimeo.

Note:  I also LOVE how every “sentence” end in “Momma.”  If he’s talking to his toys and I’m in the room, every sentence directed at them still ends in “Momma.”  It’s really freaking cute.