Mama!

While I folded laundry, Elena made a discovery. She came running into the hallway saying, "Mama! Mama!" I met her in the hallway and she turned towards the living room. She took a few steps away from me and then looked back at me.

"Mama," she said, pointing towards the windows on the far side of the living room. Realizing she had something to show me, I followed.

I found this little exchange so charming. This is probably not the first time Elena has communicated, without words, that she has something she'd like me to see. But being that she's the second child, so many of the wonderful little things she does go unnoticed. Oh I remember the big stuff; the first night she slept alone in her bassinet instead of practically on top of me, her first word (Hi), the first steps she took on the tennis court at the park down the street. But the little stuff; the first time she smiled, the first time she sat up on her own, the first time she rolled over, even though they all happened more recently than Eliza's firsts, I don't remember them. It seems like the first 21 months of Elena's life have passed in a blur.

In fact, most days while Eliza's in school, Elena and I barely spend any time together. I am forcing myself to excercise so I do that while she plays in the playroom. Then I get sidelined by chores, phone calls, work-related activities. She and I hardly ever do things together where as with Eliza I hosted puppet shows, we went to the park constantly, I took 1,000 photos per week.

So today, I followed, excited to have this tiny interaction with her. I hoped that she wasn't going to show me another broken lamp. She toddled over to a shelf that holds several photographs, all of them including at least one of the three of us. She pointed to the only photo of me with both girls, her finger resting on me.

"Mama!" she said, grinning so broadly I thought her face might break. "Mama!" she said tapping the glass again.

The photo was taken sometime in the fall. It's from our back porch. I know it was taken after mid-August because we're sitting on an overturned canoe that belonged to my neighbor. On that day, she pulled up in her car and we waved down to her. She took out her camera and snapped the photo. I'm in the middle, the farthest from the camera. Elena is camera right, in the foreground, her hands on the bars of the porch. Eliza sits forward on my other side, grinning. I remember being so happy when my neighbor gave me the photo. There are very few photos of the three of us.

Elena was so happy with her ingenuity. She had recognized me in a photo. I'd like to say she recognized herself and her sister but she just kept pointing to me and smiling. There I was, her Mama, grinning unblinkingly from someplace else while I also stood beside her. I held up a photo taken six years ago of myself with baby Eliza but she didn't seem to recognize me. I tapped another photo of myself, cuddled against an actor for a show I worked on a long time ago. Elena didn't say anything, going back to the photo of the three of us and saying "Mama!"

I kissed her round, cottony cheek. My little Elena. I might not spend much time with her, but every now and then, we have a moment. It's not enough, I don't know that it's ever enough but it's going to have to do.

Happy, happy

"Happy" is the word Elena uses to start off her day each day. I hear her in the crib quietly saying singing "happy, happy" to herself. It's a derivative of the song happy birthday taught to her by a singing teddy bear. The singing Happy Birthday bear was a gift to Eliza for her first birthday from my close friend Meredith. Four years later, that same bear is teaching Eliza's little sister how to sing.

Happy is how we've been this week. Last week was a tough week and as of Saturday night, I decided this week would be a better week. Nothing particularly bad happened last week. There was another snowstorm but it was not nearly as bad as predicted and although we lost one day due to digging out, it did not impact us like the December 26th blizzard. I wasn't feeling great, a close friend went into the hospital last Tuesday and I interviewed for a job I really don't want. So I suppose those factors led to my bad mood. But mostly I just think I'm lonely. Starved for friends my own age. It's been one month straight of just me and the little girls. So I kicked off the pity party and let myself wallow in it a bit too long. Yelled at the kids, a bit too zealously. Didn't get enough sleep.

But then I decided enough was enough and we've had a good week so far. There is still enough snow outside to make it hard to walk around outside so we've been housebound. So Eliza helped make the soup on Sunday by peeling potatoes and carrots and mixing up the noodle dough. On Monday, my father and his wife stopped by for a bit and this did wonders to cheer up the little girls. Tuesday, Eliza went back to school and the past two days I've settled comfortably into my routine.

After I picked Eliza up at school yesterday, we stopped at Duncan Donuts on Ocean Avenue so I could get a gift card for Remy, my stepson who turns 14 on Friday. While the girls and I enjoyed donuts and hot chocolate, I noticed how huge the waves were across the street. The waves were so gigantic from all the current winter activity, it looked like they'd practically come into the donut shop. They were far enough away so I didn't feel unsafe but I've never been able to see ocean waves from inside the donut shop. They're usually blocked by the boardwalk and fence.

The girls and I went outside and crossed the street for a closer look. The waves came almost to the boardwalk. The girls ran down the boardwalk laughing and I realized, I've been driving past this ocean most days since Christmas vacation ended and I haven't stopped, not once, to look at the waves. As the girls enjoyed an unseasonably warm day by chasing each other in circles on the boardwalk, I savored the look, the sound, the smell of the beach in winter. There's still huge piles of snow along the beach. One pile is so high, kids have converted it into the equivalent of a black diamond for sledding. A temporary fence has been put up along a stretch to keep ocean avenue from flooding. But even with the weather, the bleakness, the snow, the beach is still so awesome. Watching the girls play, drinking them in, it made me so, happy, happy.

On to less happy thoughts--I may have landed this job I interviewed for. It's a good job and financially it will be a lifesaver but it will take me away from my girls for an extended period of time. I put the feelers out for babysitters and have some good candidates on the table, but I'm not sure where this will lead. I've been feeling happier because as time passed from the interview, I felt more comfortable that they've offered the job to some one else. But they called tonight and just left a message for me to call back. I don't plan to do it until tomorrow morning because I don't know what I want to say. I know I don't want it but then there's that voice in my head, not necessarily the one that's panicked about money, but the one that says, do you not want it because you're afraid of change? Change sometimes can be a good thing.

We'll see where this goes.

Exhausted

It's a new year, a time people often embrace with hope. We had a horrific snowstorm to close out the year that left me feeling a bit lost and not exactly hopeful. My life has always been about being as self-sufficient as I can be. I'm not the type to ask for directions and not the type to ask for help, even when I should. But nothing will bring you back to begging for help like the wallop of 36 inches of snow and 70mph winds that cause massive snow drifts, some more than seven feet high.

When I tell people we were trapped inside for more than 30 hours, other fellow storm survivors say "Yeah, we weren't plowed out until Tuesday." But no, I'm talking a five foot wall of snow pressed right up against my back door that made leaving that way impossible and a front door that's bolt was frozen shut.

Following the major snowfall on Sunday and early Monday, the day was so miserable and windy it's not like I wanted to go out anyway. From my front window, I could see a caterpillar going back and forth over the huge wall of snow that had formed across the street. The winds had created something I'd never seen before, a massive hill of snow stretching almost all the way down the block on one side of the street while on my side of the street, I could see the sidewalk. It looked like some kind of ominous wave. I'd never seen anything like it, the sight of that huge snow wave greeting me at 4am Monday morning still haunts me.

So with the caterpillar going back and forth, back and forth for several hours, on my block alone, I knew we weren't going anywhere no one was coming to us. But the hours ticked on by and still my front door wouldn't open. Trying to shovel down the wall of snow out the back door only succeeded in a huge pile of snow inside my house. The back porch and steps would have to be cleared from the outside but I couldn't get there.

I called my landlord who was in Florida, no real help. I spoke to the guy who'd been contracted to do snow removal, no real help. I saw some Mexicans walking down the street with shovels, I shouted out the window to them. They tried to pick at the block of ice that prevented my door from opening but they couldn't do it. I called the police who told me a lot of people were in my position and if the door was clear from snow, I could call them for help and they'd blast the door open. So I waited.

Around 7pm, the snow removal service arrived to clear a walkway in the building my landlord owns across the street. I hung a sign in the window for help, hoping they'd realize that even though my door looked clear, it wasn't. When I saw them packing up their truck to head home after probably a miserable day, I pounded on the window. They were able to pick through the ice and we were freed around 7:30pm. The business of freeing my car from a 10 foot wall of snow wouldn't happen until two days later. I used a sled to pull the two girls through town but with the mountains of snow on the corners, I often had to pull them onto the street. With Elena not exactly cooperative, just going two blocks was pretty scary.

Now more snow is looking this weekend and although the forecast so far is not severe, it could change on a dime. My parking space is still full of snow so I'm not sure where I'll park my car. My skylight in the bathroom and windows rattled so hard after the last snow, I'm not sure this apartment can really handle the winter that looms in front of us. I am responsible for driving my daughter to and from school on Friday. So I won't know where I can park until after I pick her up. I could decide to keep her home on Friday so I can park on one of the few slots on the street where the plows will hopefully leave me alone. The question of who will dig me out then hovers over my head.

It is all too much for a single woman with two young children. I am their sole provider. I have food and we won't starve. But if we lose power or there's an emergency, we really will be stuck inside. So I'm afraid. This is how 2011 starts for me. With fear.