Girl talk

So I was having a pity party the other day and I told the girls how now that my mother is gone, no one loves me but them.  This is not entirely true but it's close.  Though there are plenty of friends and extended family who love me from afar, they are not day to day like my mother.  My mother was my best friend and almost like my partner in life.  I could call her most nights before bed and we would laugh and cheer each other up after a tough day or share each other's happiness on a good day.

"No one loves mama but you guys," I said as Eliza hugged me tightly.

"But Mama," Elena said, spoon in hand.  We were in the middle of our dinner of leftover ziti and embellished lipton soup.  "You're the greatest."

I laughed.  Elena says many things to me, not all of them kind.  She can also be a very tough children, she screams, hits and often shoves me pretty hard when she's not getting her own way.  A lot of the time, when I don't give her what she wants or I correct an inappropriate behavior, she says "I don't like Mama anymore.  I don't want Mama."  Eliza often gets offended when Elena says such things, jumping to my defense.  I mediate by telling Eliza that her sister is only three, she doesn't know half of what she's saying.

So considering the source, I'm not exactly walking around patting myself on the back and feeling like I'm the greatest.  It was a nice moment, a cute moment, worth recording here.  It did the trick of making me feel loved.  But the loneliness is starting to expand.

Thanksgiving weekend was a tough weekend.  I spent some of it dealing with the business aspect of losing my mom.  I met with the realtor who, if I use her, plans to list the house a full $50,000 less than what's owed to the bank.  My mother lived in her house for 20 years and was a bit of a pack rat so poking around there, figuring out how to clear it out is horrifying.  I can get a dumpster, have a sale, host a cleaning out mom's house party but still the clean up can take months.

And then there's her mail, the ominous stack of bills with no funds to back them up.  I addressed one letter after another notifying bill collectors of her death.  This process took about two hours.  All but two bills were medically related, some from collection agencies for amounts as low as $40.  I felt an overwhelming sadness as I went through these bills realizing this had been her life for so many years, a struggle to pay out money that few people would have to every lab, doctor's office, medical facility and collection agency.  Even a wealthy person would find themselves financially challenged and this was my mother's life, sending money she didn't have for "supply fees", "lab copay."

And she still met my phone calls with enthusiasm, happy to listen to me whine or giggle over my latest escapade.

My poor mama, how she deserved so much better.  I miss her and I ache for her now.  I should have been there for her more, should have helped her write those bills, just been at her side, letting her know she wasn't in this alone.

The Orphan

"When the girl was still young, cruel fate took the mother's life and left the poor child an orphan, for as people say in Greece, "A child becomes an orphan when she loses her mother."

From the children's book, "The Orphan: A Cinderella Story from Greece."

My mother lost her long fight for her life around 2:30a Wednesday, November 14.  I was with her, timing a Smash script when she left me.  I sat on the floor about two feet away from her bed, my back to her, acting out the end of Act IV.  As I whispered the last of Ivy Lynn's lines, I suddenly realized that the horrific gurgle of her breath had silenced.  I looked at her, saw her chest rise and then spread out and stop, and rushed out of the room shouting "She's quiet!"  Three nurses marched in, brandishing stethoscopes.  One picked up her right arm which was pressed against the edge of the bed and rested in gently on her stomach.  I slid down against the wall and sat on the floor.

"I'm sorry for your loss," the first nurse out of the room said.  I stayed on the floor, refusing their offer of a chair, not wanting to be far from my mom as I waited for the undertaker type to arrive an hour later.  I didn't watch as he went into the room but the sound of a long zipper rising will never leave me.

I am not young and I still have a father but I feel like an orphan.  There are no words.  Eliza's birthday is next week so this weekend is filled with activities to celebrate her birthday.  She knows of my mother's death but is quietly mourning in her own way.  I don't know that the reality of forever is quite as accessible to her yet.  Frankly, I don't know that I realize it now.  I am going through the motions.  Sometimes when I'm giggle with my girls, I see Mom's face as she gasped on that hospital bed and I feel terrible that life continues, often joyously, for us when hers has stopped.  I will never stop feeling her weak arm around me for the last hug I will ever get from my mother.  It's like she willed herself to make it to my birthday and then let go.  After that, it was relatively quick.

In mid-October, the facility called to say she might code that night and what should they do about a DNR.  The nurse called to ask if she should bother to send my mother to the hospital or just let it go.  While I knew she had a terminal illness, I didn't know what was wrong with her and it was hard for me to believe that this was it.  So I told her she absolutely did not have my permission to just let my mother stay there without getting checked out.  It turned out she had a UTI which in the elderly or the very sick can render the sufferer delusional.  I met her at the hospital and watched as she screamed repeatedly that she had to move her bowels.  Two nurses pushed her onto a bedpan as she raised her arms touchdown style and grimaced but nothing happened.  I saw her naked that night, clawing at the hospital gown and the bedsheets.  My mother would not want me to see her naked but there I stood, staring at her mutilated body, the flat right breast from her mastectomy with it's useless nipple recreated by a plastic surgeon.  The long train tracks of a scar that ran down her abdomen from either her colon resection or the whipple.  Her wide fishbelly white butt as she writhed on the hospital bed.  the bruises that ran down her left arm from everyone trying to unsuccessfully extract blood from her collapsing veins.  I looked at this body, realizing it had no business being alive.

I stood over her, not knowing it was a UTI, thinking that this was it, she was leaving me.  I patted her hair, touching the misshapen scar caused by a craniaotomy that removed a benign brain tumor six weeks before Elena was born.

"I see you," she said, not to me.

"Do you, mom?  Do you see Pap Pap?"  My beloved grandfather.

"No," she said, looking at me for the very first time.  "I don't see him.  I don't see Pap Pap.  I don't want to die," she said and I understood.

"I don't want to die.  I don't want to die."

I nodded.

"I don't want you to die." I said.

But you're gonna, I thought, staring at the scars, all that damage so immediately apparent.

She didn't die, not that week.  It was a UTI and within hours of starting an antibiotic, she was greeting nurses and visitors with the words "I hear I was delirious.  Sounds interesting."

We were separated by the storm and three days passed without my being able to check in on her because the phones and the power was out.  So when I found her and I heard she was all right, that she was actually sitting up in a chair again, I became so hopeful.  The storm had passed and we were okay and I would be home and she would be with me again.

But she wasn't.  She was so very sick when we finally saw her on November 4th.  But she held it together until November 7.  She hugged me, she told me she loved me.  She went under the next day, babbling and gyrating with discomfort for two days and then comatose for the next four.  She didn't babble about seeing anyone who'd passed, it sounded more like she was somewhere else, reliving her youth.  There was no talk of white lights or some one else in the room.  Only of the steps she had to go down and the "practice" she had to do.

I think of her that night in the ER and all those battle scars.  How much that body had been through just so she could stay with us.  Before she went into the hospital never to return, she could barely get up from her chair but yet she hid how badly she felt so I'd let my kids stay with her when I went back to work for two weeks in the summer.  My babysitter tells me now how my mother told her not to tell me that she had pain.  I don't know if she didn't want me to worry or if she was afraid I'd take the kids away.  What I do know is how little she told me about what she was going through.  How little she wanted me know.  

Her sad, weak, almost useless naked body with all those scars.  I stood beside her that night, not able to hold her hand because she squirmed from one side of the bed to the other.  I stared down at the jagged lines on her navel and I felt nothing but a hot, fierce, surging pride.  I don't know that I will ever be prouder of anyone, not even my own kids, ever.

This was my mom at the end of her life but there's so much more to her, so much more.  I don't know that I even love my kids as much as I love her.

Sandy Battered

So Sandy drove us from our home by the beach.  I'm happy to say our apartment was unharmed and life is slowly returning to normal for us after being displaced for ten days.  It was quite a ride and the landscape has changed in ways I couldn't have foreseen.  Though we came through it all unscathed, I still feel like I've got some kind of post traumatic stress going on and we were hardly experienced the storm itself.  It's the stories of others, the photos of so many places I loved, the shock of seeing the Mantoloking Bridge, a bridge that connected me to my Mom's house under water.  Seeing that roadway severed is like cutting an artery off between me and her.

I was prepared to ride out the storm with the girls alone.  This plan started to fall flat when I realized my next door neighbor was vacating and leaving us on our own.  On Sunday, C came down and gently urged us to come to his place in Manhattan. I thought it weird for all of us to be staying under one roof, especially now that he's got a hot young girlfriend but he said it wouldn't be weird and I'm happy to say it wasn't.  We drove back to his place on Sunday and functioned pretty well, even surviving the power outage Monday night with fun stories, candlelight and an early bedtime.

Tuesday saw things a little tenser.  The power still hadn't returned and C was getting antsy.  Brooklyn had power and I retain a small room there.  C's brother lives there and he decided to go there.  They only problem was getting there with no subways running and cabs a hotter commodity than they've ever been.  We did eventually get a cab to take us to Williamsburg where my friends Melissa and Tim waited with open arms.  C got a ride to his brothers and the girls and I embarked on our Brooklyn adventure with plenty of fine meals and fun and Melissa's.

The lack of power in Manhattan tunnel closings prevented us from returning to our area until the following weekend.  The facility my mother is in lost phone service and I went out of my mind through the week wondering how she was.  A friend was finally able to stop by on Thursday and gave me an emergency number.  A nurse happily told me she was actually sitting up in a chair and had done fairly well that day.  She'd not been in great shape over the weekend so I felt thrillingly hopeful to hear she'd been sitting up in a chair.

We came home to find our place in good shape but plenty of streets a mess.  We took a long walk through town and along the beach to survey the damage.  The boardwalk had been completely ripped from the foundation like it had never existed.  Huge pieces of the boardwalk were everywhere.  Memorial benches were stacked up in various places in varying states of ruin.  I planned to get a memorial bench for my Mom for this boardwalk.  Now this doesn't seem like such a good idea.

After decided that our home, while undamaged, was too cold to stay in with no electricity and heat, I packed the girls up again to head to my father's.  On the way to his place, we stopped by to see my Mom.  The Steeler game was on the TV but my mother was gyrating and grimacing in pain.  Elena had one meltdown after another, eventually pooping in her pants.  I'd not seen my mother for a week and in this moment, I was very frustrated with my kids for not allowing me some time with Mom.  Finally, I stuck them in the hallway and the nurses chimed in with lollipops and paper and colored markers.  I sat and held mom's hand but there wasn't much I could do.  She was obviously in pain and couldn't even feign much interest when I told her about all the damage; about the friend currently staying in her house because she got flooded from her home, about the decimation of Sea Bright and Mantoloking, about the roller coaster in Seaside that was now lying in the Ocean.

She asked me to bring her a newspaper when I came back.  I nodded and said I would.  I did bring that paper a few days later but by this point, she was too out of it to even look at it.

My mother was in pain that night but she was still my mother.  The following day, after a restless night on an air mattress at my father's, I signed her over to in-hospice care.  The day after that the nurse told me Mom would not open her eyes again but the nurse was wrong.  That night she opened her eyes and she nodded and communicated some what with us.

The following day was my birthday.  I couldn't spend as much time with her as I wanted because of an incoming snow storm but it may have been the last day I spent with my mother as my mother.  She couldn't really talk much but we could communicate with nods and gestures.  I climbed onto the bed with her and she hugged me with her one good arm.  Her left arm just drooped there, suddenly useless for reasons unknown.

A foot of snow kept me at my father's the following day longer than I wanted but we eventually made it out and came home to find that after ten days we had electricity.  My babysitter met us at our place and I dropped Eliza off at dance (her first foray into her old life in close to two weeks as school was cancelled) and I rushed off to see Mom.  Mom muttered and gyrated a lot, seemingly frustrated with her body's limitations.  I couldn't understand most of what she said.  She kept rambling about her salvation. This is not a word she used much in her life.  I finally had to head home, to get some groceries for my family and settle in to my first night in my bed in close to two weeks.

Friday, my mom was awake and alert but not my mom.  She kept muttering about her mom, her sister, how she had to get up and do her practice.  She had to do the dishes and go down the steps.  I thought she might be back in the house she grew up in with my grandparents but I really can't be sure. She was visibly uncomfortable and seemed frustrated by the fact that I couldn't help her.  I didn't think she knew who I was but at one point, she asked that her diaper be changed and said she didn't want "lisa in the room."  So she did know me and tears came to my eyes.

I came home that evening, made dinner for my kids and then headed back.  Mom was still agitated so they gave her more drugs.  The drugs seemed to work and she conked out.  But Saturday, the day they finally restored power to the area around her facilty, Mom's eyes didn't open.  She moved around a bit, grumbling like she was trying to wake up but nothing happened.  My Aunt Carm, my mother's sister, finally came after months of not bothering and threw a fit because she didn't know how bad it was.  I felt like telling her pancreatic cancer is a horrible thing and she missed opportunities to see Mom left and right but there's no point in trying to deal with Mom's crazy sister.  She came, she saw, she ran out in tears I'm sure never to return again.  I can't even feel sorry for her because I'm way too busy feeling sorry for myself.

Tonight I sat there holding my Mom's hand, listening to her grunt.  I tried to drip water into her mouth but she closed her mouth tightly.  I talk to her and I think she hears me but honestly, it doesn't matter.  It doesn't seem to be comforting to her.  Sometimes touching her, rubbing her head or holding her hand seems to soothe her but often it seems to just agitate her.

The girls finally go back to school tomorrow.  A guy I work with shot himself yesterday and the memorial is up in North Jersey on Tuesday.  I'm supposed to return to work on Thursday but I just don't know how that's going to happen.  My girls keep me going but at the same time, I feel myself unraveling.  The train that connected my home to New York sustained serious damage so there's another artery that's been cut.

I look at that picture of that roller coaster in the Atlantic and I think, that's me.  I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here and yet here I am, just bobbing above the surface, waiting for some one or something to take me to wear I belong.

Hearts

The pain of watching the life flow out of some one I love so thoroughly, intensely and completely is not something I'm capable of describing adequately.  I keep remembering a line written by a male writer I really respect who's name escapes me now, the line goes something along the lines of "amplified to a scream."  The pain I'm feeling is amplified to a scream.

I dug out my Mary Oliver poetry book today.  I thought it would be nice to read these poems to my mother in moments of relative calm.  Now's the time when I just want to sit beside her, hold her hand and cherish each moment I can look at her and see her still breath.

A heart with an arrow is drawn at the top and bottom of the note.  I've no idea when it was written but there's no disputing that it's her handwriting.

Hi-
hope these eye drops help.  If they do and ou need more, let me know.
Sorry it's only half-full (beside this line there is also another drawing of another heart and inside it reads (I Love Lisa) but if they work, that should sustain you until I get more--
Mom

I have never been able to properly describe her in writing.  I have very little notes or remnants of our relationship.  I only have what lives inside me and that does not seem like enough.

Thank you Patty.  Your good wishes and comments have meant more to me than you could ever know.

Sunny Sunday

Today was a great day.  It was a beautiful, sunny, unseasonably warm day.  The sky burned a beautiful, almost terrifying blue.

It is a calm time.  My mother is in a rehabilitation facility, trying to get some strength back.  I don't know that she'll ever walk without the aid of walker again.  I still don't know how she went from being on her own to being completely immobilized in the space of a week but I guess that's cancer or chemo or something for you.

Whenever I visit my mother during the week, the case manager and the social worker appear to tell me my mother might be released any day to do insurance issues.  But today was Sunday so there was none of that.  I have a minor plan for when she is released but I have yet to even talk to any of the players.  It's hard to tell exactly how much care Mom will need when she gets out because her progress is different every day.  What I do know is that home health aids aren't covered by her insurance so once she gets out, whatever she needs will require a big burst of cash.

Today she was calm, responsive, rested, happy.  She is feeling stronger and the overwhelming sadness she faced when the doctor decided to suspend any treatment, probably for good, fell to the background.  We spoke of the girls, their new bunk beds, the cute guy at work that I now have a crush on, C and his new young girlfriend.  She sat up the entire time I was there, a first for this month of October.

She asked if I could put the leg rests on her wheelchair and wheel her around.  The old me, the me of only a few weeks ago really, wouldn't have tried.  But I staired at the leg rests and the pegs on the sides of the chairs and I figured it out.  And off we went, on a beautiful day, down the hall, into the elevator, and out the automatic doors to a beautiful day.

Trees surrounded us with the view of a manicured U shaped lawn and several flag posts.  I didn't know how to put the break on the wheelchair and fearing accidentally releasing my mother into the parking lot, I sat beside her, holding the handles of the wheelchair.  I could hear the traffic from Route 38, just on the other side of the trees.  As a teenager, I often walked down the street this facility was on on my way to football games.  I think it was mostly undeveloped land, maybe a few historic houses that had been leveled to make way for this facility for the old, the sick, the newly rehabilitated.  I pointed to the trees in various directions, telling where the bank was, the eye doctor center that was once a florist.  We once lived not far from this facility, in a house she and I shared with my brother, a home from another lifetime ago.

She was happy and so was I.  I will remember this simple moment for the rest of my life.

Once inside, I steered her back into her room with a good view of her TV.  I had to go, time to grocery shop and return to my world with my girls, my world outside the prison she now faces, this prison of poor health.  I am so lucky to have this time with my mother.  I am grateful for every day, every moment, every time I have ever been able to call her and have her pick up the other end.

I don't know how scary the road ahead of us is but I have today.  I will always have it.  I will always love her, maybe more than anyone.  Maybe even more than my own daughters.  She has always been the only person who was ever really and truly mine.

My Mama

Today was the day of the walk for Autism Research my mother and I usually attend with Billy.  Last year was a beautiful, sun drenched day.  My mom looked strong and proud as she put on her Team Billy T shirt and posed for a few photos with our tiny team.

What a difference a year makes.  I am grateful for this year I've had with her.  I'm grateful for every day.  I am thankful for today, for yesterday, for the day before.  My heart is full and heavy at the same time.

Yesterday, at the hospital, I sat in the only chair in my mom's tiny room.  Eliza found her way onto my lap for a snuggle and soon after, Elena came up attempting to pull Eliza off my lap.  As the girls fought over who got to sit in Mama's lap, my own mother, clearly disoriented, uncomfortable and in pain, said "Hey girls, I have an idea.  When you go home tonight, go into the playroom and start picking up toys. And whoever picks up the most toys gets to sit on Mama's lap."

As Eliza got dramatic, saying "mama doesn't love me, she loves Elena better than me," my mom corrected firmly, telling Eliza that I feed her, I wash her clothes, I take her to school, I take her to dance class so "How can you say she doesn't love you."

My mama, my champion, my love.

I wrote something nice for her on Facebook, something everyone could see but now I can't remember it.  My mother fought for her autistic son and talked her way into a career as a reporter in a time when women didn't work so much by walking into buildings and saying "I want to work."  She is my hero, my best friend and one of the great loves of my life.

I think I said it better on facebook but you get my gist.  I love my mama, and she loves me.  I love my mama and she loves me.

I love my mama and she's sick and leaving me.

But I have to

So my Mom was fine and now she's not.  Tonight, I wept so loudly with such force, Eliza covered her ears.  I probably scared her.  As her mother, I should try to control myself, to not let her see me like this.  But I couldn't hold it in and I'm not sure I can.  I know I am their mother and part of the mother manual reads something like "don't scare the heck out of your kids with voluminous, athletic weeping."

Eliza told me I cried louder than Elena which means I cried pretty damned loudly.

I took mom to the hospital a week ago after finding her too weak to take care of herself.  I'd been there exactly a week earlier and though she was actively complaining about hemorrhoid pain, she seemed otherwise okay.  I returned to work during the week and she was fine on Tuesday when I spoke to her. By Thursday, she could barely speak.  On Friday, I seriously wondered if I should leave work to take her to the hospital.  Sending over a neighbor, I toughed out the day and prepared for the worst on Saturday.  The fact that she went to the hospital without a fight shows how badly she felt.

Feeling somewhat secure by the fact that she was in the hospital I returned to work.  But as the week wore on, all kind of insanity took flight.  She couldn't speak directly so various nurses and doctor workers fielded my phone calls.  I extracted as much information as I could, a lot of clinical, a lot of in downright untrue.  By Friday, when I finally made it back to the hospital, I practically ran down the long, sun drenched corridor to her room.

I found her high on Percoset, happy, and seemingly much improved from how I'd left her.  Things are not great, but she looked better and that gave me hope.  But there was no sign that she could get out of bed on her own.  We are on that point now where she can't take care of herself.  So here we are.

Today didn't start out as a bad day.  When I called the hospital, they told me physical therapy was there and they hoped to release her to a rehab facility.  I think the plan is to try to get her stronger so she can go home with the aid of palliative care and, gulp, hospice.  I cried upon hearing the H word, but seeing her smile yesterday buoyed me tremendously.  A few hours later, the hospital called to ask me if I could take her to rehab and her insurance would not cover transport.  I loaded up the girls and off we went.

Things did not go well from this point forward.  Nothing awful happened but let's just say my mother was in a far worse state than she had been yesterday.  My hopes were crushed.  On top of her sorry demeanor and dazed, terrified expression, there was snag that prevented her release for a few hours.  The girls, as always, handled the time at the hospital well but it was stressful.  Finally she was released but she moaned in pain for much of our ride to the rehab place.  Upon our arrival, I found her completely incapable of getting out of the car on her own.  When a woman showed up with a wheelchair, my mother still could not get out of the car.   The attendant didn't know how to help and sent for a large male orderly who took what felt like an eternity to arrive on the scene.  My girls amused themselves by rushing in and out of the automatic doors, an activity I knew I should suppress but somehow couldn't.  It took everything out of me to keep it together as I watched my mother wait for the attendant, completely incapable of doing something she'd done when I dropped her at the hospital a week ago.

After finally getting her settled in her new room, my girls desperate for dinner, I took off.  I headed home and chose to park in the back lot behind my building as it's safer to park there on weekends.  Well not this weekend because my neighbor chose today to back right into my car door.  It was an accident, she felt terrible but then I lost it, crying in my car.  Everyone was okay, the car will be fixed, it is yet another thing to add to my to do list.

But there it is, some pretty bad timing.  I can't shake the sound of my mother's moaning.  Or the way Eliza clung to her at the hospital last night.  When I cried, big shaking, earthquake causing sobs tonight, I just said the same thing over and over again.

I want my mother.

In the car on the way over on the radio

I can't breath without you, but I have to.

my girls

The top is my darling Elena on her very first day of school, ever.  Underneath, there she is with her beloved sister on Eliza's first day as a second grader.  I love, love, love, love my little girls.

Happy Mama

About a month ago, work agreed to let me alternate or "job share" and my "work partner" started last Thursday.  So I've officially been home since last Thursday and it's been wonderful.  It started off in a sort of bittersweet way because C took the girls on Thursday to attend his brother's wedding.  So here I was, finally home from work and I spent the morning packing them up, then kissing them good-bye.

And either Sunday or Monday I'll kiss them good-bye and head back to work for two weeks.  With our schedule changing in a fast and furious manner, I have a feeling I'll be at work more than I want to be.  But I've still had the pleasure of an entire week off and the security of knowing a job and a paycheck is still on tap.

I've been able to swim in our still open pool, take Elena to and from school and watch her enjoy her very first playdate.  She has thoroughly embraced school and can't wait every day for her afternoon session.  It's not perfect as she still really needs her afternoon nap and school has nixed that, but she loves strapping on her little backpack and being a big girl like her sister.  She's always been desperate to do everything her sister does and now she's finally right there, getting picked up after school like her sister.

She's had a cold all week and today I decided to keep her home after a particularly rough evening with her.  I put her down for a nap during the time she'd usually be at school and she slept soundly until it was time to pick up Eliza.  When she woke up, she thought it was time for her to go to school and she started trying to put on her little backpack.  Upon the realization that school was not happening for her, she broke into sobs so loud I really felt awful.  I knew she needed the sleep and I know I did the right thing but hearing my little girl sound so sad was so painful.  However, I did enjoy the extra time with her before her nap, precious time that I would have surrendered to her time at school.  I also enjoyed the much less dramatic evening spent with a child more suitably rested.

My Eliza still appears to be a little superstar.  I had the pleasure of attending back to school night and upon opening her folder found a lovely letter she'd written to me.  She'd mentioned making a family tree and not having enough room for everyone.  Imagine my surprise when I looked at her family tree and it consisted of "Pap Pap" (my grandfather), "great-grandma" (my grandmother) her father, my mother, me and Elena.  That's it.  Even though the top of the page read her father's last name (her last name), it was the story of my family.  I was moved to see my grandparents names there, people she barely knew but yet greatly respects because she knows of my love for them.  I also think she is a savvy girl, she made the family tree knowing that I was her audience and the end result would be different if she'd made it for her father's eyes.  In time she will get to know the story of her father's family and being that they are all alive and as such, may become more present in her life than my family, this tree will change.  But in a weird way, knowing that I'm the one who really does all the work, who makes so many more sacrifices then C will ever make, it was nice to see her surround herself with my family.

I think the next two weeks of work will be pretty brutal and I will be missing the girls so completely.  It will also be the first real test of my babysitter who so far has only worked for us part-time.  She seems up to the task and I'm feeling very lucky with her but I'm nervous that this bubble I'm in right now will burst.

As for my mother's health, she is still hanging in there.  She started an experimental treatment last week that made her seriously ill.  She's been off it for a week but resumes on Friday, a day she's dreading.  I think I'm still in denial about how sick she is and can't say I've seen her much or done much for her since I haven't been at work.  I went over last weekend while the girls were away and haven't been back since.  With Elena in school for only 2 and 1/2 hours, it's hard to do too much.  I'm paying my sitter half her salary when I'm not working and I could use her more to help out with my mom but I'm trying to ease the sitter in with an easier schedule because I know it will get tougher later on.

Bur for now, I'm a happy mama.  I got to go to back to school night, bake for the school's bake sale, pick out clothes for the girls, pick them up after school every day and tuck them in every night.  I'm a lucky Mama, happy with my girls and my life.

looking for good the stuff

Life is so hectic these days I have to force myself to acknowledge this is the good time.  I should stop waiting for the next good thing to happen and bask in the good stuff that's all around me at the moment.  I have a good job, though I might not have it for much longer.  How many people can say they've worked on a show like "Smash?"  I've got one season and almost three season two episodes under my belt, my mom is still alive and kicking and my girls are so, so, so wonderful.

I asked to job share yesterday and right now I'm waiting for that to be finalized.  A biopsy last week confirmed my mom's cancer has returned.  She's determined to start another course of chemo but I don't think any doctor is optimistic about it's success.  Her platelets are too low for chemo so they've been giving her injections to help boost them.  I don't know how long they'll let her have chemo and when she has to stop, that's going to be crushing for her.

But we're not there yet, so this is the good stuff.

The girls have been staying with their father since July 29.  My former New York babysitter is watching them about 45-50 hours per week until August 31st.  She loves my girls and they're having a fairly good time with her so this is some seriously good stuff.  My work schedule doesn't allow me much time with time.  It's Wednesday and I haven't seen them since Sunday because we've started before they wake up and ended after they're bedtime.  In some ways, it's almost more painful knowing they're so close and yet I can't see them because my work schedule is such a grind.  I will see them tomorrow but we only have a half hour for lunch and it might be the toughest shooting day on our schedule so it's going to be very stressful.

But for 30 minutes, I will feel those little arms around me and this is good stuff.

This past Saturday night, I brought the girls back to the tiny room in my friend's apartment that I use while working in New York City.  In preparation, I bought tape and attached one of Eliza's paintings and a card she made for me on the wall.  I washed the sheets of the full sized mattress that rests on the floor.  I did laundry and took out trash.  At night, Eliza sprawled across the bed, holding me tightly while she eased Elena onto the comforter on the floor beside the mattress.  When your mattress is on the floor, it's not much of a fall so Elena seemed pretty comfortable on the comforter.  In the morning, when Eliza got up to go to the bathroom, I rolled over to find Elena managed to roll herself back on the bed.  It was 6:15, way too early for both girls to be up, especially when I hadn't been able to get them to bed until 10p or so.  But Elena grinned like a maniac and I felt happy, waking up with my girls for the only morning last week, exhausted but elated in that way you can only be after a sleepless night spent when you're falling in love.

Every day I find another reason to fall in love with my girls.  But with work being such a time suck and the job itself being somewhat stressful, my ultra quick weekends with the girls have become a real chore.  They're clingy, agitated, tired and whiney.  I find myself gritting my teeth and begging my inner Gods for patience I've somehow lost.  It's as if my job has devoured any patience I might have and left me with less then a trickle for the two people who matter most to me.  As they jumped on the mattress in this small room we shared that happens to be five flights up so it's hard to leave and come back, I found myself wondering how I'd get through that exhausting Sunday with them.

Stop feeling like this, I said to myself as they trampled over me on the bed, the sole place to sit in this room.  This is your short time with them.  It's precious, they're happy, enjoy it.  Stop looking for the good stuff, this is it.

Hopefully it will work out and my employers will let me job share so I can be with my girls for two weeks out of the month.  I can be around for my Mom more and reconnect with some of that patience I find in such dismal supply at the moment.  Because this is what it's about for me.  While I don't want to commit financial suicide, I have to do whatever it takes to make sure I stay a good mom.

Once a failure, always a failure

When the prep work for my job pick up the week before I have to start, I get a little crazy.  I'm trying to spend as much time with my kids as I can but I also have people counting on me to do certain things from home.  So when I get a new draft of a script, this shortly before shooting, I have to rearrange my day around breaking it down.  The trouble is, my kids don't understand that.

Before I had kids, I hated this time before work.  The dread of knowing my life is about to change drastically and not knowing how well I'll adjust.  We have a lot of new faces this season so it's not exactly like I'm going home.  In many ways, I'm starting all over again and that's never easy.

So on that ominous note, I'm also going crazy arranging child care, interviewing more sitters for the fall and generally trying to get everything in order before I go back in the trench work life of 70 hour work weeks 60 miles from my home.  Yes, I'm so lucky I have a job but trying to juggle it all often feels like if there's a hell, this is.

Today, I really thought I couldn't handle it anymore and I still haven't fully recovered.  My kids have barely eaten today, in part because I haven't had time to go grocery shopping and then right when we were ready to go, in came the new script.

I met a fabulous sitter for the fall yesterday and went ahead and hired her today.  We talked at great length yesterday and I feel lucky, but shortly after I hired her and she accepted, her requests started texting in.  I sure do with we felt comfortable discussing these things face to face these days because texting sure eats up a ton of time.  I hope it works out with her but I'm not sure she fully understands how TV schedules change constantly.  She wants her "schedule" and I'll give her one but it might change drastically every other week so what's the point of getting locked into it now?  But I have to go into this with positivity because she's great but I also know these babysitters have me over a barrel.

I love my kids but Oh to be C and never, ever have to arrange child care.  He can go to work and earn money and never have to interview sitters, call references or deal with sitter demands and requests.

As the primary caregiver, I enjoy a relationship with my children he will never have.  I get this.  I am usually happy in my role.  Today, I have to remind myself of this because I'm so thoroughly and completely overwhelmed.

I wanted to be a writer, I'm not.  I wanted to be in a happy, stable family relationship, I'm not.  I wanted to find a different job, one that would enable me some level of flexibility in terms of my schedule.  I don't think that will ever happen.  When I finally managed to drag my kids to the store today, I really thought I'd start screaming and never stop.  Elena won't potty train and I'm tired of trying to get her to do it.  If I let her run around in underwear, she pees.  I finally thought we were getting somewhere last week when trapped inside by the heat, she actually spent one entire day accident free.  The following day she peed everywhere and now refuses to get on the potty.  If I stick her on, she does nothing.  After six years in diapers, I really don't think I can handle diapers anymore.  I hate how much space they take up, how she just lies there while I clean up her crap, how she's not even trying at all.

Of course the store had toys and of course the girls cried because I wouldn't get them any.  Of course walking out of the store involved my having to haul Elena across a parking lot because there was no room in the cart with all the paper towels and diapers we need to clean up after her.  Naturally on Friday, the traffic was atrocious and the humidity made it feel like it was 100 degrees.

I screamed obscenities at other drivers in the car and scared the girls with my bad behavior.  I laughed at myself and told them I was acting stupid and they should know by watching me never to act like that.     But inside I know the truth.  I'm a failure at everything, even motherhood.  I honestly felt today if I had anyone, anyone who wanted to raise my kids, I'd let them.

Eliza cleaned the playroom all by herself today while I timed the script.  It's even clean enough to get a vacuum in which is something of a miracle.  It was all motivated by her desire to get a certain toy and now she's demanding we return to the store immediately for her reward, a reward Elena really can't share in because after three months of trying, I'm really sick of the fact that she won't even try to use the toilet.  But I don't have time to go back to the store, I don't have time for the 10,000 things that have to get done.  I don't feel like making dinner and we ate out last night.

That's motherhood.  Being a failure and still not being able to walk away from this job.  Tomorrow will be a better day.  It has to be.

Don't Dream it's Over

So here we are in late June, a wonderfully happy time.  One of the perks of season one of Smash was the fabulous northern California vacation I was able to share with my daughters.  We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, took a day trip to a redwood forest, ate countless bowls of clam chowder, cruised the San Francisco Bay and toured the streets of Chinatown in a motorized duck.  This photo is our only view of the Pacific Ocean from high above Muir Beach.  My daughters were marvelous, truly, and we shared a time we won't ever forget.

In less than a week, I return to work.  And it feels like a death.  I know that's not what it is at all.  I am lucky.  I have a job.  This job provides health insurance, rent money, clothes and fine dinners for us all. This year it even took us across the country on a fabulous adventure.  I like the people I work with.  Sure, the hours are long and shooting outside all night long sucks but sometimes, those night shoots can feel like a party.  There are more pros then cons when it comes to my job.

But let me get back to those long hours.  When a typical day starts at 7am and ends around 9pm and I live too far from where I work?  I don't see my kids for five days in a row.  As one friend said, I leave for work and they're sleeping.  I get home and they're sleeping.

Today was the first read through of season 2 of Smash.  Read throughs are fun.  The cast, executive types and various peon types such as myself gather to hear the cast read the dialogue of the episode as scripted.  I took the girls to New York, enlisted my old babysitter to watch them, and then attended the read through.  I love our cast.  I hugged recent Tony winner Christian Borle.  I chatted with Debra Messing and Kat McPhee and sang happy birthday to Angelica Huston.  We were all happy to be together and Angelica dedicated her wish to us, saying she already had all she wished for and wanted us to fulfill our wishes.  This is the truth; this is the kind of person she is.

The script was good and it set a hopeful tone for the season of the show.  We have a new regime and there's a lot about the old regime I greatly admire and miss.  But I do love this cast and even with a new regime, there's just something about this show that I love so much.  I guess because it's about a group of people with show biz dreams and I was once young with show biz dreams and I see myself in them.

In this, there is a greater heartbreak that I can't go into as far as my own dreams.  Let's just say I am a writer and I know I can write for this show and I don't think I will ever have the chance.  And that breaks my heart, just breaks my heart in ways I can't describe.  I am happy to be a part of this show but I will always be on the outside.  And the truth is, I want to be on the inside not just to feel creatively fulfilled but as a writer, I could see my children more.

Today I left Elena with a new sitter and she was okay with it.  At first I thought this because she liked this sitter.  Now I think it's because I've been home for three months and she's gotten to trust that when I leave her with the sitter, I do return on the same day.  She's not going three, four or five days without seeing me.  So now that I've got her trust back, what do I do but rip it all right out from underneath her. Next week I go back to work on Tuesday and that's it, I probably won't see her until Saturday.

I only have a sitter through the end of summer.  I've had no luck finding a sitter for the fall.  So I may have to quit abruptly in the fall anyway if I can't find a sitter.  I tell myself I'm okay with this but I'm not.  I can write for this show and though it's highly unlikely, I might have a shot writing for this show. But it won't happen if I have to quit in seven weeks.  I made it through last season and I did make some headway but if I don't make it through this season, that's it.  All the time I've spent here will be lost.

So tonight, as I write this, my heart is breaking in a thousand different ways.  I called my mother to talk about what this all feels like and she listened in her current distracted state, too overwhelmed by how shitty she feels to care too much.  Without her, I have no one to call to talk about this stuff.  Without her, I am more alone than I can ever describe.  She has been the only person to share in my personal triumphs and tragedies.  C was there for a lot of really big moments in my life and a lot of the time he was really quite great.  But a lot of the time he was like he was the night I labored overnight with Elena.    It was too soon to give me an epidural and I was having heavy contractions every two minutes.  I begged him to just sit near me and hold my hand so I could get through the contractions.  He did this for about 30 minutes before collapsing on the chair to sleep.  He just couldn't stay up all night, not even with his daughter getting ready to emerge into the world.

All I want is to make a living as a writer.  It's all I've ever wanted but now I need it like a life raft.  Because being a writer also enables me to be a mom too.  I feel like Elena's grown up so much in just a few weeks.  I don't want to rip the world from out beneath her feet again.

Please, universe, please help me here.

Sister Love

I posted this photo on Facebook recently with the caption "Sister is another word for love."  My girls really do love each other, most of the time.  The rest of the time they fight like crazy.  I wouldn't believe two girls could cause each other so much angst over a cup full of colored pencils but I'm often amazed at what they'll choose to fight about.  Tonight when I actually managed to get them to share those colored pencils, reminding them that they could only color with one pencil at a time, I really felt like some kind of middle east peace negotiator.  They happily sat at the dining table and colored for all of five minutes before they moved on to the next fun activity; pretending they were pirates on the back porch.

Oh what a wonderful time in their life this is.  Eliza has one more day of school and then I will no longer have a first grader.  Elena is registered to start pre-K in the Fall but I'm not optimistic about her academic life.  She clings to me like crazy whenever we're within 50 feet of the school, grabbing onto my leg and saying "school next year!  Next year!" with the kind of terror reserved for lakeside camp horror movies.  She is also developmentally behind other kids her age and I'm afraid that school might be the beginning of a new chapter in my life--that of the mother of a kid who is a little "special."

She has yet to potty train, preferring the ease of diapers or just peeing on the floor to the stress of controlling her bodily functions.  At first, I thought she lacked the belief that she could do it but after countless readings of "Little Quack" in the bathroom, I've come to think differently.  In "Little Quack," five scared little ducklings cling close to the nest while the mother duck encourages them to paddle on the water with Mama, saying "You can do it, I know you can."  Eventually, the ducklings all hit the water, overcoming their fear.  I really thought showing Elena how these ducklings conquered their fear, she'd realize she could use the potty.  However, when I try to get her to use the potty when she's deep in play, her quoting the scared ducklings of "Little Quack" sounds less like fear and more like an excuse not to be bothered to learn this.

But it's not just the potty training, her speech and ability to communicate is not that great.  She also doesn't have the greatest motor skills and can't really do more on paper than scribble.  I tried to get her to sing the ABC song today but she wouldn't because I'm sure she doesn't actually know it.  Sometimes I feel guilty--if I spent more time coloring and drawing with her the way I did with Eliza, she'd be more advanced but the truth is, when I try to color with it, which isn't often, she's no interest whatsoever.  She'd much rather retreat to her own little world with her little Lalaloopsy dolls and reenact the Lalaloopsy movie she insists on watching day in and day out.  She also freaks out if her sandwich breaks in half or one side of the bread is bigger than the other side.

So while I'm not expecting school to be a big hit for Elena, I'm now worried that it will serve as that turning point, that moment when I'm told my little one is not like other little ones.

But while I face this fall with trepidation for so many reasons (I will be back at work!  I won't get to see my kids at all!) I still say this is a wonderful time.  Watching these two little girls interact and connect and disconnect and fight is just about the best thing in the world.  When I don't want to lock myself in a room and cry because I can't deal with the fighting anymore.  I get the great privilege of seeing their relationship unfold.

Elena is not the most affectionate child but at least once a day she'll come up to me and kiss me or put her little arms around my neck in a hug.  Just like you see in the picture above, those tiny little arms will find their way around my neck and lock together.  And that moment, that feeling of those arms around me, it's just so indescribably great nothing I can write here can possibly describe it.  I am just so completely dumbfounded that tiny little arms like that could have so much power.

Recital Day

There's no time to write because it's time to make Elena's lunch but I wanted to upload some photos of Eliza, ready for her dance recital.  I don't think she's on her way to professional dancerhood but she had a great time getting dressed up, made up and hanging out with her friends.  Every year, I'm sad when that weekend in June is over and we've got to wait another year for the next one.  On the plus side, my mother made it to the recital this year.  She couldn't last year because she was too sick.  So hopefully, Mom will be at the next one too.

Lifework

My mother is dying.  Not today, no today she is set to take care of Elena while I attend to Eliza at her endless dance recital.  But try as I might to pretend that she will somehow cheat death, I see her body struggling to hold itself up.  I can tell myself none of us really knows how long we have and all we have is today but there it is, written all over her.  I love my mom and she has pancreatic cancer.

The doctors were reassuring.  They tried to cut it out of her.  They offered her radiation and an aggressive chemotherapy regimen in the hopes that it "could extend her life."  I bought the line that they could extend her life long enough to find a cure.  Now it's almost a year later, fortunately she's still here but she is weak, disoriented, visibly making her descent.

My mother is the only person I've ever had that's truly mine.  She has always been my "last call" of the night, the only person who listened to my endless pratterings no matter how inane, how repetitive.  She is my champion, my hero, the only person who has ever loved me unconditionally.  I don't know how I'm supposed to survive without her.

As I face this, people say I will go on.  My children need me and my mother would want me to continue.  I get that and I know all too well my role as my children's caregivers.  I have to honestly say, my mood and how I've been with my children has changed tremendously in this past year.  Whether it's because of my mother's illness or the fact that they've gotten older and the roles have changed is unknown.  But as much as I love them, I am a much less happy mother.

At work, I could hide from my mother's sickness, from the awful reality we faced.  At home, it's right there in my face and there's no one, no one for me.  My days start and finish based on the needs of others around me.  I take care of myself and try to plan fun stuff for us so it's not a complete grind.  I just desperately miss adult interaction.  I have wonderful friends, but they have their own lives.  I don't see them enough but we're all busy and it can be hard to get together.  Most days the only adult I speak to for more than five minutes is my mother.

I don't mind living my life without a partner, but I sure do wish I had another adult around to look forward to seeing regularly once or twice a week.  Some one to hug me and laugh with me and make reenergize me in that way that people who care about you can.  Parenting, particularly single parenting, can be very isolating.  I'm sure people in fairly good marriages are starved for what I'm looking for right now.

Health is a gift and I seem to be healthy, as are my girls.  There are far sadder stories out there.  Some of my cousins have already lost both their parents.  Death is a part of life.  I am north of 40 now, I am not immune to this fact.

A friend recently posted this quote from "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte.  Not to be overdramatic, but this is how I feel about life in a world without my mom.
If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."

April opened with the Easter Bunny and closed with Elena blowing out three candles on her birthday cake.  Three years ago, I opened the car door set to take Eliza to the park along the bay when my water broke.  The next day, on April 28, Elena Michelle was born.

I've been solo the whole time with my little Lena Loo.  So her birthdays not only mark the quick passage of her childhood but serve as a reminder of how far we've come.  I left New York on April 8th and had her just 20 days later.  That July, I moved into our new home together.

I loved this apartment from the first time I saw it.  I loved how the apartment was long with lots of rooms and many doors.  As a child, my cousins would chase me through the railroad apartment of my grandmother's house.  I'd race through the rooms, yanking the sliding doors closed behind me.  Now my girls are finally at an age where they love to be chased through the apartment.  Their bedroom has two doors so we can race through that room, loop through the living room and then march down the long hallway that opens to the kitchen on one side and the dining room on the other.  Through the dining room we can race through the playroom and then run through the kitchen on our way back down the hall.  It is great fun and with each run and funny noise, I'm six years old tearing through a house I'll never leave behind.

April was as perfect a month for me as I could get.  Easter was a perfect day with both girls in frilly yellow dresses and my Mom and Billy in good spirits.  My cousins came to visit one weekend bringing their three children and much joy with them.  We also went to New York for a day and caught up with some friends and family then.  Elena's birthday, always a cause for celebration, unfolded in a wonderful weekend of games and song.  I could not be happier with my girls and our happy life here.  I only wish things could stay like this forever but as we all know, May is already here, it's been raining a lot and even if the sky finally clears up and the weather is perfect, it's going to be hard to top our wonderful April.  

Fleeting Sprites

Wow, it's been so long. I didn't want to change the post for a long time. Every time I'd sign on, I'd see that letter to Meredith and I couldn't move forward. I guess I hoped she'd see it and answer but sadly she did not. The earth keeps moving and she is far away. At least I can be happy with the notion that she is still in this world and perhaps someday we'll meet again.

Life keeps moving forward at a pace that is far to fast for me. In less than two short weeks my baby will turn three. My little girl, my darling Elena is a baby no more. She is a full-fledged screaming, laughing, stomping little person now. She has a temper I often find hard to believe. You wouldn't think some one would get so mad about having to put on a pair of shoes. It's quite warm in their bedroom tonight and when I clicked on the fan, Elena screamed "Agh, no fan! Too noisy! I don't like the fan!" This fan is whisper quiet so perhaps the vaguely European part of her genetic makeup has created this no fan feeling in her.

After Eliza fell asleep tonight, Elena was still awake calling for me. I knew it was late but she also wasn't asleep so I took her out of the crib. We snuggled on the couch and she sang silly songs and kept pointing to the TV and saying "Titanic!" She pretended that a small child's mirror in a strawberry embossed leather case was a lollipop and sang the lollipop song. "Take my picture, Mama," she said as she posed with her "lollipop." "I watch TV with Mama!" she said proudly, I think happy to be the one staying up late for a change.

Finally I put her down in the crib, an act for which I was rewarded with about 10 minutes of solid crying. Poor Eliza, she really doesn't get enough sleep between her sister waking at 6am singing "Rumor has it, ooh! Rumor has it, ooh!" at the top of her lungs followed later by Elena's nocturnal rebellion.

Tonight, Eliza woke up around 10:30 to go to the bathroom. She dashed from her room into the bathroom looking like some kind of enchanted sprite in her beautiful long white nightgown that she got for Christmas. She truly looks like an angel in this eyelit off-white creation. I went into the room to kiss her and she smiled at me, asked for water and told me she loved me. Her little arms stretched out for a hug. I didn't know I could love so much.

They are wonderful, they are maddening, they are mine, they are not mine. They will always be my children but they do not belong to me. This past week was Eliza's spring breaks and they spent a lot of time together. It was charming to watch them really forge a relationship but at times it almost hurt how little they need me. Soon they will have their own relationship and I'll be cast into the background, a role I'm not exactly sure I'm suited to play. But as their mom, I know I have to always be the grown-up, step back, and let them go, a little at a time.

We finished shooting "Smash" on March 20th so I've been home for a month now. Sometimes, like now, I find myself blissfully content to be at home with my little children nearby. I find myself often popping into their room and touching their sweet little arms as they sleep, so happy I'm here and that I can look at them whenever I feel like it. Other times I feel almost unspeakably paralyzed by the sheer monotony of taking care of them--the dishes that must be rinsed, the floor I have to sweep, the piles of toys and cut up papers that seems to migrate throughout the house. I stood over the sink the other day as Elena screamed because I wouldn't give her another vitamin and I turned on the water and I really wanted to cry but I didn't. I reminded myself that I'm lucky to be at home, I'm lucky to have these girls, I'm lucky my mother is still alive. I'm so fortunate and so proud of myself for what I've accomplished, largely unassisted. And yet there are still those moments where I really don't know how I can keep doing this. How I wish more than anything, I had more friends, a sibling, anyone to come over sometimes and help break up the endless waltz between stove, sink, dining table and changing matt.

But most of the time, I look at these girls and I can't believe how much I love them. I remember so clearly events from eight years ago, how will I feel eight years from now when my Eliza is 14? I so love having little children, having the power to kiss a sore thumb and hearing my Elena say "Thanks Mama, you made it ALL better."

Tonight, I still have those little girls and because of this blog, this night has been recorded. Life with my little girls is beautiful.

A letter to a friend

A friend recently posted an article a woman wrote about the power of female friendships. It was a beautifully well-written piece that described how female friendships can often be so important in women's lives and yet their often treated as bonus relationships that are usually viewed as secondary to romantic relationships.

I have some great friends in my life and I'm grateful for the friends I do have. But I will never stop missing the friend that I had, a friend I often saw as my real soulmate, who decided to move half a world away. We keep in touch through email and facebook but it's not nearly the same as being 45 minutes away from each other. I've not seen her since 2010. The last time she was in the US, I didn't see or hear from her at all. So maybe, I won't see her again.

She's sent a few emails to me lately, just one sentence emails asking me how I'm doing. The other night, I finally answered. I've yet to hear back from her but I'm going to attach what I wrote. It's not a piece of great writing or anything like that, but it does talk a little about how important friendship is. I guess I wanted to share it here because like the article I read, I think it's important to celebrate those close friendships when we can. Here it is:

Hey--I don't think you check your email that often but I've received the messages from the helping hands website and I haven't gotten back to you. How am I doing? On one hand, I suppose I have a lot to be grateful for. I have a good job and it's paying the bills for now. I managed to find a pretty good live-in sitter who cares about the kids who's made this job possible for me. Mom's handling the radiation okay and is still alive with pancreatic cancer. She's survived 6months since diagnosis. That's longer than her brother made it with the same cancer. We have no idea what's going on inside her body but she's still standing. So I have a lot to be grateful for.

But I'm pretty overwhelmed and angry a lot of time. While this is a good job, it's exhausting. We work 12 hour days every day. For TV, those aren't bad hours but let's put it this way, today I left at 4:50am for work, I got to the apt. I'm staying at in NY at 8:30. I've got to read a script and look over new pages for tomorrow still and I have to be up tomorrow at 5:30. In a way, it's kind of better that I stay in the city away from the kids because I wouldn't be able to pay attention to them with these hours but I'm exhausted and I miss them so much sometimes it's almost overwhelming. My sitter has been great but it's horrible knowing that my kids spend more time with her than they do with either of their parents. I tell myself it's temporary but I really don't know what will happen if this show goes into a 2nd season. Even if I move back to the city in some cramped and bug invested dump, I will still be leaving for work before they wake up and getting home after they're in bed most nights. Weekends are tough because I usually have way too much to do and not enough time to do it. The girls are so excited to see me and I'm so happy to see them but everyone is clingier, touchier, more inclined towards meltdowns because the routine is now disrupted and everyone's emotions are heightened. It's definitely altering my relationship with them in an unfavorable way.

And being completely alone with my mother is very tough as well. My friends here care, but not the way you did. You were the only person I ever met who loves her mom the way I do and you're so far away. I know you say you're still here for me and it's comforting to know that. However, the fact remains that you are very far away and while it's great to know you're there, sometimes I'm starving for some one to talk to, really talk to who not only gives a shit but would know exactly what I need. I read an article today about how powerful and important female friendships are and the one I had that meant the most to me is in a very different place right now. Knowing you care is a big deal but not being able to see you or call you is hard. With everything you've got going on, who even knows if you'd have time for me now anyway, even if you lived right down the street. But I miss you, your whole family in a way that I will never fully able to express. And my girls are fantastic, really, really fantastic. and I'm so sorry you really don't know them like you would if you were still here.

But I'm still plugging away, as we all do. It's mid-life and all these grown-up problems really do creep up, don't they. How is your mother? Barbara? The kids? It would be so nice to really hear how you're all doing and just hear details about your life. I would love to hear just about anything about you all.

Thanks for checking in.

L

Three Kings Before the Storm

Here they are in the Tinkerbell costumes they got for Christmas. I purchased the flower crowns and the gloves Eliza's wearing during our trip to Disney. Santa put the costumes and wings to round out the costumes under the tree on Christmas morning. I think the girls look beautiful. This photo was taken December 26th, 2011.

Now it's 2012 and I get to work from home while the actors do publicity work in Los Angeles. This is the last day I'll be able to work from home. The remaining two months of shooting promise to be a whirlwind. They've already scheduled us to work the next two Saturdays and we don't have Martin Luther King Day off. We're in the home stretch, yes, but it's going to be a brutal one.

Today is Three Kings Day, a day we celebrate with a nice dinner and three small presents for the girls to unwrap. I've been cooking all morning and listening to Christmas Carols, the last time I'll listen to this music until after Thanksgiving. I always find it so sad when I take down my tree. I have to say my tree is finally perfect. We have enough ornaments for every branch. It's a small tree but very festive and bright. It's a fake, something C hated, but it's perfect for our apartment and small enough that I can carry it around when it's dismantled. Anything bigger would probably be too hard for me to handle.

Happy Three Kings Day to everyone. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers in the coming months. It's going to be a long stretch. But at the end of this tunnel, there's two little girls in Tinkerbell outfits, waiting to welcome me home.

Last day of hiatus

So tomorrow it's back to work. My ex will be here today to watch the kids while I spend my last day with my mother in the oncologist's office. I'm glad to be here for my mother but it's a bittersweet last day.

We had great holidays. This was the first time I didn't wake up with my girls on Christmas morning and I survived. They were with their father for Christmas and I think they had a really good time. They were very happy to come home though. Eliza is starting to miss her father more now and be more vocal about the fact that she doesn't see him often enough. It hurts. I understand it's normal to love and miss her father. But I do so much for her and he does so little so it hurts. And I have to grow up and accept it.

Elena is an absolute joy and an absolute terror. Getting her dressed can sometimes make me think of slashing my wrists, that's how much she fights. She cried so hard yesterday as I dressed her (she didn't want to wear a particular dress but wouldn't say yes to any so we forced one on her) that I felt sorry for her. She'd work herself up so much, her little body was shaking and she was gasping for air. Poor little thing gets so worked up over one dress. But then I cradled her in my arms like she was a baby and she calmed down, eventually. It felt good to comfort her, to feel all powerful, all Mama again.

Elena has the sweetest little voice now. She turned to me as she cuddled with me after her nap and said "Happy holidays, Mama." They've been very happy holidays indeed.

Last night, as I tucked the girls in, Eliza grabbed my hand and said, "no matter where I am or where you are, I'm always yours." It was a sweet thing to say but she said it to make for saying "I belong with my daddy" earlier. She knew she'd hurt my feelings and she was trying to make me feel better. Someday, maybe I'll grow up and I won't get hurt so easily. I'll realize that it's normal for her to want her father and to feel conflicted and I need to grow up and accept it.

But I hugged her and kissed her and let her know how much I appreciated her kind words. I do love her so much, it's almost crushing sometimes.

I walked over to Elena's crib and she stood up and said, "I need a kiss." So I gave her one. "I need a hug" she then said and I wrapped my arms around her little neck.

I have ten more weeks to go on this job and oh yeah, I'm counting down. I'm also planning on taking more days off than I have been but it's hard to say that and stick with that without a schedule. The schedules come out a week or two before the episode and that's it, we only know what we're doing for the next week or so at a time. So it's hard to say with certainty what days I'll take off when I don't know what's scheduled. Some days are easier and more preferable for me to take off than others. Plus we have a Saturday shoot day scheduled and it's hard for me not to think more Saturdays will be behind it. So yes, it's ten weeks but ten weeks of what is the question.

Happy new year to anyone out there reading this. Yesterday was a lovely day with the girls, my mother and my friend Michelle. I think we're off to a good start. My little one is awake and asking for me in her crib. Best I go to her now. Happy new year to my little loves.