Midlife Mama

A letter to a friend

2012-01-25T18:39:00.001-08:00

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.

Three Kings Before the Storm

2012-01-06T10:33:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-02T05:23:00.000-08:00

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.

December 20th

2011-12-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

Just in case anyone checks in to see how my girls are doing, here they are. This photo was taken on the morning of December 20th, 2011, shortly before Eliza's holiday concert at school. Our Christmas was fragmented but wonderful. As always, the good moments pass by far too quickly. I'm trying to savor as much of these two weeks away from work as I can. Happy 2012 to anyone out there who might read this or who has ever checked in on me and my wonderful, amazing, fabulous girls.

He Will Fill Us With Goodness and Light

2011-12-10T17:33:00.000-08:00

I could summarize my life in the two months since I've written but I imagine that's dull. November is always a busy month. My birthday passes, I add another year to my body clock and this year I definitely look it. I'm much too focused on Eliza's birthday on the 21st to pay too much attention to my own.

This year, my grandmother decided to die on November 11th. She was 97. She passed peacefully exactly 8 months after her husband of 70-something years (we all stopped counting and I'm not good at math). She was in such bad shape at my grandfather's funeral it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. But there she was, her head cocked at a weird angle in the open casket, her skin cold to the touch. That really did me in, how cold she was. My grandmother didn't like to be cold.

I started to cry and looked for a blanket to put on top of her. But I didn't, I figured everyone would look at me like I was a freak. Didn't I know she was dead? She's supposed to feel cold. Hey, be happy kid, she made it to 97. Most people don't make it that long.

I should have called her more. I should have taken Elena to see her more than one time. Elena's resemblance to my mother was confirmed by everyone who saw her at the funeral parlor. Friends from my mother's childhood followed Elena around like they were looking at some kind of ghost from yesteryear. When Elena was a baby, she wasn't quite the clone of my mother that she is now. We had hoped to get there when she was alive and in my own selfish imagination, I pictured my grandmother seeing Elena and briefly, so briefly, getting the opportunity to relive her youth. I thought she'd see Elena and in her demented, fragile state, think she was looking at my mother, all young and beautiful and full of promise, before being ravaged by all kinds of illnesses.

But she died before we got there. I went to O'Connor's Funeral Home and St. Stephen's Church for perhaps the last time. St. Stephen's where my grandparents and all three of their children were married. Where my Eliza was baptized so they could bear witness. Where my Uncle Mimi and so many other relatives were Eulogized. St. Stephen's is a huge, beautiful, historic church. It is in danger of being shut down, like the rest of the area that surrounds it. Once a bustling, lively section of Pittsburgh, Hazelwood is now a sea of broken down houses and boarded up shops. Even Dimperios, the Italian market, is finally closed.

After the funeral, I asked my Uncle to drive past my grandparents house and he did. I looked at the long steps leading to the front door, the big hill, the green awnings with the single white stripes on each end. I remembered my grandfather's garden in the backyard and the railroad apartment on the first floor we ran through as kids when it was rented out. The chime of the doorbell and the sound of going up the steps. I turned 40 the year my grandfather finally left that house. the last time I was there was in 2007, the year he turned 100. So much of my life was spent behind that heavy front door.

With the passing of my grandparents goes an entire world. They were the glue that held us all together. Now we are all spread out. At my grandmother's funeral, I read two short letters she'd written to me over the years. It was so special to bring her voice back to life. One of the letters recounted her joy at the birth of my cousin's son Dominic more than 10 years ago. It was truly a special moment to look out at my cousin that day and relive my grandmother's happiness over her newest and quite possibly favorite great grandchild. My cousin has a drinking problem now. If my mother new the details of her current situation, she'd be crushed. I don't even know if I'll see this cousin again.

Eliza broke down and started sobbing heavily during the funeral mass. I was overwhelmed, unsure of how to comfort her. I asked her why she was crying and she said "I miss great grandma." Eliza hardly knew my grandmother so I found this hard to believe. I think her breakdown may have come from exhaustion or from the fact that we were seated back far away from the cousins she longed to play with. But I held her and shushed her and stopped crying myself because I have a job still and that's to take care of my kids. But maybe the whole spectre of death, the finality of that body in the casket, really got to her. Watching her and my mother, so tired and sick from chemo, interact in the hotel between funeral home visits, I can see my own daughter's fear of her grandmother's passing. On the day before the funeral, my mother spread out the comics on the bed of the hotel room and told Eliza how she used to lay the comics out on the floor at her own grandmother's house and listen to a radio program.

For Eliza's birthday, my mother wrapped her gift in comic newspaper pages. Eliza was delighted. Grandmother's are so important.

My mother is superstitious and says things always happen in threes. I barked at her when she said this but there it is, my grandfather and grandmother within the same year and my mother with pancreatic cancer. Who knows who's next but I do know this, it seems to have taken on some kind of domino effect lately. Death is a part of life blah, blah. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

Looking ahead to Christmas, I had cards made with photos of the girls for the first time. I chose five happy photos of them on the beach, picking apples, and climbing cherry trees. I quoted the Christmas Carol "Do you hear what I hear" on the card, this part:

Said the king to the people everywhere,

Listen to what I say.

Pray for peace, people everywhere.

Listen to what I say!

The child, the child, sleeping in the night

he will bring us goodness and light,

he will bring us goodness and light.

I would like to think my grandmother would be happy about my sending cards, about being polite and keeping in touch with relatives she and I share. I wish she was still alive to see the card, to see my kids. I wish I'd had kids younger so she could have been healthier and enjoyed them more.

But mostly I just hope to move forward and love who I love now and enjoy each day the best I can because life unfortunately, is fleeting.

Depressed

2011-10-26T20:20:00.000-07:00

Life is tough for many people. I am lucky to have work, to have two beautiful, healthy daughters. My babysitter cares for them and the girls are happy. I have the freedom to earn money and not worry too much about my girls. I work with great people and I can't complain about the salary.

I tell myself over and over again to be happy, to love my life. Life goes by so quickly, we must savor it and not get too worked up over the little things.

But the thing is, I never made it to the cheerleading squad. Perhaps if I had, I'd be perkier, more resilient less to feel like I'm being hammered.

My job is tough. Every day is at 10-13 hours. I report to work every day at 6:30am and only have a half hour break for lunch. We rehearse, we shoot, I do a fair amount of time consuming paperwork, I have a fair amount of questions aimed towards me and then we finish and I go home. I often don't drink as much water as I should because going to the bathroom can be a challenge when we rehearse and shoot as much and as fast as we do. There are moments of down time but not much. This is a six day work week. Last week, we ended with night shoots so we finished work at 7am on Saturday, only to report to work at 6:30am on Sunday. Over the "weekend" I volunteered at Eliza's school fundraiser, went to the grocery store, did laundry, looked over Eliza's school papers, planned the week's menu for the girls, and discussed this job with the woman who is covering me for one day.

In the meantime, my mother is going through chemo. She drives herself to and from her appointments because she has no one willing or available to drive her. She needs to return to the doctor tomorrow for some kind of shot (her platelets are down) but she's too weak to drive herself and has no one to drive her. I offered to pay for a cab (what's the point of working, right?) but she refused, saying she's in pain and might yell and doesn't want to do that in front of a stranger. Oh sure, there are some volunteer services who offer rides out there but you have to give them at least a week's notice and they kind of come on their own timetable which I'll admit is understandable considering they're volunteering their time for free.

My mother is a wonderful person and she has to fight this battle largely on her own. People have jobs, they have families, they live far away. It's not that she has no one who cares for her, it's just that there's no one available right now. Life in today's world is exceptionally hard for people without immediate family nearby, a spouse, a neighborhood support system. I look at her life and I see what mine will look like, if I'm fortunate to live as long as she has. I don't mean to make her cancer all about me but I can't help but go there. My mother's brother died from pancreatic cancer and now she has it. My mother has had cancer three times. Ask the doctors, they'll start spouting my statistics, how I'm kind of likely to get it.

I'll be going to my appointments alone because I have no one. Sure, I have friends and people who care about me but I can't even find some one to have dinner with let alone ask for help if I really need it. All my friends know what's going on in my life right now--has anyone offered to take me out and cheer me up? Babysit my kids for a few hours? Check in on my mom or even send a freakin card?

I don't want to turn this into some kind of pity party but those are the facts. I see people all the time, most of my friends in fact, married with spouses who might not be the greatest but who are THERE. With siblings they might not like all the time but who show up for Thanksgiving dinner.

I love my daughters and I'm so grateful to have them but why couldn't their father have cared about me enough to be a partner. I remember saying to him once that he had this moment to be a man and decide what he wanted and he did. He decided he wanted me. Why couldn't he decide to stay with me instead of disintegrating into the jerk he's become. The guy I met was a better guy than that. It may of been brief but it was there.

But anyway, I digress. It's late and I have to be up at 5:30am. I'm tired and there's still three more days left in this week. Snow is in the forecast already and it looks like winter will be starting to bear down. And when the snow falls and my car is buried under several feet of snow who will help me out?

that's right, there's no one.

I Miss My Babies

2011-10-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

Eliza's learning to read. She's been "reading" short words and phrases for close to a year but now she's really reading entire sentences and getting it. She's reading short stories for kids and finding them fun or interesting. At night, she often has assignments to read short two page stories with her parents. Unlike every other kid in her class, Eliza reads these short stories to the babysitter. Tonight she read a little to me over the phone and it was great, I loved it, I loved how happy she sounded. And then I cried about how much I'm missing.

I'm on a good job. I get to work with good people. I get paid a decent salary. The hours are long, the work is tough but most days I have a lot of fun. But I leave before my girls are awake and I get home after they've gone to bed. Last week I got to see the girls during the day because we had three consecutive night shoots. On Saturday, we finished work shortly before 7am, I raced home, had a decent morning with the girls and then volunteered for a few hours at Eliza's school fundraiser. I came home and spend a nice afternoon and evening with the girls and went to bed early to get myself back on a day schedule. As exhausting as it all was, at least I got to see my girls.

I'm not feeling so well this week and the babysitter is younger and healthier. The girls seem happy with her and I find that it's easier for me to be at work sick then at home with the girls. But I miss them, I miss them, I miss them. They also have us working Saturday this week so I won't really see or spend any quality time with my girls for six full days. This is the longest I've gone without seeing them awake. It's only Tuesday and the week in front of me feels endless.

I miss my girls, I miss my girls, I miss my girls. Elena is exploding with language--all kinds of fun stuff coming out of her mouth and I can't remember any of it. I can't record much more than her favorite phrase "I can't like this" whenever I try to get her to eat something healthy. It's so cute and when I tried to remember it and quote it to the babysitter, she filled in the blank words I couldn't remember. At this point in time, my sitter of 6 weeks knows my kids better than I do. She gets to hear how well Eliza reads, work on her spelling words with her and tuck them into bed every night.

I miss my girls, I miss my girls, I miss my girls. I tell myself this is temporary. This show will stop shooting in March and if I make it that far I won't have to work for a long time. I get to work with good people! I get to have some fun! My job ends! What about the poor moms who have to work every day and hate their jobs? I'm so much better off than they are, right, my life is wonderful!

I see the big picture and I know it's a good one. But right now, all I have is the week in front of me, pages of a script beside my and little girls in bed, the sound of the sleeping breath all I get to hear.

My Mama

2011-10-10T20:36:00.000-07:00

Pancreatic cancer is the number one cancer killer. It's not number one based on how many people die from it (more people are diagnosed with colon cancer) it's just number one in the sense that if you get it, it kills you.

With the recent death of Steve Jobs, pancreatic cancer is all over the news. The statistics are grim. Most people diagnosed with it die within 12 months of diagnosis, by the time you have symptoms it's too late, blah blah, blah blah. I keep remember the title of a James Morrison biography I read in 8th grade, "No One Here Gets Out Alive." It could be the sing outside the door at a pancreatic cancer clinic.

Having said that, I'm in complete denial when it comes to the idea that pancreatic cancer is the number one cancer killer and that my mother has it. She says she feels better than she has in years. I believe it, end of story. She's going out more, she's happier, she's enjoying life a little more. She's still pretty tired and doesn't do much. But she's doing some things like going to the Walk Far for Autism Research yesterday.

She told me yesterday that she feels great, that the cancer was in there making her sick and now it's gone. Call it denial, call it a coping mechanism, call it whatever you like. Mom feels better and for now we are going with it. Now that she realizes her days may be numbered, she's actually letting me photograph her. So here's one of her with my two girls from the walk yesterday. Notice the way my older girl is draped across her because man oh man, does that kid love my mom. And then notice the similar facial features between my mom and the little one.

Let this photo just be one of many.

Working Hard

2011-09-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not quite halfway through week three at work. As far as jobs go, this is a good one. It's exhausting. I'm still recovering from the early wake up Monday for the long commute in. My full-time sitter started yesterday and so far the first two days seem to be okay. She's very young (23) and that worries me. Though she seems pretty smart and has a lot of experience with kids, I'm not sure she knew what she was in for when she signed up for this gig. Week after week, this is going to be tough for her.

The first two weeks the girls were cared for by C and his mother. Everyone enjoyed their time together and I felt comfortable knowing the girls were with people who love them.

I'd like to take this job the distance but it all depends on the girls, my mother's health and how well the babysitter cares for the girls. I should pass the requirement for my health insurance this week, and start to earn towards my next quarter next week.

I miss the girls terrible, especially at night. The weekends are tough too with far too many errands and not enough fun time. With C coming on Sundays, I really feel like I don't have enough time to catch up with my wonderful girls. I am also worried about Eliza in her new school but that is a subject for another day entirely.

I have to get up pretty early so I'm going to sign off for now. Wish me luck in the upcoming months.

Farewell Beloved Summer

2011-09-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

Three, four years ago, maybe, another labor day weekend at the Jersey Shore. C and I were still together but I came to Jersey to visit my mother alone. That last Sunday night of summer, before I had to pack up to return to New York and I loaded Eliza into the car around dusk, driving south just looking for the perfect playground, the perfect place to say good-bye to this wonderful summer.

But I never found it. I did find an odd playground with a spaceship like structure. It was practically dark by then but that didn't stop me from getting her out of the car, from dragging her through the playground to dig out one last memory of my favorite season that always goes by too fast.

Oh the heat gets to me and the summer tourist crowds. The mosquito bites, the sand in the diapers, the sunscreen that seems to go on like Elmer's glue: oh it all gets to me. Summer is far from perfect. But there's nothing better like the sheer joy of just slipping a pair of sandals onto your child's feet. There's no pesky sox to match, no jackets to wrestle on. the days are long and the nights cool and fragrant.

Like every summer, I've wrestled to enjoy every last drop. Going outside to chase fireflies, evening walks to the beach, tea parties on the back porch, pitchers of ice tea and visits to every ice cream shop: I've done it all. There are a few things we didn't get to; another trip to Six Flags, Storybook Land, the water park in Colts Neck. But this week I did manage to cross "picnic" and "outdoor movie" off my list.

This summer's end is particularly bittersweet. I'm going back to work full-time. Tonight I tucked my girls in for the last time this week. Tomorrow, I'll take them to my father's while I head up to New York for the night. We won't be finished until after the girls are in bed and we'll start long before they wake up. It's likely that I won't see them awake until Saturday. The weekend will fly by and then Monday starts the cycle all over again. I tell myself this is what I have to do in order to pay the rent and have health insurance. I'm lucky in this economy to have work that pays well enough and allows me the beauty of a summer at home with my daughters. I like the people I work with and often times we have a lot of fun. It will be good to be around adults, to leave work at the end of the day.

But still, I feel like the air is being sucked out of me, like the world is ending with this summer. Hi ho, hi ho, I hope I can do this.

So many moments, so much to love

2011-08-25T18:53:00.000-07:00

My kids amaze and astonish me everyday. Of course that's not to say life's perfect--they can also drive me crazy but for the most part, I can't believe how much fun they are.

We did an overnight trip to NY to stay in our old apartment while their father is away. We do this from time to time and while it's great to have a free place in NY, it's hard to stay in a place that I once lived that's not mine anymore. Eliza feels the sadness too, really missing her father when we're there like any minute he might come home and we'll all be together. I'm glad that he's okay with us using the place as a hotel and his new girlfriend doesn't object to our presence.

At night, long after they should have been in bed, I chased them through the apartment, something we never do at home. I love chasing children around so it's odd to think that we don't do this and our apartment with it's variety of rooms that have more than one entrance is a perfect place for this sort of behavior. But I guess we switched into vacation mode and something about being in a home that wasn't our own freed us from the same old boring routine.

The following day was a marathon--after breakfast in a local diner where I was sure I'd have a nervous breakdown if our food didn't come now, right now, Eliza walked 20 blocks (with Elena in the stroller) to Times Square. While Elena napped in the stroller, Eliza and I ducked into a crowded deli for a smoothie. It was quite a challenge to navigate with all the people, rushing to pay for their lunches but we made it. Then it was on to the Times Square Toys R Us for a ride on the ferris wheel. Although I swore I'd buy no toys, absolutely nothing, we left with a barbie for each kid. Founding ourselves in the middle of seemingly wall to wall bodies on 44th Street, I managed to push us through to the Snack Shack on Eighth Avenue. I later found out that the mass of bodies on 44th was because the MTV building was evacuated following an earthquake we did not feel.

Back to the snack shack and us in a very narrow, twisty line to order the world's best fast food. This is definitely not the place for a single mother with a stroller but I wanted that fast food and I was gonna have it. With no tables available, I managed to get the girls to a large counter section and situate them on stools far too high for safety's sake. It was a tough lunch and the place only got more crowded but we made it and dammit, that fast food was worth.

Then onto my main attraction, the Discovery Channel's Pompei exhibit. This exhibit is so pricey, I really debated the merits of taking two small children. But oh it was so worth it. We had an absolutely splendid time and Eliza seemed to enjoy the history of it all. The exhibit also included a time lapse film that portrayed the volcano a bit too realistically. Perhaps that was too much for my girl but I carried her through and she enjoyed the artifacts from the ancient city. Elena kept bouncing around saying "POMPei POMPei," completely delighting even the most scowling, curmudgeonly adult. While people gathered around another short film showing footage of Vesuvius erupting in the 1940s, Elena started to perform her "Party in the USA" dance sure that all those people standing there were in fact her devotees. We capped off the exhibit with a visit to the Cake Boss bakery downstairs, probably the highlight of the girl's day. As they sat there with there goodies and I sat there amazed at how well the day had gone I realized I'd never wanted an conventional life.

As a child, the idea of a house, a picket fence, none of it ever appealed to me. I wanted to travel, to have some freedom, to see things and dive into new worlds. As a single mother, I long for that partner, that person to help me navigate with in these new worlds. And hey it would be great if I had that but it's not so bad having the life that I have now. I only pray that my body holds up, that I stay healthy and strong and that work continues to come in like it is now, just when I need it, to keep up this unconventional but really, a very great life.

Today is my mother's 73rd birthday. We spent the day with her and she's so weak, so tired but she did okay. She ate two helpings of the lasagna I made and didn't have any nasty afferaffects. She actually told me that after her second helping she felt much better than she had all day. Oh wouldn't it be great if my homemade lasagna could do that, could cure my mother of the cancer that is so deadly. My girls both sang happy birthday to her and gave her lots of birthday hugs. It wasn't dinner at the Taj Mahal but still, it was a pretty good day.

Capped off by the beautiful card Eliza made for my mother, all by herself with no help or prompting from me. She drew rainbows on the front and on the inside and wrote "I love you into the sky. You are the best." I did not tell her what to write. I don't know if my mom was that impressed but I sure as hell was. Eliza also picked out a yellow sunshiney card from the store that plays "You are my sunshine" when you open it. I could sing the same thing about both my girls and my mother too.

Summer lovin'

2011-08-10T04:33:00.000-07:00

It's not all doom and gloom here this summer. Aside from our Disney trip, we've also managed to make it to the beach/pool many times and gather with friends on a regular basis. Lately, it's been so hot in my apartment we've been going to the beach in the evenings to cool off before bedtime. I leave a large soup pot on the back porch to rinse off the sand when we get home. It's sooooo hard to get the girls in the bathtub but boy do they fight for the opportunity to plant their naked butts in a soup pot filled with cold water! We can walk to the beach from our place which is wonderful. Now that we've started doing our "evening dips," I wonder why I waited until August to add this to our summer routine. There's still so many things I want to do before the summer ends but I know there won't be time. Oh how I love the long days and beach evenings with my wonderful girls!

Tubulence

2011-07-29T04:20:00.001-07:00

I accepted a job this week that I should be happy about but I'm not. It's a new TV show on which the network has extremely high hopes. The show runner is a well respected playwright (this is why I could not say no) and we seemed to hit it off. I have a month to secure babysitting and get things underway. In some ways, I'm happy. I love the people that I work with and spending time immersed in something new, something that might actually be good might be just what I need.

But of course I'm terrified. We work really long hours. Who is really qualified to take care of my kids, basically be their full-time caregiver for weeks and weeks leading into months? I'm trying to assemble a team of babysitters, a paid for "village" so to speak but it's not like I only work 20 minutes away. To be honest, this is one of the reasons I lasted as long as I did with C. Without that full-time live-in partner, I always viewed long-term work as an impossibility.

So now I'm going to try to make it a possibility. My mother has cancer and Eliza is starting first grade at yet another new school so to say the timing is bad is an understatement. I want to do this job and make this connection with the playwright but that won't go well if my head is very divided. I basically demanded that C work some weeks from home, thus supervising our daughters with the help of daytime babysitters. He said this "wasn't realistic" but didn't say no either. He's enlisted for the first week anyway, the week that Eliza starts school.

And then after that, we're on our own. Oh how I long for a sibling or some one to share these children with. Not just for me but for them.

And here's more pictures from our disney trip. For some reason the prior posting didn't print them all. I put these pictures up to remind myself of what I'm working for.

Family Pictures, Part Deux

2011-07-27T19:12:00.001-07:00

One of my most loyal readers posted a comment today that just made my world. My mother has pancreatic cancer and I recently posted about my complete lack of photos of my mother and me during my childhood. I only have one photo of myself with my Mom from my childhood and this makes me so, so sad.

I haven't posted any photos from our Disney trip but here's a few, including one of me with the girls. I want them to have photos of us together, so they can see all the great things we did do together. We found out about my Mom's cancer shortly before the trip and we nearly didn't go. But my mom urged me to go and my father said that he seriously regretted never taking us to Disney.

So not only did I just make my first trip to Disney, I accomplished something my parents never did for me. And I did it all on my own.

Family Pictures

2011-07-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

My mother has always hated how she looks so there are very few existing photos of her. I have a polaroid of the four of us, her, my father, my brother and me taken at my grandparents house in the early 1970s. As far as I know, this is the only photo from my childhood with her and myself in it.

She agreed to be photographed with me at my cousin Bettina's wedding in 1998 and again at Eliza's Christening in 2006. I'm not sure where I put the photo from Bettina's wedding but I had it in a frame on top of my dresser for a long time.

I took my mother, the girls and myself out on a boat to watch the fourth of July fireworks. I didn't bring my camera but the boat staff took polaroids of all the guests. The tiny polaroids were then placed in plastic key chains I purchased for $7.00. The keychain is already broken and now the tiny photo is lodged in my wallet where it's sure to get lost.

The stupid thing is, my mother was quite good-looking. She always had a bit of a weight problem but as the handful of photos I've seen of her taken in the 1970s reveal, she was not half as big as she thought she was. There are no photos of her from the 1980s that I know of. Although I was photographed with my friends and with both grandparents at my high school graduation, there aren't any photos of me from that day with either parent.

While we attended my daughter's end of the school year picnic, I tried to take a photo of one of Eliza's classmates with her mother. The mother quickly moved before I could snap the photo and suggested I take a photo of her daughter with another friend. At the time my mother was in the hospital and I suspected or feared bad news and I nearly yelled at the mother, telling her that someday her daughter would treasure these photos.

The new on my mother's health is bad. My cousin was here throughout the 12 hour surgery and to distract and keep me standing for the past few days but now she's gone and I'm alone with my girls while my mother recovers from her marathon surgery in the hospital. She doesn't yet know how bad it is and I don't know when her prognosis will be laid out for her. She will not handle it well, just as I have not.

I've been offered a great job with great people that will dig me out of a financial hole and continue my much needed insurance coverage. But it will require me to be gone from my mother and the girls for too long so I don't think I can do it. I'm not sure if a shorter term job will come along and I might lose my benefits and commit financial suicide on top of losing my mother. But I don't see how I can leave my mother and the kids right now and work 60-70 hour work weeks two hours away when these might be the last few months of her life. Part of me wants to take it for me--I'll be immersed in work, surrounded by my work friends, earning a living and valuable.

But it's just a job and this is the life of my family and life is so much more important to me. So I'm holding out hope that a job that's a better fit will come along and that I won't end up on the street because I'm choosing now to be where I'm truly needed.

Being a mum

2011-07-03T04:11:00.001-07:00

My mother, like any good mother, has made her fair share of mistakes in mothering me. But as parents we all try our best and sometimes, the mistakes she made came from loving me too much. And that's not a bad thing. My mother is far from perfect, my mother is not a candidate for Sainthood but my mom loves my brother, me and my daughters in a way few people are fortunate enough to experience.

And now she has cancer again and we don't even know if it's operable. I'm trying to be a cheerleader but I'm scared shitless. I have no idea how I'm supposed to live my life without her. No one loves me and loves my children as much as she does. My mother dragged her unhealthy, cancer laden body out of bed day in and day out to get my kids ready for school when I last worked some time ago. C can't get out of bed and care for his own children if he has a cold. The adrenaline that's necessary to care for young children comes from love. My mother's body is failing her but that love has kept her here, probably past her body's expiration date, because she knows my brother and I still need her. My grandfather always used to say that he lived as long as he did (104) because us kids still needed him.

And now I still need my mom but my needing her doesn't magically stop what's going on inside her body. I've been trying to stay positive and hope for the best but as the days pass and the wait for any glimmer of good news continues, I am collapsing. I have no one, no one to help with the kids except my mother's next door neighbor (thank G-d for her) but she's got her hands pretty full at the moment with her family issues. Now that Eliza's home from school, she craves constant activity and stimulation. I just don't have it in me to not only be the caregiver but playmate of a five-year-old.

Remember the good old days, when we had neighbors, when kids went out in the street and played with other kids? What happened to that? I moved to a little town where everyone kind of knows everyone and still feel completely isolated. Getting Eliza together with other similar age children requires a lot of texting, phone calls and leg work on my part. Eliza is a wonderful child and makes friends easily. She's not the problem--it's this new playdate, mom chaperoned safe vacuum world we've created that makes parenting today so hard. The fact of the matter is most moms are more inclined to make playdates with the children of their friends. So because I'm new here and I'm kind of shy and don't have any siblings or lifelong friends nearby with kids, I've become my daughter's current BFF. And I'm not being a very good one for the moment.

As a child, my mother was not my BFF but my mother. She cared for me, tried to guide me and did everything she could to make me love myself. She took me on special trips to parks and planned special outings for us but she was also just as inclined to let me watch TV for hours or send me off down the street to a friends without double-checking every five minutes that I'd arrived safely and was now having my healthy snack. She gave me the freedom to grow up, to learn how to function in this world on my own, to find and create my own sources of amusement when there was no one else there.

So now, why do I feel so completely incapable of functioning without her?

Quantity time

2011-06-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

A director I worked with once told me that when it comes to parenting, a parent should aim for quantity time, not quality time. He said quality time is something that's not planned it just happens. So if you spend as much time as you can with your kids, the real quality moments will happen when you least expect it. He spoke of elaborate family trips to parks, vacations, when the kids were often happiest just playing in the backyard.

I had to have routine blood work done today and with no babysitters, had to drag the girls. Two other men waited in the waiting room when we arrived with a third right behind us. I signed in and planned to keep Elena in the stroller because I didn't want her running around the waiting room. Elena struggled to get out. Eliza leaned in and kissed her.

"Mom, she really, really wants to come out," Eliza said, just in case I didn't notice that Elena was straining to get out of her three point harness. "Please, mom, can't we please take her out?"

I refused at first, but seeing that it might take a while, I decided to free her. Elena was elated, practically jumping out of the stroller. Once her feet were on the ground, Elena put her little hands on her hips and started doing her little knee bends.

"You're a dancer," a man seated across from us said.

"I'm a real dancer," Eliza said, rising into a releve. "I'm going to take hip hop this summer."

"Hip hop!" Elena echoed.

"You're not taking hip hop, I am," Eliza said, arabesquing. "She's too little to take dance class."

"You're a good dancer," the man said. "I have a niece who dances too."

Eliza and Elena joined hands and started dancing together. And then Elena started jumping. Two feet on and off the ground, real jumps.

"She's really jumping!" Eliza said, excited. "Before she couldn't do a real jump."

Elena giggled with glee. I watched her jump and realized Eliza may have been right. This may have been the first time Elena did real jumps. How did my daughter see things that I didn't even notice? How could a five-year-old be this observant, this proud?

"She's so cute!" Eliza said, cuddling her up. "You can jump now! Look at my baby!"

"That's a really good big sister," some man said as his name was called, just in case I wasn't aware of this. Believe me, I might be walking around in a fog half the time, but I know Eliza really is an extraordinary child.

This morning I told her I was very worried about Grandma, that we had a lot of not fun things to do and that I'd need her to be understanding and cooperative. And she was. She took Elena into the playroom and let me exercise. She let me make phone calls. She made the most of our time at the lab, a few other errands and then our trek to the hospital to pick mom up.

At the end of the day, Eliza thanked me for a wonderful day. She said her favorite part was when I went to give blood. It may have been the highlight of my day too. Now that school's out and beyond the Disney trip we don't have too many summertime plans, we will have plenty of quantity/quality time.

I don't really know how much time I have with my mother. In truth, none of us knows how much time we have with anyone. Elena is so attached to my mother, I want so much for my mom to be here long enough for Elena to remember her. There's no way of knowing how advanced my mother's cancer is until they do the surgery and if the surgery doesn't work, that's it. There's no other treatment. I think so much of why I'm so happy to be with my mother and my girls together is because my mother really loves me. C stopped loving me shortly after Eliza was born (I became competition) so the entire time I was with him, I never knew what it was like to just be a family without bitterly being viewed as a rival. With my mom, I get to feel like a real family.

My mother is a great person and now her eldest granddaughter is a great child. Everything that is great about my mother and her family, is in my daughter. I am so happy and so proud to be the primary caregiver of this child.

not much

2011-06-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

So my mother has cancer again but supposedly it's treatable. She has to have surgery and I don't think they'll know until they do the surgery how bad it is. So I'm not sure how treatable it is. It's better than what I thought when she went into the hospital. But it's still cancer, it still sucks.

And we're supposed to leave for Disney in six days. I don't want to go but don't see how I could deny Eliza her stupid fucking Disney trip.

Not really much else to say.

The Waiting Game

2011-06-11T18:01:00.000-07:00

So my sick mother had a CT scan a few days ago to determine the cause of her liver inflammation. The scan revealed a blockage in one kidney but not much else so an MRI and other tests have been ordered. Next week, she'll go into the hospital to try to get most of the tests done in a timely fashion.

I'm a bit of the agnostic type but as I knew some results were coming in yesterday afternoon, after I dropped off Eliza at school, I swung back around to a local church and took Elena inside. I expected an empty church and some quiet time to light a few candles and say my own prayers. Instead I walked in on a mass already in progress. I decided to stay through the mass which was mercifully brief because to say Elena is not well versed on church etiquette is putting it mildly.

I sat in the last pew so I could made a quick exit if necessary. Right behind me was a pedestal containing a basin of holy water. Elena apparently mistook the pedestal as a water fountain and when I let her disappear for a moment behind me, I was shocked to find that she'd somehow managed to climb the pedestal and was slurping holy water. Horrified (and yes, I'll admit it, entertained), I wrestled Elena away from the holy water. She exhibited her displeasure by screaming at full volume for about two minutes. The Priest continued to speak, a few heads turned, the elderly couple closest to me scowled but finally the screaming fit was replaced by Elena's enthusiastic imitation of my shushing, followed by her slapping at my legs, saying, "stop that shh, no shh." Hoping for quiet, I let her toddle to the pew in front of me and ignored her as she lay down and say, loud enough for people in the next county I'm sure, "Nappy nap!" I'm sure you can imagine the fun she had with the kneeler at the bottom of the pew. Finding a "fan" at the end of that pew, ie an elderly man who was charmed by her noisy antics and waved, Elena responded by running over to him and promptly hiking her dress high over her head to show off her tummy and bloomers. The man looked away, I imagine not sure of what to make of this mass-attending strip-tease.

But the mass ended swiftly, I had my quiet moments to say, well beg, what I needed to say. Later that day, I brought both girls to see my mother. They fell asleep in the car so I left them in there while I asked her what the results were. Finding that everything was still up in the air but that my mother seemed a bit stronger, I woke the girls one at a time and led them into the house. We had a lovely evening. Elena ran into the house saying "Gandma! Gandma!" She jumped into my mother's arms and all the weakness seemed to leave my mother. Eliza ran up to my mother's chair and draped herself across my mother's lap. I didn't know that Eliza had been worried but I saw it in that moment, saw the relief in her eyes as she nestled against my mom. We ordered a pizza and my mom managed to eat two slices. Then we headed out to Rita's for an ice, my mother's first non-medical outing in a month. My mother surprised me by getting out of the car to eat the ice at the table. Eliza was cold and headed back into the car, waving to us from the open window. Elena waved back, calling "Hi Sissy! Hi 'Yiza" when Eliza disappeared inside the car. Eliza poked her head out the girls seemed to have their own moment.

So we wait but for now, after that wonderful night, I have more hope than I had a few nights ago. I'm so lucky to still have my mom after all the health issues she's had and I try to cherish each good time as much as I can because I know, there's no guarantees here. I know that life is a finite thing, that death is something none of us escape. But that doesn't mean I'm in any way prepared to lose my mom.

So for now, we had last night. I hold onto that, the image of her seated at the table with me and Elena, happily eating her mango ice, while Eliza waved to us from the car.

Recital Day

2011-06-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

Eliza's second recital was a wonder to behold. I think it's more of a special occasion to me than it is to my daughter at this point. It's certainly one of the highlights of the year. This year's recital was marred by my mother's absence. My mom is very sick and knowing she was too weak to attend her granddaughter's recital made the event very bittersweet. I tried to put on a game face for Eliza but all day I felt like crying. I know how much my mother wanted to see her in her costume, up on stage. I'm so worried about my mother right now but that's a whole other issue.

Eliza looked so beautiful in her costume. She was definitely much more into the experience of performing this year. She loves all of it, getting her hair "bunned," the makeup and then stepping into her gorgeous costume.

I thought I'd be depressed but once the lights came up on my girl, I felt nothing but joy and pride. There she was front and center, displaying a real grace and quality of movement. Not only did she know most of both dances, she smiled for much of them. The nerves and joylessness of the first year were gone and she seemed genuinely happy to be there.

As always, these days seem long when the recital drags on forever and my poor girl is tired, but then it's all over and that's it. I spent the entire afternoon with these girls today and now I probably won't see most of them again next year. So often in life, just when you're getting to know some one or something, it disappears.

But still, what a wonderful day. I happily look forward to next year.

Just me

2011-06-01T07:58:00.001-07:00

My mother has been sick for so long, to hear her say she's not feeling well has become background noise. She's had lyme disease, two rounds of cancer (stage one), heart disease and a brain tumor that kicked into high gear when I was very pregnant with kid#2. That brain tumor was excised, determined benign and seen as "highly curable."

That brain tumor prompted me to act. I moved out of a bad relationship, rented an apartment I had no idea how I'd pay for to be closer to her, and set out to raise two small children, then aged 3 and two months, on my own.

Except I wasn't on my own, I had my mother. She wasn't quite herself, I don't think too many people are after a craniotomy. But she managed to take care of my kids when I commuted into the city to work. Gradually the work increased and with the help of my father and my mother's invaluable next door neighbor Karinna, my girls were in good hands.

I worried about my mother's health, that taking care of my kids was risky, I was two hours away, what would happen if she dropped dead while taking care of my kids. But one job bled into another and she managed to make it through and everything seemed to be okay. When a job I thought might bring me back to NY didn't materialize, I was relieved. I was happy with our current status quo.

Except now my mother's sick again, the cause at this time still undetermined and I've never seen her this weak, this exhausted, this done with living. April started out just fine, with her taking care of my kids while I worked a pretty demanding job. By the end of April, she was almost incapacitated. She hasn't driven in over a month now and hasn't left her house except to see the doctor twice. She is jaundiced, exhausted, resigned. I could be wrong but I think my mother is dying. I know, we're all dying and who's to say that this is her time. Except just like that, she's lost her independence and I'm not sure that little thing is coming back.

There are so many other issues at play here--how do I get her out of the house without stepping over her and declaring her imcompetent, how can I afford an attorney to advise me on what's best for her, how the hell do I get seven years of bank paperwork in order for medicaid when my mother is a hoarder and extremely disorganized to boot? But beyond all the business end of things, I am watching my mother fade out right in front of my eyes and other than shuttling her to doctors and picking up her groceries, I am powerless.

People have said all along, how have I handled taking care of these two little girls on my own and the answer is so clear--I haven't been on my own. With my mother I've been less alone than I ever was with my daughter's father. Even post-brain tumor, she's been there for me. Because she's the only one besides my father who's looked out for me. While C might be there for our daughters, while he's a decent provider and he loves them, he has never, ever been there for me. My brother is autistic, my father's involvement is sporadic.

And now I look at the future with my girls and I see just me. I don't know how I'm supposed to do this.

My girls

2011-05-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

I feel like no one's reading this anymore so I've stopped writing. But I suppose that's writing about my delicious girls for the wrong reasons. Yes, I am a writer who craves an audience. But if I don't write about them then everything just goes away. I'm amazed at how little I remember with Eliza. If I hadn't written down certain days and certain discoveries, I'd have no recall of them at all.

Elena turned two almost a month ago. She is so much fun right now. I love this age even though she's much more high spirited and easily frustrated then her sister was at two. She is communicating up a storm. She wants to do everything her sister does and is very screams when she can't. She doesn't like it when we drop off Eliza at school and she's stuck with me. I've been letting her run into Eliza's classroom this past week and this morning, while the older kids clustered around the incubator with the newly hatched baby chicks, Elena raced over to the fish tank, then sat the in the reading chair like Queen Elizabeth on the throne. When I came to retrieve her, she held up her hands and said, "No, come back!" She wanted me to leave her there and come back.

Elena loves to sing and dance. Her dance moves now mostly consist of her running in circles, spinning in circles or doing these little knee bends with her hands on her hips. Yesterday she was so engrossed in her dance moves, she really didn't want to leave when it was time to take Eliza to school. I had to forcibly carry her to the car while she screamed. Once we got to the car, she resumed her little knee bends and hands on hip action. I don't know what song she was dancing to in her head but she really didn't want to get into the car.

At a school meeting on Friday that I had to attend with Elena, she kept running for the closed door saying "I want to go home." She also likes to say "I can do it" with if a smile if she can do it and screaming angrily if she can't do something. "I get out," she says when I meet her at the crib or she wants out of the high chair. "I get down," she says when she wants help getting off Eliza's bed. It's so cute to see her hanging off Eliza's bed on her stomach, her little feet dangling to the floor. It's not a far distance but she won't get off Eliza's bed without help. She is cautious.

She is wonderful, even more independent than Eliza. She is happy to entertain herself and needs little beyond food, drink and diaper changes from me. She loves the bath, wandering around the playground, strawberries, pressing buttons on the phone and board books. She loves her little body and is increasingly proud of all the new things she can do. She repeats a lot of what we say and imitates Eliza to a hilarious degree.

She worships her sister. When it's time to pick up Eliza as school, she says "Yay, Eliza!" and runs to the door to get in the car. When Eliza comes running out of her classroom, the two girls hug. Then Eliza takes off to run outside with her classmates and Elena screams and sobs behind her. "Yiza!" she wails. "Wait!" She screams when other students take Eliza's hand. As the little sister, Elena wants to be the sole owner of those perfect little Eliza hands. Eliza and Elena will walk up and down the sidewalk together. Then Eliza will want to play with her friends and she'll extract herself from her sister. Elena will reach rather pitifully after her, screaming with abandon. Poor Eliza feels guilty about it but I tell her to go ahead and have fun.

We are having so much fun now. We are such a cool little family. The other night, the two girls were entertaining each other in the bedroom and I realized, it's only a matter of time before they barely notice my presence. As proud as I am of their relationship, this saddens me. My days as the be all to end all in their eyes has already passed. I hope to get a life beyond them, sometime soon.

But for now, they are delicious, they are my little loves, my wonderful girls. I am looking forward to a fun summer.

Four Fridays

2011-04-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been almost two months since I've blogged. I blog mainly to go back and remember great times with my girls. If I don't write stuff down, it goes away. One day bleeds into the next and before I know it, my girls will be in double digits and I'll have little memory of the day to day stuff of their younger years.

So what can I say of them now? Not very much, I'm afraid. I've been working on an exhausting job for the past three weeks so I've seen very little of the girls. We shoot all night long on Friday nights (tonight is a Friday and it's no exception) so I see the girls for most of the day Saturday and all day Sunday. On Monday, I return to work before the wake up and get home long after they're asleep. Fortunately for me (and I'd like to think for them), I'm a freelancer and this job will end the morning of April 13th. During my all too brief phone call with Eliza last night, she asked if I'd be at her spring concert next Friday and I gleefully announced I would be.

So three weeks, is not all that much to miss out of my girls life. Except today it really feels like it is. With four more very long days still laid out in front of me, this time away feels incredibly long.

On March 11th, my grandfather died. He was 104 and not doing all that well, but still seemed insanely healthy for a man his age. What I'm trying to say is that I should have expected he'd die but still I didn't, I had no idea he could. March 11th was a warm, fairly sunny day. The girls and I were recovering from the flu. In celebration of our new, healthier bodies, I took the girls to get some spring clothes. I bought several outfits for each girl and one pair of shoes each. I came home and got the phone call shortly after our nice evening together. There it was. My grandfather was dead. I sat there holding the phone after my mother had hung up, wondering what I was supposed to do now.

C came down with the girls the following day for his weekly visit and was his usual, unhelpful self. I tried to figure out how I'd get to Pittsburgh to be with my family. Flights were over 1,000 dollars a piece. I cried, thinking I'd not be there. A little perseverance paid off as I discovered vastly cheaper flights at a different airport. While I booked mine and Eliza's reservations, C took the girls to the park. Not long after he'd left, he called to say Elena hurt her leg. We took her to the emergency room and after a few ankle Xrays yielded no broken bones, they diagnosed her as having a sprained ankle. Two days later, with her still not walking, I delivered Elena to my father and traveled to Pittsburgh with Eliza. We weren't there for much longer than 24 hours. Faces I hadn't seen for many years blurred in front of me as my grandfather lie motionless in a casket. The funeral was beautiful. Four of us grandchildren got up to say how much we thought of him. It was nice to hear everyone's words and stories about him.

I came home to find Elena still not walking. After finding an orthopedist willing to squeeze us in, I came home several hours later with a daughter in a full leg cast. It all seemed surreal. I'd left my beautiful baby girl with some one else, not knowing she had a broken leg. I had them put the cast on in pink so Eliza would like it. She later told me she'd rather it be purple. I shook my head feeling like I'd failed on more than one level. I put the new shoes I'd bought Elena the week before in the closet. I remembered the prior week, shopping at the Jackson outlet, the girls playing in one of those motorized cars you feed quarters to. All this while my grandfather lay on a bed, his heart failing.

The following Friday I spent up all night shooting a scene on a boat. We wrapped at 6:30am. Exhausted, I powered through that Saturday with my girls. I had little time to think about the events of the past month and what I've missed.

Now here it is, four Fridays later. As I type this, my parents are taking Elena to the doctor to have her cast taken off. Hopefully everything will be okay. Yes, I should be there but I'm not because I'm here in New York, soon to leave to meet a van that will take me up to our dreadful night shoot upstate. C will come down tonight to spend the night and tomorrow with the girls so I can rest a bit before taking over as Mama for a little more than 24 hours.

But like I said, as a freelancer, this job will end and next Friday, I'll be there for Eliza's spring concert. I'll be there at her school's bake sale. I'll be there, hugging my girls and Elena will hopefully be walking again and these past few weeks will feel like they hadn't happened.

Except my grandfather will still not be here. I last saw him alive in August of 2010. I tried to get a photo of him with Elena but anytime I put her anywhere near him, she cried. So no photo, no proof of their meeting will ever exist. Yes, I am lucky to have had this man in my life for 43 years but he was a man of such vast, of such inexplicable greatness, his loss is huge.

Valentines Day, Mama Style

2011-02-14T18:02:00.000-08:00

A long time from now, in a galaxy far, far way, my girls will have their friends, boyfriends, spouses to spend Valentines day with. But for now, it's another wonderful day to celebrate just how much I love my little family.

When I was pregnant with Eliza and unsure of what kind of mother I'd be, my father said, "One thing I know for sure, you have a lot of love to give."

He wasn't wrong. It turns out I have so much love, oodles and oodles of it. Mount Vesuvius sized oodles of it, just bubbling beneath the surface, waiting to be lavished on some one worthy enough.

I filled little gift bags with small gifts for the girls: matching swimsuits, strawberry shortcake coloring books, one age appropriate book for each girl, new toothbrushes and a little chocolate. The way Eliza acted, you'd have thought I'd given her a million dollars or at least the key to the universe.

The way I see it, a Mama's got a few good years, a few years where she's the equivalent of kings. A simple goody bag or home made Italian ice has the power to make her little girl's day. An oversized Tinkerbell card is good enough to go into bed with her daughter at the end of a wonderful day. When I walked by Eliza's room after bedtime tonight, I saw her lying in bed with her Tinkerbell valentine in her hands. Beside her on the floor was her little goody bag.

I could lament my lack of a mate but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I suppose when my girls have their own mates, I'll feel alone and neglected. Or maybe, I'll buy myself flowers, treat myself to a nice dinner and look back on the photos from those days when I, just an average mama, was truly the equivalent of a king.

Mama!

2011-01-25T17:01:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-19T17:59:00.000-08:00

"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

2011-01-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

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.

My big girl is five!

2010-11-30T11:30:00.000-08:00

And then she was five. We had a wonderful weekend, celebrating my lovely daughter. I worked overnight the night before the big party day so it was stressful for me but we had such a great time. Everything worked out, just as I knew it would.

On Saturday, I came home early to scoop up my girl and get ready for the party. Eliza asked for a repeat of last years very successful kid party at the little gym followed by a surprise party at home. Okay, it wouldn't be much of a surprise for her this year but she still really enjoyed it. Knowing there'd be a party afterwards saved her from having the meltdown she had last year. Or maybe it's just because hey, she's five and could handle it.

So after I picked her up and she spent the day with her father while I made the lasagna for the after party, we all set out for fun at the little gym. Eliza and her friends had a great time and while we were there, my father and his wife decorated my home and heated up our dinner. We came home to two dozen balloons and pretty pink streamers strewn through the apartment. Eliza loved all of it.

But a surprise still waited the following day, her actual birthday. Though one of the girls kind of let the cat out of the bag at the little gym by saying "I'll see you at your house tomorrow," Eliza didn't realize that two other friends would also be coming over for a surprise tea party. It turned out to be such a lovely day that after I served Eliza and her dressed up friends tea, we went to the local park, then stopped by the chocolate shop. It was truly a special day. Here are some photos of my darling girl dancing with her friends at the little gym, then dressed up and with her friends for her tea party. Oh my darling, how wonderful these five years have been!

Oh what fun it is to be Mama to Elena

2010-11-11T09:33:00.001-08:00

My parents are divorced but both are retired and some of the patterns that plagued them when they were together continue now that they're apart. My father often takes out his anger on my mother and my mother still relies on him sometimes to fix things. They have to deal with each other because of myself and my brother so my mother is often the victim of my father's bad moods.

However, lately my father has been in a very good mood and the reason why, my darling Elena. At just over 18 months, I'd have to say the Iceman would have to cometh to resist the charms of my little one. From birth, people have asked me, is she a good baby and I've had to answer a humble, very grateful and very emphatic "yes." When other people with a new baby would complain about the strain of a new little one I would nod understandably and say, "yes, so hard."

Like anyone, Elena has her moments but for the most part, this is a great, great, great kid. She loves to sleep, she loves to nap, she can spend a long time entertaining herself and she's happy pretty much anywhere. Sure, she gets fussy when she's not getting her own way, she can really wail when she really wants more milk. But then her thumb finds its way into her mouth and she's quiet, observant, adorable. I've never seen a kid with a better ability to entertain and comfort herself.

Last night, we went to dinner with my father and stepmother to celebrate my birthday. It was later than I like it to be, especially with my kids still on daylight savings time. I had to wait 15 minutes with my father which felt like a disaster waiting to happen. So I waited, and waited for that disaster but it never happened.

Elena happily stood in the doorway, greeting new entrants like a maitre D. She quieted herself with her thumb when I cut short her maitre -D act so people could get by. She sat happily in her high chair and didn't wail when I took away that oh so fun fork, that oh so shiny knife. I'd brought nothing for her to entertain herself with, no toy, no crayons, just a bottle. As long as that bottle was full of milk, and it was, she was happy.

It took a long time for our meals to come but Elena stayed happy. When I took the dipping sauce for her chicken fingers away(food allergy issues), she cried sadly, all for about two minutes. Then she turned to the ketchup and happied herself by dipping her finger in the ketchup and glossing her lips with it. When she lost interest in her meal and they'd just delivered ours, she turned around in her high chair and made goo goo eyes at the other patrons. When her sister, bored by the length of this dinner, chose to unbore herself by lavishing a little too much pinching and squeezing love on Elena, Elena grinned and gnawed on her own thumb. When the night's guitar playing folk singer, started his set, my happy toddler clapped excitedly and swayed back and forth in her high chair.

Finally, it was time to go and Elena came out of her high chair. Free to move around, she chose to stay where she was and slowly draw in the eye of every nearby patron with her smooth dance moves. A round of peekaboo followed, with Elena and patrons never tiring of her covering her face with her hands, then grinning with delight when she revealed herself. She looked so cute dancing with her tiny little body, pink flowered dress and sparkly pink sneakers. There are no words to describe how dear this little one truly is. My father and stepmother laughed at her dance moves, then my father scooped her up and bathed her with kisses. She is that kind of kid, you just can't help but love her with every cell on your body.

She is the quintessential youngest child, a comedian, an entertain, a beacon of light in an otherwise dark night. She is my love, my little darling, my baby, my sweet, my beloved, so beloved Lena Loo.

How did I get this lucky all over again?

Because of all the wonderful things she says

2010-10-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

My mother calls Eliza the "little diplomat" because my darling, almost five-year-old is quite good at saying the right thing. For example, one night, my mother offered to watch Elena so I could take Eliza to a special dinner at Ihop. However, the dinner was far from special, Eliza complained of a stomach ache, we had to make repeated trips to the ladies room, she didn't even touch her pancakes. I'd dragged her away from the TV for our special dinner and she was anxious to return to her beloved Nick Jr. That's not the answer she gave me when I asked her why she'd been so anxious to leave Ihop.

"I missed Grandma so much and wanted to be with her," she said, smiling sweetly. It was a nice thing to say but as soon as we returned to my mother's, Eliza planted herself inches from the TV and truthfully didn't notice my mother was in the room.

I'm always posting cute things she says to me on Facebook but Facebook doesn't live forever. I'm not sure this blog will last forever here in cyberspace either but I have a better chance of reading my daughter's charming quotes here than on some fad that may be gone in ten years time.

One night, I looked at Eliza intently and said, "YOU make me happy."

Eliza returned my intent gaze and followed my intonation by replying "YOU make me love you."

The other night, I told Eliza how lovely she looked and she said, "Mama, you're beautiful. You're the most beautiful Mommy. I love you so much." In my sweats covered with Elena's snot, and my flat hair pressed unattractively to my face, I looked far from beautiful but there's my daughter, ever the diplomat.

When I was gone at work for a bit last month, she told my mother she wanted to get me flowers and make me a card. I came home to a lovely bouquet of store bought flowers courtesy of my mother and a card that said "Mama, I love you."

She can say some nasty stuff too. When we were having the horrific comb-outs during lice fest 2010 and I screeched in frustration when the nit I was aiming for disappeared as she turned her head she said something pretty nasty that I don't care to repeat. I walked away, saying "This is untrue and I don't deserve this."

And for a while, I stayed away from her, not to punish her but because I was hurt. She offered to do a time out and I told her she didn't have to, that it was more complicated than that. My feelings were hurt and it would take a while for me to feel better. She apologized profusely but I explained that sorry doesn't magically erase the hurt we feel.

She retreated into her playroom and returned with a hand made card. It had a heart with the word "Mama" written inside. I opened it to see a drawing of her and myself walking hand and hand through a field. Tears quickly streamed from my eyes. It felt like the greatest thing anyone has ever done for me. I hugged her tightly to me and told her I'd forgiven her, that I loved the card and I loved her more than words could ever express.

On that day, I also found myself so proud of her grand gesture. That a child that young could understand she'd done something hurtful and tried to repair it not with blank words but with action. It was truly beautiful.

But the other night, she said a real beaut, something I hope never to forget. As I pulled her blanket up to her chest and bent down for our last hug of the night, I dug my nose into her neck and said "You're my dream."

I used to sing to her as a child, "You're my dream, my dream realized." This phrase that I sometimes say to her is an offshoot of that song that I still feel so often when I look at both my girls.

She looked me in the eye and said, "You're my dream. I dreamed when I was in your tummy. A nice mama like you."

If I could open up a laptop and design my firstborn daughter exactly to my specifications, she would be my Eliza. I remember when I saw her face for the first time I said, "She looks exactly how I pictured her." Everyone about her is exactly what I could want in a daughter.

My dream realized, my girl, my love, my Eliza, Eliza P.

Summer Fun

2010-10-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

What better after all this rain, then to look at memories of our happy summer. I love my girls so much! These top two were at a nearby water park and the bottom one was taken at a carnival. That's my brother to my left.

I really love you gal and I need you, my Lena Loo

2010-09-09T04:20:00.001-07:00

I sing the above line (to the tune of Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue") to my darling little Lena Loo all the time. Yes, my beautiful Elena has morphed into Lena Loo, a nickname both Eliza and I love to chant with a good deal of sport-inspired fist pumping. I often describe Lena Loo by saying I called central casting and asked for the perfect baby. She is a perpetual joy and I can't wax poetic on her enough.

Elena was evaluated for development delay in early July and their prognosis was yes, she was about three months behind but they believed she'd catch up. She has spent the two months since their diagnosis proving them right on the money. She took her first steps shortly after that and graduated to the path of the full-time walker by the end of July. She is now exploding with words and phrases, my favorite being "Brush teeth!" which she often says, trailing one of us into the bathroom. She is also a very enthusiastic eater, holding her hand out or straddling the legs of her high chair screeching "Eat!" when she's hungry. She's not so into healthy food which I find a little disappointing, but she goes nuts when you come into the room carrying a box of pizza.

Her body has changed, her legs lengthening and her tummy shrinking just a little. She still has the roundness of a baby and looks about three months younger than her 16 months, but she is beginning to look more and more like a sturdy-legged, happy toddler.

An old friend recently said of Lena, "she seems to have the laughing thing down." Blowing bubbles, funny noises, silly songs, tummy kisses, any of these things can elicit lovely little giggles from my Lena Loo.

And then on top of all this joy, this kid is still a fantastic sleeper. She still naps twice a day and sleeps through the night most nights. Eliza started Kindergarten this week and with it came my plan to get Elena down to one nap per day but now my work schedule might hinder this until the end of September.

In my world, I didn't get that feature I was up for which was a relief. The script supervisor on "White Collar" has had some family/work issues so I've kind of stepped in, kind of. They've offered me the final two episodes of the season but I'm trying to work out a schedule with the current scripty that we share the last three weeks. We seem to have worked out the next two weeks, leaving only the final week to schedule but it this works out, I'll grab enough work days to not enjoy some idle time in October. The long commute and leaving the kids with my mother isn't quite working out so I hope to spend the next few months really zeroing in on another way to earn money. I'm also planning to apply for a graduate program I won't get into--not that it would lead to a job but it would feel like I'm moving in a forward direction.

I've been working a lot lately but next week, I only work two days leaving me some time to enjoy the last of these fine warm days with my two girls and for that I am entirely grateful.

The Summer Fly Bys

2010-08-21T03:57:00.000-07:00

Our beautiful summer is flying by way too fast. We've had a wonderful time but I'm sick that only two full weeks are left.

It's been a challenging summer and I haven't written because it's hard to make the time and I seem to have lost most of the readers who followed me here from my old Club Mom blog. But part of the reason for this blog is to remember all the wonderful times I've had with my girls so I'm making the time now.

After a particularly stressful two weeks, I had a lovely date with my Eliza two nights ago. My mom graciously agreed to babysit my little one so I could take Eliza to the boardwalk for rides and fireworks. Our relationship is different now and while I mourn the passing of what we used to be, I am enjoying all the wonderful things she has become. Last summer, when we were on rides together, she was the happiest kid in the world. When I looked at her the other night, I saw some reserve in her face. She is almost four but already she is forming her own mystery. This happens as a child grows and starts to form her identity. Suddenly the parent doesn't know everything about him and her.

We've been battling lice the past two weeks and it's been so stressful. In order to keep her lice free and to prevent it spreading if it's still not gone (I still find a pesky nit or two per day), I had her hair pulled back in a tight bun. She looked so beautiful to me, like a ballerina in training. The rides she chose made me nauseous but I grinned at her as we swerved around and she smiled back, then looked away sweetly. The stress of the lice, plus my working a lot past this summer, plus having a younger sister, plus missing her father--she has grown up a lot in the past year. I've leaned on her and expected so much, probably too much from her that she had to. Her face is so different with all her hair pulled back like that. She really looked so much like a little lady.

Shortly before the fireworks, I dragged her into the bathroom. We took stalls next to each other and I heard a woman outside telling her daughter to wait while she used the toilet. The girl came out of the toilet as Eliza and I entered and I thought this woman's method was probably a safer option, to wait while Eliza used the toilet and then to go in myself, having her wait right outside my door.

Feeling a bit disconnected from Eliza, I peeked under the stall to look at her feet. Her tiny, perfect little feet in their blue flip-flops with yellow and white daisies perched several inches from the floor. Somehow those little feet dangling above the floor charmed me, filled me with so much love that I wanted to reach over and grab her ankle as if somehow, with this gesture, I could stop time and keep her my little girl forever. Just from the ease of her feet, I could picture her happy little face. She was having a nice night and after the two weeks of combing out her hair and my descent into shrewville from the strain was washed away.

We were in a gift shop when the fireworks started, waiting in line to pay for four small plastic shells you can use to make necklaces. Eliza started to cry, not wanting to miss the fireworks. I assured her we'd come back for the shells later and she ran out onto the boardwalk, into the crowd. I had to struggle to keep up with her--I am not a runner in flip flops.

"Come on, Mom," she said as she looked back with out stopping. On the beach was a small stage several people sat on to watch the show and Eliza ran towards it. I was about to help her climb up when she hoisted herself up with no assistance in record time. I struggled to keep up. She sat down, I sat beside her and then she jumped onto my lap. But she didn't stay for long, instead standing to dance with the fireworks against the night sky.

I kept the radio down on the car ride home, expecting her to fall asleep. But she didn't, instead she looked at her shells and her mermaid doll on the way home and asked if I could return the mermaid's hair into a bun when we got home because she's broken the elastic.

I might be taking a job that will separate me from my girls for six weeks. I've managed to eke out a living by day playing but I'm dangerously close to losing my health insurance so I need this job and that's that. It will be difficult for my parents to fill in and I'm not sure how well it will work out but if this is what I have to do, then we all have no choice. I've been gone for two weeks--this is only four more weeks than that. But looking at the girls while they ate their grilled cheese sandwiches last night, I wanted to cry, wondering what it will do to them to have me gone for that long. I'll see them on weekends and might be able to see them for an hour or two during the week but still, I'm the mother and the father here, how do I do that to them?

Alone, with children

2010-06-10T03:43:00.000-07:00

What can I say, it's tough times. I'm alone with these kids day in and day out and it's tough. Don't get me wrong--my mother is a big help and the woman that lives next door to her is a big help but it takes a village to raise children and two extra people who live a half hour away does not a village make.

I moved here to be closer to my family and to have help and I have it--more than I'd have in New York. My mother, for all her health problems is a big help but she is 72, on a shoe-boxed size host of medication and spends much of her time seated in a reclining blue chair sleeping.

I worked for two weeks in New York and my girls were cared for by my mother and Karinna. So I have help. For two weeks I got to be around other adults, have conversations and dinners with friends and feel empowered by the money that I earned. Then the job ends, I happily commute home, scoop up my two girls and return to my regular life of meal planning, cleaning, bathing, dressing, chauffering, grocery shopping, playdate hosting, the list goes on and on, right?

It's a bit of a blue period right now because I have done something to my ribs and I'm in a fair amount of pain. It seems that carrying the baby around is aggravating the right hand side of my body but there's no one here to help me cart her around. I've also had a sinus infection now for ten days that shows no signs of leaving the building. I was already on antibiotics this year and refuse to go on them again. I can say my sinuses did feel a little bit better yesterday and so far this morning I feel okay but I've had that feeling like it's going away a few days over the course of this ten-day-scourge and it always seems to come roaring back. It's exhausting and debilitating to have a body that produces this much snot.

And still there are diapers to be changed, children that must be lifted in and out of my deep bathtub, laundry that must be put away, chickens that must be cooked. I have taught Eliza how to dial 911 in case something happens to me but I'm not sure she'll really know what to do in that instance.

So for the moment, I feel very less of myself due to sickness and pain and I worry. I worry so much about being a lone, with children.

The Value of Good Health

2010-05-04T19:24:00.000-07:00

We all take our health for granted. I'm certainly not alone in this. Last week, as they stuck me with an IV so I could have a routine colonoscopy, I realized how lucky I am that I'm healthy because I'm such a freak in any kind of health care facility, I don't think I could handle real illness.

I developed hives later that night that I tried to deny because I don't want to accept I might be allergic to anesthesia. What if I need anesthesia for some kind of health care reason in the near future? I could deny it all I wanted, in the end I had to take a benedryl and the itching stopped.

A week later, there's a lump on the top of my foot. I googled lump of top of foot and found various answers from routine swelling to cancer. I made an appointment with a podiatrist but I'm scared. Seems like motherhood coupled with my own mother's health issues has turned me into a complete hypochondriac.

I wasn't the least bit worried today with Elena's one year pediatrician appointment. No, my focus was primarily on myself. Then came the usual developmental questions and as I answered them, I could see the levity leave the room. No doctor, she's not saying "mama, dada or baba yet. She's not saying much of anything but she babbles." "No, she hasn't developed the pincer grasp yet, she kind of fists food into her mouth but it has improved greatly." "She just started standing up in her crib and has only taken a step or two with her walker."

Big deal, right? Kids develop at the their own rate, don't they. The doctor didn't seem to agree with me and suggested she be evaluated for developmental delay. As I'm the sister of an autistic brother, I admit to some paranoia in this area. I wish she were saying words but I've comforted myself with the fact that Eliza didn't speak at this age either. She had entire conversations with everyone, you just couldn't understand them.

I didn't take the information and the doctor thought it best to hold off on the MMR shot. As I put Elena into the car, convinced all is well with my baby, I became frustrated yet again with her inability to hold her own bottle. Eliza held her bottle at three months. Eliza stood up in her crib at five months. Eliza mastered her pincer grasp at nine months and was feeding herself with little assistance by a year. The only thing she wasn't doing was speaking intelligible words but what she was doing was reactive, conversational, interactive. Elena grins, she looks around, she babbles, sometimes she repeats the sounds we make.

I am not ready to have her evaluated as I think it's too early to diagnose her. I don't believe Billy could have been accurately diagnosed at this age though the "experts" would disagree. Tough shit, I know him, lived with him, experienced him. They didn't.

So I know Elena, live with her, experience her. What do I think? I'm so paranoid in this area, I feel that I've lost my objectivity. She is definitely behind Eliza in every capacity and not just by a few weeks.

I hope my foot is okay and I look at my gorgeous younger daughter and I tell myself, it doesn't really matter, I love her regardless of whatever flaws she might have.

But will everyone else?

Elena, the toddler years

2010-05-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

Baby Elena officially turned one last week officially crossing me over from mother of one baby to mother of two small children. As with any milestone, the celebration is mildly bittersweet. I enjoyed all of last week with my girls, but I'm saddened by the passing of time. I had so much going on last week that I didn't have enough time to drink in the moment and just savor my girls. I hope to do that this week.

We started over the weekend with a party at Karinna's that included most of the kids who go there on a regular basis. They had a great day and I really enjoyed seeing these kids, that I've known closely for four years now, have fun. We had wonderful weather and the kids played outside for most of the party, foreshadowing what we all hope to be a wonderful summer.

On Sunday, I had to leave the girls with my mother and prepare for a routine colonoscopy by ingesting the lovely pills I now call Colon blow. What accompanies middle age and a family history of colon cancer are icky nights like that one that the less said about, the better. But I lost two days of last week between the prep and the aftermath of the anesthesia after the procedure. Apparently I'm allergic.

Life didn't get back to normal until Tuesday when I survived a job interview for a job that wouldn't pay me more than a babysitter. Then I had various errands, driving around it seemed forever followed by dinner, bed or Elena and then Eliza and I making mini-cupcakes together for her class to celebrate Elena's actual birthday the following day. I'm a bit of a neat freak and don't enjoy cooking with Eliza because of the mess but we had fun that night. After she went to bed, I was up until midnight, making the icing and decorating the dining room for our birthday celebration.

Elena's birthday was lovely, wonderful and very, very happy. It was low-key and yet still busy. When we arrived at Eliza's school for party time, I found Eliza's teacher waiting at the door for me. She helped me carry in the cupcakes, doughnuts and juice and I was greeted by 15 happy kids all waiting to celebrate my lovely little girl. Elena sat in one of the toddler chairs like a big girl and thoroughly enjoyed her cupcake and doughnut. Afterwards the kids swarmed around her, closing in on her like predators, patting her head, touching her arm, tugging her foot. Elena was a little freaked out but did not cry. The teacher ordered the kids back and then had led them in two songs they'd practiced just to sing to my daughter who totally loved the attention.

It really was a wonderful party for her. The rest of the afternoon was fairly normal with Eliza in ballet class and Elena enjoying her afternoon powernap. My mother brought over home made cavatellis, the traditional birthday dinner in our family. Elena loved the new food. Then my father and his wife and my friend Michelle came by for cup cakes and gift giving. Elena really seemed to enjoy her new toys, especially the Fisher Price retro TV/music box I gave her.

Everyone was having so much fun, I had to kick them out around nine so I could get my girls to bed. I didn't even get a chance to read Elena the new book I gotten her entitled "Good night Beach" but I knew I'd have plenty opportunities for that.

That opportunity came up on Thursday, a nice low-key day. Friday was a whirlwind with my suddenly working in New York two hours earlier than expected. I had to race up with Eliza who was scheduled to spend the weekend with her Dad. I had a great day at work on Friday, then enjoyed Saturday morning with a friend in the city. Then it was back to NJ, back to my mother's to pick up Elena who'd had a great time but seemed very happy to return to our happy home.

I hope more work is on the horizon now that "White Collar" is back to shooting. I might also be taking in a roommate to help us survive in this apartment this summer. All in all, I've no complaints and I'm really looking forward to what's ahead of us.

And now that she's a toddler, Elena is already starting to act like one, fighting back at bedtime by standing in her crib, screaming until I come to scoop her out. Just like that, my baby's one.

Christening Photo

2010-04-16T04:12:00.000-07:00

Here we all are on Elena's big day. The extra girl is Isabel, my cousin and the daughter of Elena's godparents.

Baby Elena nears one

2010-04-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

Having a baby is just about the loveliest thing in the world and pretty soon, I won't have a little baby anymore. Oh sure, the toddler years are even more fun and I am enjoying watching her personality unfold. But this year has flown by and now my last little baby, who will always be MY baby, won't be a baby anymore.

The sleepless nights and how the early days pass in a blur of feedings, changings and naps. Those beautiful moments when I strip her naked and trace the line of her chubby leg and just marvel at what my body created. The sheer perfection of her body and the delight her tummy, tushie and chubby, yummy legs incite. The new discoveries; the first smiles, push-ups, rolls, dragging forward on straight legs, thumbsucking, new tastes and new people to love her. I can't even pinpoint certain moments with Elena like I can with Eliza and this bothers me. I suppose this is true of the second child--the first is so new. I remember coming to get her after she spent a few hours at C's for the first time. She just kept smiling at me and I realized, oh, she's happy to see me. I don't remember the first time she waved but I can see her waving. Last week at Costco she pointed, copying Eliza but it wasn't the first time she pointed.

I don't remember the first time she finally crawled on bent legs instead of trying to move forward in a downward dog kind of position. I just know one day she learned to crawl for real. She now knows how to get from a crawling position to a seated position and she'll often drag a straight right leg when crawling to make getting onto her butt easier. I remember the first time she showed real excitement towards food, hurling herself forward in her high chair to get to a spoon of bananas. It was at my mother's house. I don't remember her first bath in the bathtub but I know now, how much fun she has flapping her arms up and down in front of her to splash.

She delights now in her little body, moving from one position to another. She loves toys and is very curious, wanting to open cabinets and doors. She gets a real thrill from banging on Eliza's piano and very clearly likes her father, however little he's been around. She loves my mother, craning her neck to watch her whenever she's in the room. I remember her excitedly crawling towards my mother and my mother had a friend over, too busy to notice. Elena got very upset and my mother had to stop what she was doing and pick her up.

I remember the first time Eliza spotted her on the living room floor, gnawing on a chocolate valentine heart still in it's wrapper. She cried real tears when I took it away from her, clearly enjoying this new and wonderful treat.

She loves to talk now and though she can't say words, she has long conversations with us, the TV and her toys. If I sing "boom boom boom" she makes a "bbb" sound. So she is trying to talk. She is a lovely, lovely, lovely little baby.

I guess I remember some stuff but it still doesn't seem like enough. It all goes by way too fast. I like the sleeplessness of the beginning because it has a way of making it all unfold in slow motion. Then the nights get longer, the sleep gets better and everything moves forward at warp speed. And I can only hold on and embrace what is happening because live everyone, I am unable to freeze this moment and make it last longer.

Oh my baby Elena, what a wonderful gift you are.

Elena's Big Day

2010-04-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

So my little baby was baptized yesterday, April 11th 2010 just three weeks shy of her first birthday. We had an absolutely lovely day.

The weather was perfect, nearly 70 degrees. My cousin Jim, the godfather and his wife, godmother arrived the night before with two of their three kids. Eliza and her cousins enjoyed their first sleepover together in the playroom and surprised us parents by actually sleeping.

The day of the christening was special but I had everything pretty well organized. I ordered sandwiches from the excellent deli down the street and had my father pick up the cake and fruit platter from Wegman's. My only culinary contribution was a pear/arugula soup that had only partially defrosted but it quickly thawed on the stove and I threw it in the crock pot to heat while we were at the church.

Getting Elena ready was fun. Leslie brought the christening gown her godmother made for her daughter Isabel. It is a gorgeous long white gown that is fitted on top but flows down well past the feet. She looked like a fairy princess with a long trailing, train. Leslie had to put it on and it was a bit complex and Eliza and her cousins Daniel and Isabel helped. Then I made sure to get pictures of Elena with her godparents, cousins and sister. No good photo of Eliza in her christening gown exists as C was rushing me and bossing me around that day. This time, I relished the fact that he would arrive shortly before the church ceremony and the prep time would unfold without the stress of his commands. I do regret being so focused on getting photos of her with various people that I forgot to get one good photo of her alone in the dress. So every occasion carries it's own regrets.

When C arrived with his two kids, we took more photos and then walked to the church. We got there to find Aunt Carmie, my godmother, the only one there. Soon we were all assembled and we found we'd be the only family there that day which made the occasion solely ours.

Elena was her usual, mellow self. She was pretty tired at this point but she quietly sucked her thumb during most of the prayers. Daniel and Isabel, eager to help, became the Priest's assistants. Holding open the bible, Daniel became an integral part of the service. Leslie was every bit the doting, attentive godmother, unfastening Elena's gown so the priest could reach her neck and then refastening it at just the right moment. Leslie held her for the big moment when the water splashed her head. It was truly a lovely time.

A large group of us walked back to my place to enjoy the beautiful weather. I expected 29 people at my apartment, 26 showed up. I am a perfectionist and it wasn't perfect--the gallon of iced tea I'd made was gone in 15 minutes, I forgot to put serving spoons on the fruit platter, my father forgot to bring enough ice to fill the ice bucket. But it was still a wonderful day and considering I'd done it all with very little help, everything went smoothly. When I made the toast, celebrating my godmother, the fact that my mother is Jim's godmother and now he is my daughter's godfather, and Eliza's wonderful godmother Michelle, I really felt the warmth and love of everyone. C's family is annoying, as always, but it was wonderful to see his kids interact with Jim's kids. It was the kind of family gathering we used to have at my grandmother's and it was wonderful.

My grandparents have yet to see Elena, rotting away in an assisted living facility far, far away. It will cost me around 1,000 bucks to see them which is why I've not made the trip yet. But I miss them. One one table I put a bottle of wine from Abruzzi, my grandmother's native region of Italy. On the other table, I placed a bottle of wine from Calabria, my grandfather's homeland. This was my way of making them part of our day.

Congratulations Elena. I am blessed to have such a joyful, wonderful, beautiful little girl.

Rainy Days

2010-03-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'm doing something unusual right now in the sense that I'm writing while both girls are in the room with me. It's been a tough day and I'm hoping right now that when it ends, I'll feel energized by the fact that we managed to have a good day. We don't have any real problems at the moment, no horrific stomach flus or injuries that would make today a really tough day. Just the typical, nasty rainy day blues.

Elena has been sick for over a month now. I don't know if it's one cold that will never leave her or a series of cold, one right after the other but Eliza has nicknamed her "Run Run." She's had an ocean of snot in various colors draining from her nose since late February. Two doctor visits and a 10 day antibiotic have helped, but not eliminated the problem. Throughout much of this, she has maintained her sunny disposition so that's helped me maintain my sanity.

Today she is protesting more than usual but right now she's calm and enjoying playing with Eliza's magic markers. Eliza and I did an arts and crafts project today, making ducks, flowers and Easter baskets from cut-out pieces of construction paper. The six ducks are now taped to the window over their blue construction paper pond. This little art project managed to keep Eliza pretty happy for close to two hours now. And the happiness continues for the moment as she happily names her little ducks "Sarah, Lara, Vonn and Tina." The poor little baby ducks are not only legless but apparently not worthy of names either but they don't seem to mind.

The playroom is a mess and Eliza just tramped on something and now screams like she's enduring an injection.

"I have to clean up this messy room," she screeches, then promptly sits down. Now she's back on her feet marching and the room remains a mess. I could push it, yes, but you should have heard the tongue lashing I got when I asked her to take her plate from the table to the counter. She spewed forth everything from "I don't wanna" to "You don't like me" to "I'm not a very nice girl." Never mind the fact that I tell her it would be very nice of her to clean up her plate, she'd much rather cry and hop on the poor self-esteem bandwagon by wallowing in the bad self-image that comes with selfishness instead of performing a simple act that might correct this poor picture of herself. Sometimes it's not worth the fight but I do find it interesting how early they learn to manipulate by claiming to feel unloved in order to get out of helping around the house.

It's 12:40 now so I'm less than halfway through this day that started with Eliza's bloody nose. As the baby cried, I stripped the bed and I have to say Eliza was very good about cleaning up her face and the bathroom door. I'd just gotten her bedding blood-free and back on her bed when I scooped Elena out of her crib and realized she'd apparently crapped during her nap. And oh yeah, that Huggie leaked.

So laundry machine's going (thank goodness I have one after 15 years of living in New York City and laundromats) Eliza just tossed a stuffed bear wearing an "I heart Israel" sweater at me and Elena tries to write on a plastic storage bin with a twistable crayon. It's all good here, right now, I swear. Tonight when I sit down to watch "Lost" that show better be worthy of the day I survived. It better be the best television episode that ever was, the kind of TV to rival "Who Shot JR" that people talk about for years to come.

But it won't be. Oh well.

Spring

2010-03-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about my girls for a while so I'll start with something Eliza said in the bathtub last night. Both girls were bathing together and Eliza presses her little 4-year-old butt to Elena's 11month old butt and says "Look, we're touching tushies, like a tushie high-five." For the rest of the bath, she continued to roll her butt towards Elena's and say "High Five!"

It was a lovely, funny moment in a lifetime of funny moments. We enjoyed a wonderful spell of fine weather last week. Oh Elena's been sick with oceans of snot running down her face but we enjoyed a playground at the beach, the local playground at the lake, two get-togethers with Eliza's school friends and a picnic in the park that was crashed by a squirrel. Throughout her sickness, Elena has proven to be an absolute joy, the kind of baby one dreams of having but doesn't usually exist. When she spiked a fever, she was unsmiling and needy for all of 24 hours. But even now, as I type this, she is crawling on the floor happily playing with an empty snack bag (bad mama) and a plastic circle of fake peas or grapes or some kind of play food.

Eliza has grown more challenging. She wants constant attention and entertainment and for a single mother, this is difficult. I do not relish plopping her in front of the TV for hours (what do you think she's doing right now) but it has become necessary. She wants constant companionship and while she does seem quite capable of playing on her own, lately she has protested doing so. She misses the cutoff for Kindergarten here next year, a small detail that has filled me with a lot of anxiety. Could I afford New York, she'd be registered for Kindergarten next year. Because I can't, she is set to attend a local preK program that only lasts for 2 and a half hours a day. It will be her third year of preschool and a big step down for her but I've fought with both the local public school and even the privates on this issue and they won't budge. If they're going to stick to a date on the calendar so it's the allmighty, it shouldn't vary from state-to-state. It's a much harder pill to swallow when I know all I have to do is move back to NY and she'd start school when I think she should.

I even thought about relinquishing her to C but the thing is, he doesn't really want her. When I tried to talk to him about the subject, he simply said "That's the way it is" and didn't offer any guidance. I am glad he knows he's not capable of being a full-time anything, but I can't force a situation he does not want just so she'll start school on time. So instead I obsess about it and I'm thinking of moving to Connecticut where I also have family. But it's very expensive and I can't do it without a job.

So I've spent a lot of time looking and applying for jobs. Since I started my job search last fall I've only received two rejections and one confirmation that they received my application. That's it. I've applied for something like 50 jobs and this is all I have to show for it. Yes, it's disheartening, especially when I add that my savings runs out and I won't be able to stay in this apartment or any apartment when that happens. So I'm hoping to find a job before my savings runs out. I am growing less optimistic as the days pass.

But still my girls are lovely. Elena turns 11 months on Sunday! Only one more month before she hits a year! It is sad and wonderful at the same time. I will cry as I bid adieu to her babyhood but I know we have so many more wonderful moments and milestones together. This is only beginning.

John Edwards and Child Support

2010-01-22T06:44:00.000-08:00

I'm going to take some time today to write about an issue that's important to me. Yesterday, I watched the ladies on "The View" talk about John Edwards and the baby he allegedly fathered with a woman outside his marriage. Barbara Walters said the woman, Reille Hunter, has kept the child out of the media spotlight and John Edwards supposedly has agreed to financially support them. Sherri broke in saying that Mr. Edwards only had a responsibility to support the child and Barbara Walters corrected her statement by saying he's agreed to support the child. So I guess even women think that a man who fathers child should only financially help the child and not the person who cares for the child.

Forget that John Edwards is married and that this woman should have known better. We have no idea what Mr. Edwards may have said to her in private. The one thing we do know, without a doubt, is that he's a liar.

I bring this up because I'm disappointed that a panel of women still think that men who have unprotected sex should only be obligated to support the child. It's this kind of thinking that has made child support such a ridiculously low amount of money. Yes, I'm a single mother so this is an issue that's very important to me.

Most women can't provide a home, food, clothes, health insurance and school costs on child support alone, unless the father has a sizable salary and is willing to pay above the mandated child support minimum. So most single mothers must work to supplement whatever support they receive from the father, and this is true if the parents are married or not. Alimony and money above child support have become optional as women are now seen as people able to earn an income.

However, what everyone seems to be ignoring is how hard it is to find and maintain work when caring for small children. If the woman is lucky enough to have a good career before she has children, as a single parent, she might find herself unable to keep up her workload without any help from a spouse or family member. Or if she's some one like me, the job that she had before having children may simply not be possible with children. And the idea that once the kids start school, the mom can work is also not accounting for the 50 hour work weeks many people put in now.

Should the child's mother not have health insurance, a home, the ability to care for herself so she can take care of this child? If people argue that some women may be "gold diggers" who use a child to get money from a wealthy man, I say it's the wealthy man's responsibility to protect that money, especially if he's married.

Judging by the women's response on "The View," only women with good, stable jobs who can afford to take care of themselves and provide a home for their children should have children. It seems like birth control and the right to work have served to make only women responsible for the children two people create. Men can go ahead and have sex with whoever they want without having to worry about consequences. Depending on where they live and how much money they make, they might only have to pay $300 bucks a month for that kid. And it doesn't matter if he's married to the mother because unless the couple is married for seven years or more, child support is all he might be required to pay.

Birth control and women's growing numbers in the work force should not serve as another excuse for men to act irresponsibly.

In terms of my own situation with C, many of my friends have asked if he's financially helping me and the answer is yes. I believe C is giving me more money than would be required of him by law. But it still barely covers our expenses and doesn't cover my rent at all. If C had custody of the kids, he would pay a babysitter more than the monthly check he cuts for me. Factor in the cost of school, food and doctor copayments, he'd easily be paying twice as much money per month to care for his kids if he had custody. Sure, he'd get the opportunity to live with them, but the kids would spend the majority of their time being shuffled from daycare to school.

But that's only my side of the story as as you know, it's his word against mine. Only the numbers are provable.

Here are the numbers in the state of New York. By law, for two children, the non-custodial parent is required to pay 25% of his take-home pay, minus any deductions for other child support to the custodial parent. Health insurance for the children, school and child care are suggested, but not required by law. The non-custodial parent must provide a home for himself but does he need 75% of his take home pay for this? But by law, 25% is all that is required for the care, feeding and housing of two children.

Mr. Edwards may be financially responsible for the rest of his life for an extramarital affair he chose to have. But Ms. Hunter, she's the one that has to get up in the middle of the night when the kid is sick or night potty training, she has to prepare and provide meals, take the kid to the doctor, drive the kid to and from soccer practice, tour schools, fill out the required paperwork, serve on the PTA, take the kid for new clothes and haircuts and dental appointments. When she has to work or get her own haircut or maybe even go to the doctor herself, she has to arrange for some one to be with her child. In fact for the next several years, she can't make any kind of plans without making sure some one is available to take care of her child. Is this massive responsibility worth nothing?

The rewards of motherhood are great and worth the responsibility Ms. Hunter will incur. However, please stop letting men off the hook so easily by saying a men should only pay for their children. Women typically still earn less than men and still do the majority of caring for aging parents. Two people create a child, two people have the ability to prevent a pregnancy from happening should they choose to have sex. I think asking men to financially help the women who care for their children is reasonable. After all, she is caring for this wonderful, living, breathing part of him.

Filet Mignon would be so nice

2010-01-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

As much as I love both my daughters, let's face it the games a four-year-old plays can be so tedious. It seems that my daughter has been obsessed with food since birth; first the boob, then sweet potatoes, then a fish stew I couldn't shovel in her mouth fast enough, then chocolate ice cream and endless bottles of milk. I don't remember when I got her the first set of pretend food, I only know that from day one, it's been the favorite. Not the first set, most of which is gone, but any pretend food. Her Melissa and Doug ice cream set might be the all-time most played with toy and it doesn't even show signs of wear and tear. Chrissa's picnic lemonade set from the American Girl store easily gets more play than all of the dolls Eliza owns combined. It may have been the best $25 I've ever spent.

The only problem is Eliza wants to pour lemonade and play picnic constantly. I can't tell you how many thousands of pretend calories I've consumed slurping that lemonade. The set also contains little sandwiches and watermelon slices. Yesterday, when Eliza decided to play beach, naturally the picnic set got in on the act as well. No one goes to the beach without sandwiches and lemonade, right?

Tired of beach and the endless cups of lemonade, when Eliza opened her beach bag ready to offer me another "picnic snack" I requested filet mignon. This would stump her and hopefully end this endless waltz of slurpy mime chewing.

"les-ignon?" Eliza looked at me quizzically. "Is that another word for sandwich?"

I laughed and shook my head. "It's like steak," I said.

"I don't have steak,"Eliza said. "How about this yummy, delicious sandwich?"

"Sure," I said, probably sounding similar to a tire deflating. I long for spring and real picnics outside with both my girls. But for now, it's a carpet beach day and fake sandwiches with an endless pitcher of pink lemonade.

What to do when your baby falls

2010-01-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

This was written in September of 2006 on my old blog at Club Mom. Since it still gets traffic, due to the title, I thought I'd move it over here. If you're not interested in this trip down memory lane, scan down for the latest photos of the girls.

Eliza fell off our bed yesterday. In the space of a second that felt like so much longer, I watched her fall from a seated position and slam against the hardwood floor. I was right next to her and still somehow I didn't stop it. The sight of her falling will be replayed in my mind in bright technicolor for years to come.

My bed is the one furniture item I brought with me when I moved in with C at six months pregnant. The bed was my special splurge after landing my first television series. On the day I bought the bed, I couldn't get two salespeople to wait on me, perhaps because I was dressed in overalls and looked about 12 years old. I bought luxurious sheets and basked in the comfort of my new, extra thick mattress, the kind that takes "deep pocket" sheets.

That thick mattress means this bed is a good six inches higher than a regular bed. So my little girl, clad only in a dirty diaper I was about to change, smashed her back and perhaps her head against the floor from the height of more than three feet.

Before the fall, I placed her on the bed while I rummaged through her dresser to get her pretty pink dress. Accented with curly, colored laces, I refer to this as her Senorita dress. But she didn't fall while I looked for the dress as I stood right beside her and probably could have prevented it. No, she was having so much fun on the bed, I climbed up there with her for some kisses and cuddles.

I'm not sure exactly what happened. I think as she crawled down the middle of the bed, she got a little tangled in the comfort and sat up to steady herself. But when she sat up, her back was too close to the edge of the bed. Panic stricken, I reached for her but it was too late. She was already on her downward descent. She fell, she screamed, she cried, I scooped her up. I held her against my hip, shushing in her ear, my head pounding because I had no idea what to do.

After a fall what do I look for? My own feeling was if I could calm her quickly, then it probably wasn't that serious. If she was really hurt, she'd cry for hours, right? She did calm down within a few minutes but what if this theory was wrong? Should I take her to the emergency room? Should I immediately put ice on the back of her head?

Unable to decide for myself, I called my mother who told me to call the doctor. My mother has turned into a bit of alarmist since Eliza was born and if I say anything about so much as a hangnail she wants me to call the doctor. The reason I hestitated to do this was Eliza's regular doctor is on vacation and one of the on-call doctors scared me a few months back when Eliza had a fever. Afraid the doctor would frighten me more, I balked at calling the office.

Instead I hung up with my mother and called my friend Meredith, the proud mother of six kids. She assured me that if Eliza seemed okay, she probably was, just watch her pupils, watch for vomiting and don't let her go to sleep. This posed a problem because it was now Eliza's naptime and her eyes drooped accordingly. I know about the no sleep after a head injury to avoid comas rule but I wasn't sure I should do that right now for my daughter. She'd had a rough morning, my gut told me she needed to sleep. How could I really keep her awake if she was determined to snooze and would keeping her awake be the right thing for her?

Meredith couldn't talk long (with six kids, who could?) so after we hung up, I called a friend who'd told me that her baby fell off her similar-sized bed. She told me the doctor just told her as long as the baby was conscious after the fall, she then should watch the baby for anything unsusal. The doctor also didn't encourage my friend to forego the kid's nap. Eliza was already asleep in my arms so I felt relieved that I wouldn't have to wake her. I did call the doctor and leave a message for the nurse to call me back. I held Eliza for a few more moments and then gently placed her in her crib.

When the nurse called back, she calmly told me what to look for. Reassured that her first words weren't "bring her to the emergency room immediately," I listened carefully to what she said.

So here's what you look for if your baby falls and hits his or her head:

Watch the baby's mobility and if there's a regression. For instance, if the baby was sitting up and suddenly can't sit up well, that's the sign of a problem. Watch his hand and leg movements to see if anything looks different. Repeated vomiting is the sign of trouble as is a noticable difference in the size of the baby's pupils. If one pupil looks bigger than the other, it's time to call the doctor.

She also said it was fine for the baby to sleep but I'd have to go in and stimulate her once an hour. Eliza didn't need to wake up and look at me, she simply needed to move, roll over, do something. It was around 10 am or so and the nurse encouraged me to do this until midnight.

Eliza ended up not taking her full nap but she woke up smiling and ready to play. Heartened by her happy mood, I felt the worst was behind me. We did have a nice day together, culminating in a wonderful trip to the playground. Eliza laughed so much in the swing, the only other person in the park, a woman with a baby, sat near us to watch. It wasn't until the evening that things got tough again. C's son came over and since he arrived about 20 minutes late, it threw off Eliza's schedule. I ended up not getting her dinner (steamed vegetables) on the table until 7:30 when I usually feed her around 6:45. After a long day with very little naptime, she didn't want to eat, she just wanted to go to sleep. I tried to get as much food in her before giving up and putting her down. C's son was set to sleep in our living room because his mother would be out late. So the three of us were stuck in the living room together with C tense about the Agassi/Bagdahtis tennis match and me determined to stay awake until midnight because I had to check on her. In some ways, it's great that C's been through all this before so he's not a worrier but often on nights like last night, I feel very alone. It's not that I don't trust C to look in on her every hour, it's just that with an intense tennis match going and his "Oh she's alright" attitude he might not think it necessary. So the TV blared, C's son talked loudly over the TV and I went in to check on my girl. At 8:50, she really gave me a fright, barely moving when I lightly patted her back repeatedly. It was a kiss on the cheek that caused her to stir. When I went in at 9:50, I could barely find her because she'd managed to completely flip so her head to face the other end of the crib. I realized this probably meant she was okay but I patted her anyway until she curled up more against the crib. And I kept this going until midnight, when finally I turned in. It's terrifying to love some one so much. The freaky, superstitious part of me feels like it could be regarded as sinful by some kind of otherworldly God. However, if that were the case than mothers everywhere could be regarded as sinners every day. And knowing that I'm not alone in this love, it comforts me.

Baby pix

2010-01-07T18:33:00.001-08:00

My girls at the same age, guess which one is which.

More Xmas photos, see the portrait below

2010-01-06T17:24:00.001-08:00

Here are two favorites.

the Xmas portrait

2010-01-06T17:20:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'll make some new year cards with this one. Maybe. Eliza and Elena, December 2009, the year that was.

Should have named her Joia

2010-01-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm back in 2010. All it takes is a few comments to bring me back here to talk about me, myself and I. Or me and my two wonderful daughters. We are all sick here at chez Midlife Mama so I'm going to have to be brief tonight. But if you check in and read this, I promise to add a few photos of the girls over the next few days.

2009 ended well. We are enjoying life here in our new home and I managed to eke out a little bit of work on a new show called "White Collar." I'm still looking for a "real job," something a little closer to home but I'm grateful the TV work came in and allowed me to pay my rent for three months in a row without dipping into my savings. It's a good show to work on and I hope I can work on it some more when it resumes shooting some time in March.

My mother is doing okay, thanks to those who've asked. She's often watched my girls when I've worked and I have to say that she is never more my mother than when she is babysitting her granddaughters. I don't know that what I'm doing is good for her or safe for the girls but when I call her while I'm at work, it's one of the rare times I talk to my mother, the woman she was before all the health issues that have plagued her this past decade. I wish us all a healthier new decade but I'm grateful that if my mother had to get a brain tumor, at least she got one that could be removed.

My girls are my joy. Elena is eight months now and could easily win the title of "Happiest Baby on the Block." She is sitting up, managing to move about our apartment by dragging herself on her stomach with her arms and babbling up a storm. Her laugh is like the greatest love song I've ever heard. Her babyhood is flying by and sometimes I resent that I don't get to enjoy it without the interruption of another child.

But then Eliza is such a happy, flirty, musical, wiggling figure of a girl, I spend most days trying to hold onto that whirling, growing body as long as I can. I can't even begin to tell you how much fun we've had these past few months, starting with my birthday in early November and culminating in the best Christmas ever. Her birthday on November 21st was one of the best day's of my life. We had a birthday party for her class at a local kiddie gym then returned home for a surprise party made of of C, his kids, my family and two of Eliza's closest friends. My father bought a helium tank and filled Eliza's playroom with 50 balloons. Eliza entered her home to find paradise. She enjoyed her celebration so much, she said "I'm sad my birthday's over. I want more birthday." It made moving closer to my parents so worth it.

And now Eliza's at an age where she really enjoyed decorating the tree, the story of Santa and tearing into presents with the fervor of a shark in a feeding frenzy. Even Elena seemed energized by tearing into packages, her huge eyes blazing with a seeming understanding that yes, all this booty was being given to her. Eliza enjoyed the holidays so much, any scrooge that I've developed over the past few years evaporated and I was suddenly, joyfully vibrating with Christmas spirit. We didn't get to do half the things I'd wanted to do--a local Christmas show, the Nutcracker, singing songs with local carolers. But we did get to go to Storybook Land for their holiday light spectacular, bake a Waltz of the Snowflakes and Nutcracker cake, see the "Snow Queen" play in New York, spend time with my friend Julie and her family, and drive around various towns looking at Christmas decorations. Our holidays couldn't have been better.

But now I'm sick with a seemingly endless cold/sinus infection. It may be time to visit the doctor with this one. I'll try to update you all more in the coming weeks. Thank you to those who've checked in during this time. You truly do keep me going.

And now please, enjoy yourselves and I wish you all the very best and more in this new year.

One half year gone by

2009-10-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was October 28th, the day my darling little Elena officially turned six months. We celebrated on Tuesday with a fun party at Karinna's that included cake, goody bags and even three presents. I made sure there was one present for Eliza, and her friends Lindsey and Julieann to open as baby Elena still hasn't quite mastered the skill of tearing open packages yet.

Although Elena was oblivious to the gift-giving extravaganza, Eliza and her friends greatly enjoyed the gifts. Eliza proudly showed anyone who walked into Karinna's house the cute little socks that look like ballet shoes. "These are for ballet class," she said of the pink ones and "These are for leotard class" she said of the black ones. Julieann, a first grader who recently mastered reading, was applauded for reading Elena's new book to her. And the toy, a chomping alligator that scoots across the floor, was enjoyed by all of us. Elena lay perched on her tummy, doing her little pushups, her head turning in confusion, every time the alligator chomped by.

Yesterday, the day of her actual birthday, Eliza and I celebrated with a pizza dinner and a group bath. Yes, all three of us climbed into the bathtub and watched Elena kick and splash in the big bathtub for only the second time. Her little legs are so chubby and short, it's so cute to watch her kick them in the water. Eliza kept dumping water on her head but Elena never cried. Nor did she laughed, she seemed focused and thoughtful about this new sensation of being immersed in a big tub of water.

I am blessed a second time with a happy baby, the kind that makes me want to have 10 more. Obviously, this is not only clinically impossible (I guess that's not exactly true in this day and age), but economically and emotionally impossible. But having a baby is honestly the loveliest thing in the world to me. I love her chubby legs, I love her soft, fine hair. I love her giggles and her cries of delight and her look of wonder when she looks up at track lighting. She is a miraclulous, pleasant, low-maintenance kind of girl who spends most of her time out in public smiling at everyone. She has yet to experience any kind of stranger anxiety--when I hand her to some one else, she looks for me but seems content to be in whoever's arms. She's not a good napper, spends most of the day fighting sleep and only succumbing for tiny, 20 minute naps. She does sleep at night, so I keep my complaining about the day fussiness to a minimum.

"There's nothing quite like being a mother," my friend Meredith's mom once said to me. It seems like such a simple statement but at the time and even now, it speaks volumes. I love being a Mom more than anything else I've ever done. Oh there are moments where I just don't think I have the strength to fight with Eliza to put on her tights or get the car seat buckled over her jacket or pay the bills that keep mounting up with very little money coming in. But had I not had children, I would have missed out on the one great achievement that has easily given me the most happiness.

The Yummy Tummy

2009-09-23T07:09:00.001-07:00

Having a baby is just about the loveliest thing in the world. Oh sure, there's lots of poop and puke and waking up to a wet bed because my boobs have leaked all over the sheets. But the flip side of the last mentioned annoyance is the boobs are leaking because my baby is sleeping for several hours in a row.

Elena is at a stage where she's an absolute joy right now. Most of her waking moments are spent smiling, feeding and happily looking around the room at different colors and patterns. She demands very little and other than turning onto her tummy and moving her arms and legs, she's pretty stationary. I don't have to worry about her getting into everything. I don't have to worry about her sticking small objects in her mouth because as yet, she can't get to them on her own. Instead, I simply get to lay her on her playmat and watch her smile at herself in the mirror while I type. Yes, that's what I'm doing right now.

She's got short, chunky legs that remind of of drumsticks. Her butt is cushy and fun to squeeze. Her tummy is surprisingly flat, but no less fun to kiss over and over and over again. She squeals and makes screechy, giggley noises when I kiss her tummy.

Next week, she will be five months old and I'll be officially reminded of how fast her babyhood is flying. But for now, I have this post to remind me of the lovely days of relative peace, of the simple joy of a contented baby who enjoys a little music, a little mirror and the wet pleasure of her right thumb.

Baby Elena

2009-09-14T09:10:00.001-07:00

And here's another photo of my darling baby Elena. She has dimples! It's so cute! The top photo was taken by Eliza--do I have a budding photographer in my midst?

New World

2009-09-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

If you're still reading, and I hope you are, I haven't died or fallen off the face of the earth. There's been a lot of changes and taking care of two kids on my own is very time consuming but the main reason I haven't written is due to lack of internet access. I'm currently writing today from the local library on a rare weekday that C came to NJ to visit the girls. Usually he comes on Sunday, a day that the library is closed.

It's been a lovely, though difficult and emotional summer. I am sorry to see the summer end, seemingly just as it was revving up. We had some wonderful days and some awful days. I tried to do too much--I didn't do enough. My girls are wonderful--being a mother is wonderful. My girls can't stop crying, I can't stop yelling, being a mother is horrible. I am tryng to learn to forgive my shortcomings but everything seems to make me feel like a loser these days. Seeing photos of Kim Clysters after her big win at the US Open Tennis tournament fills me with sadness. Looking at her clutching her darling toddler on the tennis court after such a big win makes me wonder why my daughter's mother has accomplished so little.

But I'm 42 and there's still time, hopefully. This summer, a friend I really cared for died suddenly of a heart attack. He was only 38 and one of the best people I know. I am still reeling from the news of his death on August 2nd. He was the first person I truly cared about that died young and suddenly. It is so tragic, I can barely think of it without crying.

Elena is four-and-a-half months. She is a wonderful baby, either sleeping or laughing and smiling. She started night waking this past week and is more tired and grumpier than usual but still, life with her is a wonderful joy. I am very blessed.

I'm leaving you with a photo of my two girls with their older half-siblings. I will rarely see the other two kids now that I've made the break from their father but they will always have a piece of my heart.

Elena at two months

2009-07-02T03:52:00.000-07:00

Elena's two month party passed with little fanfare. I took her up to New York to continue packing and was too busy with the awful process that is moving there was little time to celebrate. I did take her to a party to say good-bye to my great friends Peter and Meredith who are on the road to their new life in Virginia today. She spent the entire party crying. Too much noise and too many faces gaping at her.

I spent the night in my old apartment with C in the bedroom, me on the fold-out couch with Elena and Eliza in her old bedroom. Eliza was ecstatic to wake up to find me there and I felt bad that it would be the last morning she would wake up to both of us but I had to leave C, I had no choice and being around him is still very painful.

The move to our new apartment in New Jersey, just a half hour from my mother and very close to the beach, is set to happen on Wednesday, July 8th. Moving is dreadful and expensive. On top of he expense of hiring movers to haul the stuff 70 miles, I was shocked to find my building in New York demands a $1,000 move out deposit. They return $650.00 to you if nothing in the elevator is damaged and pocket $350.00. It's the kind of reality that makes me very happy to leave New York City. With only one elevator and a doorman, it's impossible to move out on the sly so this is another $1,000 that I've had to cough up at the most expensive time in my life.

Yes, with a new, probably too expensive (but it's beautiful and my girls will love it!) home, having to buy a car and the move itself, I could go on and on about how broke I'll be which is really terrifying in this economy. But I'm forcing myself to accentuate the positive--I am starting a new life in a new place with my two beautiful new girls.

We've had so many good time (and a few bad ones, I'll confess) in this past month. There was the day went to an animal farm and Elena slept the whole time in the Bjorn while Eliza happily fed the animals. Or the day my mother watched the baby while I took Eliza to the beach and we jumped in the waves and built sand castles. Or the nights at the local Ihop on "character night" while I watch Eliza make new friends with the children who've shown up to gape over some guy in a Mickey Mouse suit. Eliza has flourished at K's daycare next door, really making friends among this group of lovely young children who come from different parts of Ocean County to spend their days guided by Karinna.

One night that stands out particularly in my mind is a rainy evening on a ride back from New York with both girls. It started pounding rain as soon as we got in the car and Elena was screaming in hunger. Spying a strip mall parking lot, I pulled over, parked and got Elena out of the car seat while the sky dumped buckets of rain on my back. Squeezing into the passenger seat with her draped on my lap, I reached back to hold hands with Eliza with my free hand. Rain pummeled the windows of the car while Eliza screeched "too noisy." I had one baby on my lap, one little girl on the back seat while the rain sheeted the windshield and thought all was right with the world.

I miss New York City and the life I had there. I miss my friends and the long walks we'd take. I've remembered a lot of the good times with C and I've missed them too. I'm grateful that I can remember the good times. I've got a tough road ahead of me, caring for two young children on my own. I don't know what the future holds but I'm trying to stay optimistic. Right now, the biggest hurdles are packing through this long weekend while C enjoys a beach weekend with Eliza (you bet I'm jealous and will miss her like crazy the four days that she's gone), the move and then unpacking and furnishing the place with very little money.

But then once it's done, there's my new life in a beautiful apartment (I better enjoy, I'll probably only be able to afford it for one year), a park and the beach within walking distance, and the summer ahead. And best of all, I'll get to wake up every morning that C doesn't have the kids, in my own home with my own girls, and start the day.

Just a Happy Day

2009-05-29T08:59:00.001-07:00

We celebrated the occasion of my second daughter turning one month old with a fun party at Karinna's yesterday. The party was mainly for my older girl (as well as myself) as my younger girl did her part by sleeping through the entire party. Eliza loved the party and I loved an occasion to celebrate during a rainy, kind of tough couple of months. In many ways I felt reborn.

It was a day to celebrate my daughter's passage from newborn into infancy. I also celebrated my new life as a single parent, my metamorphosis from mother of one to mother of two, and the simple joy of knowing, this time I won't be raising a baby in an abusive relationship.

It was a simple party but Eliza still insisted on heading to Karinna's in her best party dress. Karinna, by the way, is my mother's next door neighbor who runs a day-care center out of her home. Eliza has been playing with Karinna's "kids" since birth and loves going there to play with her friends. I loved having an excuse to throw Eliza's friends a party.

I showed up with balloons and goody bags for everyone, funny party hats and a cake that looked like an oversized cupcake. Eliza loved it all; the Strawberry Shortcake hats that one of the kids accurately likened to a nurse's hat, the pink maracas in the goody bags and the chance to blow out "the fire" on some one else's birthday cake. It has been a tough time for Eliza and I was overjoyed to see her running through Karinna's spotless white kitchen with her head thrown back in laughter. She not only enjoyed the celebration, she loved showing off her little sister to her friends. She's so proud of being a big sister, it's intoxicating.

Elena is a pretty good baby though she still has her nights and days confused. I can't help but compare the differences between her and her sister. She's a fussier baby then Eliza was but she's still pretty placid. As the weeks have gone on, she's definitely showcased more of a temper and an opinion than the sleepy newborn who slept through most nights at the hospital. She seems less decisive than Eliza, with weak cries that aren't quickly silenced by being picked up or fed. While Eliza screamed until she got what she wanted, Elena cries meekly while I try a variety of different soothers from picking her up to singing to nursing as if to say "I'm not quite sure what I want but I want something." It seems usually what she wants is to be held. I try to fill that need as best I can but I'll be honest, it's harder with two. I guess that's why they say the second kid is always less needy than the first. They get used to not getting what they want on a daily basis.

As my incision heals, I've been able to be more of a physical mother to Eliza. I can play with her more and have her on my lap again. Pretty soon I'll be able to run with her though I realize it's never going to be like it once was. I'm not going to be able to run that fast with a baby strapped to my chest.

I will always remember the morning of April 27th. Eliza's waking up ritual has evolved over the past few months. Back in the apartment I abandoned in New York City, Eliza would leave her room and climb into bed to cuddle with me every morning. Here at my mother's, she'd wake up and call for me until I came into her room. Closer towards the end of my pregnancy, she'd stand at the bottom of the steps to my bedroom calling my name.

On the morning of April 27th, I went down the steps towards her knowing this would be the last morning of this particular ritual. C was arriving that day for my scheduled C-section the following day and I thought he'd probably go to her first thing in the morning. As we embraced that morning, I was very aware that by the next day, everything would be different. What I didn't know was that my water would break later that day and that I wouldn't even see Eliza the following morning.

When talking about beating stress, specialists often suggest closing your eyes and going to that special place and now my special place is reserved just for Eliza and me on that morning of April 27th. All I have to do is close my eyes and it will forever be that day with her at age 3 1/2 and me, still relatively young at 41. I hear her voice say "Mama" and open the door to reveal her at the bottom of the steps with her arms outstretched. I waddle down the steps with my very pregnant belly and feel her little arms wrap around me and I know, this is it, this is the last time it will be just the two of us.

Missing Eliza

2009-05-16T17:25:00.000-07:00

I miss my big girl. She's spending the weekend with her father and I miss her like crazy. Initially, he expected to have her back around 1pm tomorrow, now she probably won't return until 3pm. It's only two hours difference but I'm so anxious for her to return. This is what it's like to be separated--weekends without my wonderful daughter.

I'm enjoying my newborn and I have to admit, I managed to get extra sleep today. But my mother's house is so quiet without my darling Eliza.

Even before C took her, I've been missing my girl like crazy. Missing the relationship we used to have that's now forever changed by the presence of this other person. I love my young daughter Elena, but I miss the things I used to do with Eliza. I can't do many things now because I'm still recovering from surgery. But things are not going to be what they were and I've never been one to like change.

Eliza is so proud of being a big sister and she seems to love the baby, but I feel like I spend the majority of most days reminding Eliza to be careful with the baby, with my boo boo, with my mother. I dump her off at day care next door every day, desperate to get home and have a nap. Because Elena refuses to sleep in her bassinet, she spends most nights in bed with me. Since Eliza hates to come upstairs and find the baby in bed with me, now when I hear Eliza run towards the steps in the morning, I dump Elena in the bassinet like a philandering boyfriend caught in a rest stop bathroom.

I am so jealous of all that C can do with Eliza at the moment: pick her up, carry her around, encourage her to jump into his arms, and spend an entire weekend showering her with undivided attention. When I called her tonight, she barely spoke to me she was having such a breathlessly fun time with her father. You bet I'm jealous even though I don't envy C at all. C plays with Eliza for hours--using dolls as puppets, hovering under umbrellas in Eliza's bedroom pretending there's a rainstorm. He is the perfect playmate for her--he never tires of playing with toys and slipping into the world of his imagination. I suppose this is why he and I could never make it as a couple--C doesn't live in the adult world.

While others might envy his ability to play with Eliza for hours, I find it rather destructive. She orders him around and enjoys his complete dissolution into a make-believe world. When she plays with other children her own age, she doesn't like that they don't take orders from her. Last week, I watched him crawl around on all-fours pretending to be a horse. Whenever he tried to sit up, she'd scream, like a brat frankly, "Get back down on the floor, horsey!" While I took some satisfaction in watching him submissively creep around like a begging animal, I didn't like the message that his taking orders sent to our daughter. Tonight, when he spoke to me briefly about their return tomorrow, she screamed "Get off the phone right now." This is not how I want my daughter to act. Talking is useless--C will forever be competing with me for her affections.

I tell myself when she gets home tomorrow and isn't that thrilled to see me after a weekend with her favorite playmate, that's okay, I'll be thrilled to see her. That's what matters in the end, how I feel about her.

But I miss my girl, really miss my girl and the relationship we had that's not necessarily worse, yet different now.

I hate C-sections

2009-05-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Doctor Morgan for cutting me open two weeks ago after telling me my labor wasn't progressing on schedule. I suppose some C-sections are actually necessary and life-saving but many of them aren't. I'm not sure, Dr. Morgan, which category I fall into but I hate walking around feeling like my guts are about to spill out.

Thank you for making me thoroughly afraid of my wonderful but scarily energetic three-year-old. Whenever she runs towards me I suck in my breath in terror. She understands that Mama has a big boo boo where they had to cut into her tummy to take out baby sister. Often she asks me if she's going to put me back in the hospital. This morning when I was throwing a bit of a tantrum because I was experiencing new abdominal pain, Eliza curled up on the floor crying "Mama's never going to get better."

Thank you Drs, for encouraging C-sections so you can adhere to some kind of schedule. I feel like less of a mother because I can't have my Eliza sit on my lap or help her get into the bathtub. I am in a bit of an extreme situation here, having just left C and being holed up with a mother who is also recovering from surgery. But with this new pain, I'm so terrified I will be unable to take care of my girls. It's been less than two weeks and I know it takes time but the pain and my fear of becoming more incapacitated are starting to take over. With every new ache, I wonder "Am I going to heal?"

My friend had a home birth for her second child. I'm just too afraid of medical problems to go that route but she had the vaginal birth that she wanted. The pain during labor was horrific she said, but her recovery was over within 24 hours. As I toiled in labor that night alone in the hospital while C slept on the fold-out beside me, I was screaming for a C-section so in the end I suppose I got what I asked for. But if my water hadn't broken, settling me into the hospital before the contractions started, maybe my labor would have progressed normally. Once you go to the hospital, you're in a bed hooked up to monitors and IVs. When the back labor really hit, I know I would have been able to endure the pain better if I could have gotten down on all fours but I was strapped to machinery, lying on my side, feeling Elena's head pound against my tailbone.

So thanks those of you in the medical community who've turned child birth into something that must be monitored, carried through in a scheduled fashion (you must dilate one centimeter per hour, at least), and controlled by the evil that is pitocin. Thank you for scaring me to death as I wait for my body to heal and the day when I can allow my lovely little Eliza to jump into my arms.

I only hope she hasn't outgrown me by then.

Welcome to the World, Elena Michelle

2009-05-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

My water broke around 7pm the night of Monday, April 27th, a little less than 24 hours before my scheduled C-section date. The temperature hovered at 90 degrees. We were about to take Eliza to a playground along the bay.

Since my water broke, I decided to brave it out and go for the real labor and vaginal delivery I wanted. I braved about five hours of intense contractions that came in one-to-two minute intervals from the hours of approximately 1-4am on the morning of April 28th but I stalled at five centimeters.

So Elena Michelle, all seven pounds, ten ounces of her, entered the world rather quietly via C-section at 10:22am on April 28th. Last year on April 28th, I landed in Israel with Eliza to see my best friend's eldest son Bar Mitzvahed. April 28, 2009 happened to be his 14th birthday.

I feel a little split in half from the surgery, but life as a single mom (with help from my own recovering Mother) is going okay so far. I've only been home from the hospital for one full day, so it's early yet.

I wasn't sure I'd love the baby, my feelings for Eliza re so intense. It's funny how fast you fall in love with that little football, the minute they slide the baby in your arms.

Love of my life

2009-04-24T14:23:00.001-07:00

It's almost time to share myself with another kid and I still can't imagine loving another child the way I love this one. I picked her up from playgroup and she saw that I'd done her laundry, ran to me, threw her arms around me and said "Thank you for washing my clothes." There's so many ways to love a child, especially this child. My biggest fear is leaving to go to the hospital, something happens and I never come home to this wonderful, amazing, delicious child I feel I can't possibly live without.

Nutstime

2009-04-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to go a little crazy. It's culture shock living with my mother. So much time is sucked by small errands because I have to drive everywhere and everything is in different directions. I had to pick up a prescription for Eliza today and from start to finish, that was a disaster. I made the mistake of saying I'd had a prescription filled for her at that Walgreen's before (the truth) and they went crazy trying to find her in the computer. I had the insurance card, we could have started from scratch but apparently if they had her name misspelled in the system this is a big deal so the woman spent a ridiculous amount of time trying different name variations, all to no avail.

After waiting for 45 minutes, I was told I had a $50 copay which caused me to flip out. C's insurance sucks, this isn't the first time I've had to pony up a big copayment for Eliza's prescriptions but usually they explain in advance this is the case. The prescription was for a nasal steriod and Eliza didn't exactly cooperate (as I suspected) when I tried to use it on her so I wasted $50 bucks. I'm hugely pregnant, unable to work, have absolutely no money coming in (you don't expect C to pony up a dime, do you?) so $50 bucks is kind of a big deal to me now. I'm shelling out big copayments on this pregnancy, all of it coming out of the savings I need to get my own apartment.

C is also stepping up the badgering and whining. Again he proposed taking Eliza back to New York for the weekend so he can take her to Harry's baseball games. I really want to do what's best for Eliza, believe me if I could do what I wanted, I wouldn't even answer the phone when he calls but I respect that he's her father and that she loves him and needs him. But I honestly don't think she needs to be shuttled back and forth between New York and here right now, especially with me this close to giving birth and her still adjusting to the change. If C were to say "I miss my daughter so much and need to spend time with her" I could sympathize more but it's all about him having a date for his son's baseball games. I am not hearing a father who is looking out for his daughter's best interests--I am hearing some one who wants to see his daughter in a way that's most convenient to him.

This is life with C and like it or not I'm stuck with him. But so far, each time he's offered to take Eliza for the weekend it's always with vague plans as to when they'll return. I know once we do start the back and forth, he will have no respect for returning her at the time we agree on, in fact he won't even want to discuss a time, feeling that as her father he can bring her back whenever and wherever he wants. He and his ex-wife do things this way and it's a disgrace. They always communicated through the kids--C would ask the kids what day and approximately what time their mother would drop them off. I've seen first hand how this kind of arrangement affected the kids and I would never do it to my own but C figures it works for him, he doesn't care if it works for me or for Eliza for that matter.

He's planning to come here this weekend to stay indefinitely until the birth and I don't want him around at all. He'll take Eliza out as he pleases, do what he wants without even telling me where they're going because I left him, I didn't ask his permission to do that so he can do whatever he wants. While I recognize that I was stupid enough to get myself pregnant again by this guy and I'm trying to do right by my kids and him by allowing him to be here for the birth, I need some space and some distance from him. I've been through a lot these past few weeks with my mother's brain tumor, living in limbo, trying to set up for the baby while I ease the transition to this new life for my daughter. I have walked out of my life in New York, the place I called home for the past 15 years. While I want my daughters to have a father in their lives and I know they need to see him, I need space.

But as always, my feelings and needs don't matter to him. He doesn't care that I left, he's only unhappy that his daughter will no longer live with him full-time. While I've known for a long time he has no feelings for me, and that's really okay, the end of relationship is still difficult and I wish he could give me the space I need to mourn.

But I'm rambling here and that's not necessary. I know in the end I will do right by my daughters and that I'll get through this time. And I hope so much that my girls will realize one day what I've done for them and appreciate me, if just a little.

Homeless

2009-04-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a month since I've written. I'm still pregnant though I was in the hospital Monday night because I thought my water was leaking. The membranes turned out to still be intact so now I'm still pregnant and waiting. I'm having a little bit of that contraction feeling tonight, but not close enough together to monitor and the contractions are very minor.

Eliza and I left New York on April 9th and have not been back. We've been holed up at my mother's since then. It has not been easy but I'm managing the best I can. I'm getting used to driving all the time though I can't say I enjoy it, especially with all the rain we've had lately. I keep thinking about my nice, comfy rain boots back at the Manhattan apartment I fled with what my 66-year-old father could carry.

My computer is still not rigged to the internet and my mother's computer (the one I'm typing on now) makes a turtle race feel like a speed show. I feel cut off from my friends but I felt that way before I came here, cut off by the strain of being pregnant and living in a city where it's hard to get around with a big belly and a three-year-old in tow.

Eliza settled into here wonderfully at first but now she's got questions and she's starting to showcase some unhappiness at the situation. At first when I told her we were staying at Grandma's until after the baby was born, she was thrilled. Now she's asking to go home to East 22nd Street. She doesn't ask often, in fact maybe she's asked three or four times since we've been here but it's enough to rattle me with guilt.

C came here to see her over the weekend and it went fairly well. At first, he asked if he could pick her up on Thursday, bring her back to New York and then return her Tuesday or Wednesday. I vetoed that, saying that she needs to be settled in here. We hadn't even discussed the separation at that point. We discussed it a little this weekend and he agreed the relationship is over. We will be fighting over visitation issues in the future but for now he's not disagreeing with me. I explained to him that I'm not going to never let Eliza stay with him in New York, but for now I want to establish that her home base is here, with me.

It will be tough as C doesn't think anything of moving her back and forth between two homes, something I absolutely don't think we should do to a three-year-old. I would prefer something along the lines of her staying with him maybe one night a month while he visits her here on other weekends. I don't think he'll ever agree to this situation and he'll use his other two kids as bargaining chips. I want Eliza to see her siblings and I understand that they have busy lives that would interfere with their coming here regularly. However, even when we all lived in New York together, Eliza didn't see much of her siblings. As Katie's a junior in High School, we saw her on average, about twice a month for about an hour or less. Harry's in sixth grade and also gravitating more towards friends and after school activities.

But all of that is on hold for now as we wait for the baby. Eliza is very excited about having a little sister. And I'm trying to enjoy this time with my one and only girl. We've had some rough times. One afternoon in particular stands out as one of the tougher moments I've had as a mother.

I woke Eliza from a nap and she wouldn't stop crying. She was tired and not feeling well but nothing I did seemed to calm her or stop her crying. I can only handle so much crying, so after about 25 minutes or so, I left her in her room and closed the door to tend to dinner prep with the sobbing slightly muffled. When I opened the door a few minutes later to again try to comfort my girl, she informed me that she'd had "an accident" on the couch in her room.

Rage surged so quickly through me, it almost felt like my forehead was on fire. Eliza was so close to the bathroom and yet she didn't even try to make it there, I'm pretty sure, out of spite. Having left my comfy nursing glider back in my old apartment in New York, I planned to nurse the baby on this couch. It's one of the only comfortable places to sit in my mother's house. The couch was drenched, like Eliza had saved an entire afternoon's worth of pee just to piss me off, pardon the pun.

I yelled at her, explained that the couch would have to be thrown away now (the material is beginning to fray and I didn't think it would survive scrubbing) and that I'd have no place to nurse baby sister. I nudged her towards the bathroom and stripped her. She sat naked on the floor crying for a few minutes and I yelled at her to stop crying. Red faced and naked, she crouched on the floor and struggled to hold back her tears. Angrily, I turned the water on.

She climbed into the tub and I remembered a day when my father said "There will be times when you hate her." Eliza was about eight months old at the time, I can still see her asleep in her stroller wearing this little red cheerleading outfit. I looked at her and couldn't imagine ever hating her. As I looked at slim body standing in the tub, still heaving from the held-in sobs, I still thought hate was a strong word but I didn't feel like I loved her either. I didn't feel like being a mother anymore. Here I was, homeless, single, worried like crazy about money, trying to care for her, a recovering mother, while I waited to give birth to yet another child. I didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't want to be the only person bathing Eliza, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning for her, myself and my mother. Driving to the pharmacy to pick up my mother's prescriptions, running to the post office to send off mom's income tax, trying to make space for myself and my new baby in a house that my mother has packed to the gills.

I squeezed soap onto my hands and Eliza obediently stood still as I gently scrubbed her leg. And in that little gesture, I fell in love with my daughter all over again. I washed her other leg and slowly cleaned her dirty bottom, her back, her lovely little tummy. I marveled at how wonderful her body is, how I created it inside my own body, how this little creature is the best thing I've ever done.

I started to sing a song I made up for her, one that says "I love my little girl, she is my whole wide world. I love my little girl called Eliza." She turned towards me and smiled with a look of such love and such innocence, I can't begin to describe it.

Tonight at dinner, Eliza curled up next to me and said "I love this dinner. Thank you for making me such a wonderful dinner." How many three-year-olds say that to their mothers. This isn't the first time she's said something like this. I used to say to her "Thank you for having dinner with me." Maybe that's where she gets it from, I don't know. All I know is I'm lucky, so, so, so lucky that this child is somehow mine.

And this next kid, she's got some big shoes to fill.

Almost Spring

2009-03-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

So much has happened in this past month of March. While visiting my mother at the rehab center, I watched my mother during her speech therapy. In case you've not read for a while, if ever, My mother had surgery to remove a benign brain tumor on March 5th. Her recovery has gone surprisingly well and the whole experience has moved me and changed me in ways I find difficult to describe. I am so freakin proud of my mother for how well she has come through this. She has worked very hard at the rehab center to relearn how to walk and to improve her speech. There's still a long road ahead of her but watching her march through the working room last week with such fortitude and determination was like watching Eliza walk for the first time. I was so proud and so happy to watch my mother fight to regain herself and continue living, for me, for my brother, to see her new grandchild who is due April 30th.

I have not been happy about this pregnancy but now that's going to change. I am finally ready to look forward to welcoming this new life into the world. With everything that's going on in my mother's life, I'm going to have the baby in New Jersey. Although my Mom's prognosis is great, I don't want her completely alone the first month she's released. I'm probably looking at recovery from a 2nd C-section so I wouldn't be able to make the trip from New York to New Jersey after the baby is born. My mother won't have clearance to drive for some time. Having the baby in New Jersey also solves the "what to do with Eliza when I go to the hospital" dilemma. Though we have friends in New York, if my labor comes on suddenly, we'd be in a bind. A friend could get here quickly to be with Eliza but he or she wouldn't be able to stay indefinitely (this little thing called a job).

At my mother's, we have my father and his wife 15 minutes away, a wonderful neighbor who runs a day-care center out of her home and Eliza's Godmother about a half-hour's drive away. Here in New York, even my wonderful babysitter is practically a two hour commute away. The city might be small geographically but factor in traffic and often lame public transportation and we've got a bit of a problem.

So now that I've found a doctor in Jersey and I've mentally solved that little problem, I can set about to setting up the room for the new baby. Things are going to be tough over the next couple of months with C. But aren't they always and this time, I know with everything in me I am doing the right thing. I can't let fear of the unknown stop me from doing what I must do. It's so sad to be unhappy about an unplanned pregnancy because I am so unhappy with that baby's father.

In just the past few weeks, C has discovered what a wonderful, exciting little daughter he has. He's always loved her but he preferred the company of his other two kids because they're older, can go to the movies or on bike rides. Now that Eliza's 3 1/2, she can do more and be more to him. I also have to say his two other kids have moved on from spending their weekends going to the movies and playing basketball with their father. Their recent absence has made it possible for him to discover his second daughter. So Eliza has gotten used to seeing her father more regularly but this is not something I can worry about at the moment. The time to separate has arrived and it's going to be tough on Eliza to be apart from her father, if even briefly, but I think it would be much tougher for her to be apart from me. I'm choosing the lesser of two evils here.

Spring is almost here. I dreaded the thought of spring at the start of my pregnancy. Spring meant I'd be taking care of two little ones and how exactly did I plan to do that? When I first told Eliza about the upcoming "arrival" I'd say, "baby sister won't be here until the spring."

Now I say, "It's almost spring, Eliza. Do you know what happens in the spring?"

Eliza's eyes widen and she grins, then says "It's almost time for baby sister to come out."

And it feels so good to finally, finally rejoice with her.

A week on a Blackberry

2009-03-09T05:37:00.000-07:00

Here's some of the correspondence from my Blackberry last week. This thing really came in handy though I had to call Verizon twice last week because the web and email weren't working. Some of the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

MONDAY

FROM DAVID (friend who moved to Israel in 2007): Hey Darlin',

I'm so sorry to hear about your Mom. I absolutely will keep her in my prayers. Fran rocks. Tell her I said so. I hope you're feeling ok with the pregnancy and all. Wish we were closer so we could be with you and hug you. When Miri (his wife, my close friend Meredith) was sick, you were the most awesome of friends. I will never forget that. Perhaps one of the reasons I love you. Hang in there and let us know how she is doing. A lot of miles between us but sending all our love...

TO MY FRIEND LORI: Hi, my mom has a brain tumor. I am okay but pretty shaken up. You're visiting your folks this week? I hoped you missed the big snowstorm.

FROM LORI:Ohmygod...so sorry abt your mom! What do the doctors say abt treatment/prognosis?

TO LORI: Don't know anything and my mother is alone so hav to get info from her which is hard for her. Wen u go to parents?

FROM LORI: Just read the blog entries...God, so sorry for what u went thru--can't even imagine how terrifying it must have been. We leave early tomorrow am but if u need to talk, please don't hesitate to call

TO LORI: Your father is a neurologist, right? Ok if I contact u once I know what's going on (if necess). Still trying to reach Mom's doctor. It sux being here.

FROM LORI: Of course! Call anytime, and if there's any way I can help or any info my dad can provide, we will do whatever we can. Try to hang in there...

TO LORI: I'm ok, just going a little crazy cuz my mom is alone. Gonna leave E w C for the 1st time to go there later this wk. Maybe hav better shot of talking to dr in person.

TO LORI: Finally spoke to her dr. Hav to do mri in next 24hrs then biopsy. Sed tumor in accessible location-not sure if it will b biopsy or they try to get it all. know more after mri.

FROM LORI: Ok. Sending good thoughts your way and hers.

FROM MOM'S FRIEND JACKIE: Please keep me informed about Fran. I am so upset. I hope to God that this is benign. She has suffered enough. Keep me abreast of how she is and tell her that I have asked for her. Your mother is a fighter, it's been a long big fight, but she will hang in there. Take care, Jackie

TUESDAY

TO LORI: any way your dad can check on neurosurgeon dr simon salerno in wall, nj? Frontal lobe brain tumor, did mri this morn. Moms regular dr saw mri report, sed it lks like they think its benign tho not certain til biopsy. Regular dr sed bigger issue is size and location, needs to get out fast

FROM LORI: I will ask my dad abt the doctor. when are you going to nj or are you already there?

TO LORI: going to nj tomorro. Spoke to neuro office today-they gd about calling me+ they still think its benign due to location. Probly hav surgery on thurs to remove as much of tumor as can.

FROM MY FRIEND MARY: Let me know if your mother needs anything and I can stop by the hospital.

FROM LORI: My dad says not a lot of info on record abt dr. salerno. sounds pretty young. at most has abt 6yrs experience-which could be good bc he is probably up on all the newest technology. Dad also says frontal lobe benign tumor has greatest sucess of full recover. Most risky part abt it is the surgery. make sure your mom's anesthesiologist has full medical background on her heart issues, etc.

TO LORI: thanks for asking your dad. They did an ekg on mom today and hav to run an echo 2morro to clear her for surgery so I think they know about heart issues. Her dr sed she needs it-fast.

WEDNESDAY

FROM C'S MOM: Dear Lisa, C called and told us about your mother. We were so sorry to hear. We hope the operation will go well and that the recovery will be smooth and uneventful. I know your mother has had health issues and I am saddened that she has another one to face. I can only imagine how hard this must be on you. I know how very close you are with your mother. And this should be such a joyous time as you await the birth of the new baby. Please let your mother know that she is in our thoughts and prayers, as are you. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. You just need to let me know.

TO LORI: Mom cleared for surgery. Prob now is Dr. Salerno goes on vacay on fri so if they can't sched it 4 tomorro, not sure who will do it. Apparently can't wait til he gets back.

FROM LORI: Why wouldn't they be able to do it tomorrow as long as she's cleared to go?

TO LORI: Scheduling with hospital. It lks like she is schedule 4it but neuro didn't tell her, the endicrinologist sed sched get instruct from nite nurse. I was at her place getting her stuff so never even met Salerno. Can u ask your father how long she mite be in hosp after surgery. Hav to go back to NY + afraid they might release her rite away. I don't she she shld be home alone but I can't leave E for too long.

TO LORI: Nurse is running thru all this stuff w nite nurse + its just terrifying listening to this shit.

FROM LORI: My dad wants to know exactly what type of tumor it is...Glyoma or meningioma or glyoblastoma or something else. as far as hosp stay, he says it depends on how she responds to surgery. Cld be as little as 2-3 days.

TO LORI: I'm not sure but I think it mite be meningioma.

FROM LORI: He says usually very good prognosis on meningiomas.

TO LORI: yeah dr I spoke to yesterday seemed very positive but I don't kno if they always make it snd like that or what. She has to have mra of sinus tonite-nurse told her they mite go in thru her nose and my mom's like less I know, better.

TO LORI: Finally met dr salerno. Sed thinks its mengioma but can't say 2 100 percent certainty until actually in there. Biggest prob is tumor on main artery that drains blood from the head so hav to be careful around that artery. Postponed vacay to mon to follow-up.

TO MY FRIEND MARY: Surgery scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. If you can stop by and sit with me for some of it, that would be great.

FROM LORI: Glad he's able to stay. What time is surgery tomorrow?

TO LORI: Aft, not exact set time. Took me 20mins to get car in Moms driveway cuz snow. Exhausted. Talk soon. Hav fun w your daughter. I miss my girl.

THURSDAY

FROM MY COUSIN PAT: Lisa, I figured you were having a long day at the hospital, but wasn't sure other than to leave a message how to get in touch. I feel bad that you are there by yourself. Hospitals are not the best of places to be, let alone being alone and worrying. After we got off the phone, the brain kicked in gear and I started wondering about all of her health issues, medication that she is on (blood thinners, etc.) and wondering how that would affect or if it would allow surgery. Then there is the concern with her heart. Life has certainly not been kind to your mom. Just to let you know that you have both been in my thoughts and prayers. Did not know if you mentioned this to anyone else. I wish I could give you a big hug right now. Tell our mom we are thinking of her and praying that all goes well.

FROM MY FRIEND DAVID: I have your mom in my prayers. Let us know her # at the hospital. We'd like to call her... (I told my mother she ranks higher than me, they never call me from Israel.)

FROM C'S MOM: I hope the surgery is going well. Keep us updated when you can. I was so happy to hear that Mary will be with you. It will help to have that support.

TO MY COUSIN PAT: Thanks for your nice message. I just wanted to let you know Mom's surgery isn't scheduled until 4pm so I won't have any news until much later.

FROM C'S MOM: We will be thinking of you both at 4pm. Give your Mom a hug and one for you too.

FROM PAT: How is she?? I'll bet she is so afraid. Please let her know that she is in my thoughts, prayers--you too. Do they have any idea of how long the surgery will be?? Is there anyone with you?

TO PAT: She is very thirsty because they won't let her drink anything until after the surgery. Other than that, she is fine but she won't be if they don't take her at 4 (which is often the case at hospitals). I'm fine-my friend mary will come by at some point and so is my father. The surgeon told me the surgery will take 3-4 hrs but I'm not buying it. I know that it always takes longer than that so I'm prepared for it. I just hope they really hav her by 4:30 or so. Its not easy waiting to hav yr skull cut open.

TO MY FRIEND LORI: Oh my god, if I hav to hear my mother complain about her constipation again I'm going to go insane. Surgery sched for 4

FROM LORI: Could be worse. Could be diarrhea...

TO MY COUSIN KATHY: I just wanted to let you know my mom is in the hospital. She has a brain tumor they think is benign but its big and has to be removed. She is scheduled to hav surgery late today. Sorry to be telling you this in an email but everything is happening very fast. I was on the phone with her Sunday night when suddenly she had some kind of seizure. I called her neighbor, they broke in the house and rode to the hospital with her and now here we are. the neurosurgeon appears pretty good + if surgery goes well, she should be ok.

I hav not told Gram yet, not sure when that will happen. I want to wait until after the surgery so should you speak to Gram and Pap, please don't mention it.

4:54 pm--TO MY FRIEND MARY WHO SAT IN THE OR WAITING ROOM WHILE I SAT WITH MY MOTHER IN THE HOLDING AREA BEFORE THE OR: Just sitting here in another waiting room with mom waiting...

FROM MARY: Ok, we're in the other waiting room

5:37pm--TO MARY: Still just sitting here. No dr, nothing. I wonder if they're even going to do surgery @ this point its so late.

FROM MARY: Oh I hope they do it. They shouldn't make her wait likes this. Keep me posted.

FROM MY COUSIN KATHY: Thanks for letting me know about your mom. How did the surgery go for her. How long will she be in the hospital? Let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do.

FROM MY MOTHER'S CLOSE FRIEND DORIS: I am so glad you contacted me about your mother's surgery. I am very concerned and would like to know how the surgery went. Please keep me posted on how things are going. My prayers and best wishes are with you.

FRIDAY

2:39am--TO KATHY: Mom's finally done with surgery. dr sed she's ok. Exhausted, more later.

2:40am--TO PAT: She's finally out of surgery. dr. sed it went well. Exhausted. more tomorrow.

FROM MEREDITH, MY CLOSE FRIEND: What's going on with your mom?? David told me last night. apparently he had forwarded an email to me from you that didn't have the whole story. Its a tumor? She had surgery today?? pls let me know whats going on with her and with you. I am so concerned for her and for you. Pls let me know asap. I love you.

FROM C'S MOM: I am so glad to hear it went well. I will be watching for the next update. I hope you are doing okay.

TO MEREDITH: Mom was in surgery until 3a. Dr. said it went well+ he got most of the tumor out. He really doesn't think tumor was malignant but have to wait for the pathology report. I saw her briefly after the surgery. She looked to be in pain and she was very upset that I was still there. I am sorry she had to go through this but happy they could do something about it. What a week! last week @ this time we had no idea she had a brain tumor. Now she's recovering from a craniotomy. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers as she recovers and thanks for checking in.

FROM PAT: You poor little thing--you really had a LONG day yesterday. I noticed the time you sent the email. So glad to hear the surgery went well. Now if the recovery can go as well that will be wonderful.

FROM MOM'S FRIEND JACKIE: Thank you Lisa. I was holding breath until your email.

FROM LORI: Just wanted to check in on you. How are things?

TO LORI: Hi, mom in surgery last night til 3am but supposedly it went well. I called ICU to see how she's doing and her nurse sed she's ok, just complaining about her constipation. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Update on Mom

2009-03-07T17:16:00.000-08:00

So my mother endured nine hours of brain surgery late Thursday into Friday. I didn't get back to her house until close to 4am. The neurosurgeon said the surgery went better than he expected. I am impressed that I managed to stay relatively calm throughout the entire ordeal but I'm back in New York with Eliza now and I feel very badly that I'm not with my Mom.

I arrived Wednesday and went straight to the hospital. Mom looked pretty good for some one with a brain tumor. The neurosurgeon, is relatively sure my mother has what's called a Meningioma, which is a benign, frontal lobe brain tumor. Apparently, as far as brain tumors go, this is the one to get. It has the highest rate of a full recovery.

Although they can't be sure that the tumor isn't cancerous until after the pathology report, the tumors location indicates that it's a Meningioma.

Mom's surgery was scheduled for 4pm and the orderly arrived just a little after four. My cheerleading squad that consisted of my friend Michelle and my father had already shown up. We followed the orderly as he wheeled Mom towards the OR.

"I hope I recognize you all when I wake up," Mom said.

I accompanied mother to the holding area where we sat for close to two hours. A nurse asked a series of questions and then disappeared.

"Am I the only customer?" My mother asked. Finally, around 5:40, the anesthesiologists arrived and asked the same questions as the nurse. Then Dr. Salerno walked up and I realized who he reminded me of: my friend David who moved to Israel. I felt like the surgery had to go well if my Mom was to be operated on by a doctor who looked like one of my closest friends.

They started with the anesthesia and I walked down a long hallway to meet Michelle and my father in the OR waiting room.

A TV blared. Two small children ran around. Jeopardy bled into American Idol, then a reality show and then ER and we found ourselves the last people there. We changed ER-- a case of art meeting reality. I know how surgery goes and even though the doctor said it would take three to four hours, I knew it would probably take longer and that didn't necessarily mean anything bad.

Close to 11pm, they phoned the desk to tell me that my Mom was fine and the surgery was going well. I felt relieved, but still secretly wondered if they were back there arguing over who'd go out and tell the pregnant chick they just screwed up her Mother.

Michelle hung in until after midnight. I was grateful she came at all and certainly hadn't expected her to stay over six hours. I felt guilty and at the same time insanely blessed to have good friends. My blackberry helped me keep in touch with frantic relatives via email.

Finally, after two am, they called the desk to say the surgery was over and all was well. They had to wake Mom up and then they'd come get us. My father and I went down to ICU and waited until they were ready to let us see her.

As soon as she saw us, Mom started to cry. She looked pale and her head was covered with a white dressing that kind of resembled a turban.

"Go home," she said. "I'm sorry."

"We couldn't," my Dad said.

I smiled. In that moment, I was so proud of her, of us, by how well we'd handled all this.

"You're okay, Mom," I said. "It's good to see you."

They moved her out of ICU on Friday and I returned to New York. I feel terrible separated from my mother but Friday started with a phone call from Eliza where she begged me to pick her up at school. I know some of it was toddler manipulation but I got the message: "Mama, come home." I don't ever want my daughter to think I'm not listening.

I have no idea what I face when Mom gets out of the hospital. She might not be able to drive, she might not be able to live alone for a long time, if ever. Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows that I'm not happy in my current situation so other than the school Eliza attends three days a week, there's no real reason for me to stay in New York. I wonder about dragging Eliza into this situation but my mother really doesn't have anyone to take care of her other than me. She doesn't have a big bank account for private nursing care and her house is probably worth so little at this point, selling isn't an option. I'm all she really has.

I'm not leaving my daughter behind. C gave me some song and dance about her having a life here and how he's her parent too, he's not chopped liver. Believe me, as my father sat with me for all those hours during his ex-wife's surgery, I was reminded of the importance of fathers. But mothers are important too and I've been this kid's primary caregiver all of her life. Though she and C had a good time in my absence, she spent more hours with the babysitter than with C. These days we have day care and playdates and other things we think are so important but Eliza is three, is there anything more important than her family. My mother only lives two hours outside New York and C can go back and forth a lot more easily than I can at 32 weeks pregnant.

But enough about him. My friend Meredith called me from Israel today to check on my Mom and me. this is the first time I've heard her voice since I left her at the airport back in May. Next time I speak to my mother, I'm going to tell her she should get brain tumors more often.

Kidding folks!

Shaking

2009-03-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

My mother has a brain tumor. There's no easy way to say it and certainly there was no easy way to hear it. My mother delivered the news to me herself: I am sorry for that. My mother's next door neighbor, Karinna, was supposed to tell me but I tracked my mother down at the hospital sooner than she expected.

Karinna called about an hour after she rode in the ambulance to the hospital with my mother. She said my mother was lucid and joking around and that it looked like she may have had a mini-stroke. My mother has Afib, a heart condition that can lead to a stroke so this has been a concern for some time. I was not surprised, but I wasn't happy either. Karinna couldn't find the key to my mother's house so she had her sixteen-year-old son break in. They found my mother on the floor and it was pretty scary but help arrived quickly. They didn't even bring a coat for my mother, they moved so fast.

Karinna asked me to call her house and tell her son that my mother was stable. An answering machine picked up and I thanked Dylan for breaking and entering. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," I rambled into the machine.

Karinna stayed with my mother so my mother wasn't alone when she found out she had a brain tumor. The hospital who'd done the CAT scan didn't have a neurologist so my mother was transferred to another hospital. I tracked her down early this morning and they connected me to her room. When my mother asked me if I'd spoken to Karinna, I should have known it was worse than I thought but I still fell apart when she told me. My poor Mom, suffering with her own brain tumor and me, a basket case.

Ten years ago, a close friend of my mother's died from a brain tumor and my mother was with her when she died. It wasn't pretty and I'm sure that's what's going through her head right now. We don't know anything yet so I'm trying not to jump to any conclusions. I'm probably going to head to Jersey later this week to be the point man so my mother doesn't have to be the only one receiving information. I'm a bit snowed in at the moment and I need to get Eliza's care in order. This will be the first trip I take without my daughter. I need her and I will miss her but she doesn't need to be hanging around the hospital with me. She's better off in school, with her father.

I can't stop shaking. Last night I stood in Eliza's room while she slept and wished so much I could climb into bed with her and hold her. But I didn't want to wake her so I just stood perfect still and listened to her breathe while I stared at the spooky blue glow of her nightlight. I felt like a little girl, alone, shaking, terrified of the dark.

Waiting

2009-03-01T20:12:00.001-08:00

I was on the phone with my mother tonight. We weren't talking about anything important. She asked me if Eliza had school tomorrow and I said "why wouldn't she?" She then told me the tri-state area was expecting a foot of snow overnight.

I don't remember exactly what we were talking about but suddenly she started to make these weird noises like Cindy Pittinger made on the short bus home from camp one day. My brother and I went to summer camp for special needs students when I was in third grade or so. On the aformentioned day, Cindy had some kind of seizure where she almost swallowed her tongue. One the camp counselors came to her aid and all was well but it was a good 33 years ago and I still remember the sound.

And here I was holding a phone in my hand, screaming "Mommy" like a child while my mother babbled on the other end. I was on the floor screaming when C came in the room to ask what was wrong. I handed him my cell phone and told him to get Karrina, my mother's next door name, from my cell phone contact list. As he fumbled unknowingly through my alien cell phone, I screamed help me. Finally, I was able to pull up Karinna's number on my own and she promptly went to my mother's and called an ambulance.

She called a bit later with some guy who wasn't a paramedic, but apparently had the ability to take her blood pressure. The man asked me if my mother is diabetic (she's type II) and if I might know the location of her test kit. I guessed by her favorite chair and he got off the phone. He then told me her blood pressure was fine which I guess is good news. She was awake and breathing on her own, but not coherent.

Later, Karinna called to say they were taking my mother to the hospital and that she'd go with her for a little while. Karinna promised to call when she found out something but said she couldn't stay at the hospital too long.

Karinna runs a day care center out of her home and she starts pretty early most days. I hope she's not stuck at the hospital too long.

About 70 miles and a big snowstorm separate me from my mother right now. It's been about an hour since she went to the hospital. I feel utterly alone and helpless.

And waiting.

Life Choices

2009-02-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

It's that time, the time to make the big choice. Do I stay in New York with my current doctor, have the baby here with C? He claims he'll take the time off work and help with the baby, I have a great babysitter here and Eliza can stay in school.

Or do I move in with my mother at the end of March? My mother is not in great health, I don't know how much she can help with the baby and Eliza and the woman who runs a day care center is wonderful, but Eliza prefers her current school and so do I. The big pro of staying with my mother is she loves me, something I can not say for C. When I am with Eliza and my mother, though she can't physically help with Eliza the way C can, I feel like I'm part of a family.

C and his family have always cared for Eliza and been there for Eliza so they've been helpful in that regard but they are not caring or interested in me. C's Mom probably shows the most consideration my way but her weird insecurities and her frequent perception of me as a rival have often clouded her treatment of me. Perhaps if C and I had done this the right way, got married, had a longer life together without a child, maybe this would be different. But C and I were together for a while and didn't get married because he refuses to commit to me.

I have stayed with some one who in every way has not made me a priority because it's convenient, my daughter loves him and its hard breaking up a family. Well, I'm done now and though it might be easier to stay with him for those first few weeks after the baby is born, it's gonna be that much harder to leave when I do. One one hand, moving again could be very traumatic on Eliza and if I don't do things C's way, he won't help me move at all. Packing is very challenging with a big belly.

But then I'll move, have all my stuff in storage, have the hard part behind me and for the last month, Eliza and I can settle into our new life and get ready to welcome the new baby. I'll welcome the new baby into the world with the worst of it behind me. It's cruel to C, to leave and cut him off from the new baby bonding process when he's now willing to take time off work and help out. I don't want to be cruel, I just want to do what's best for me.

And I think I already know what that is.

February Update

2009-02-20T09:17:00.001-08:00

Haven't been writing much of anything lately. Call it being pregnant/sick/winter blues. Eliza is so much fun these days, there's certainly plenty to write but it seems she does something wonderful, I think I must write this down and then I forget.

Recently, Eliza snuggled up against me and said "Mama, I love being your little girl." It was the single best thing anyone has ever said to me. I think this is better than some one saying "And the Oscar goes to..." although the chances of that are extremely unlikely. She has become very needy as of late and it can be difficult for me. She wants me all the time. The good side of this: she wants to snuggle all the time. The bad side of this: she has never been one for sitting still so I have various injuries on my face from accidental smack-ups. Though I relish this new, "I need my Mama so much" phase, sometimes I need a break. But she's at school now, providing me with a much needed break from all this closeness. And I write this now for posterity so in the years that will come to follow, as she moves off to friends and a world away from me, I can recall with clarity, a great time when my little girl wouldn't let me put her down.

I am still ambivalent about a second child. I'm about 30 weeks pregnant at this point. C and I can't agree on a name. I'm not even sure where I'm delivering this baby. I might leave New York and C before the baby is born and move in with my mother temporarily to have the baby. Or I might stay here in New York so Eliza can finish the school year and have some illusion of normalcy before and after the baby's birth. Then I plan to make my escape to my mother's some time in the summer before seeking and finding my own place in late summer or fall.

As much as I want a family life for Eliza, I am extremely unhappy in my relationship with C. This is not going to improve, things only continue to get worse. It's truly difficult saying to the world that I'm putting myself (the fact that I'm unhappy) before what Eliza might need (a home with both parents). I know what Eliza needs is a happy mother but whose to say I'll be all that much happier without C? I only know that I can't live my life with the heavy amount of verbal abuse and criticism that I have to endure on a regular basis. Plus C has always refused to get married, when I wasn't working gave me a monthly "stipend" as opposed to a joint account and constantly reminds me how good I have it, how he works so hard to provide a home for me while I do nothing in return. I don't know, I guess I thought he wanted me around and he enjoyed providing a home for the woman who takes care of his child but we are not partners, nor have we ever been.

My job ended abruptly early this month when they cancelled the show with no notice. So two weeks of work I was banking on and need for insurance purposes are gone. If I stay in New York, I have to ask C for money to buy groceries, make doctor copayments, take care of Eliza and my own needs. I've been in this position before, begging him for money and him, putting me down, telling me that I'm a loser and that I contribute nothing while he has to work so hard. Then he throws the check at me and says "Congratulations, you're rich."

But let's not waste time talking about him. Though I miss the money and my coworkers, I am glad not to be working during this time of year. I have enjoyed being here for Eliza and kind of taking it easy as my belly expands. I finally broke down the other day and purchased a few onesies and tee shirts for the baby--my way of saying yes, this might really happen. Eliza seems very excited about being a big sister though I think she is going to have rude awakening when the baby comes home. Eliza's expecting they'll have tea parties and play with Barbie dolls right away.

Finally, I mentioned my friend's child with cancer in my last entry--he is undergoing surgery to have his kidney removed today. He will then endure more chemo and radiation over the next few months. But they do expect a full recovery. My friends are going through a very difficult time right now, but they have tremendous support and for that, I am so very grateful. We had a playdate with the boy yesterday and he looked great. A little less hair but other than that, his coloring was good, he seemed very energetic and robust and he was a great deal of fun to be around. I am amazed at the resilience of children. I am so glad he is doing so well and can only pray that he continues to seem as healthy throughout this terrible ordeal no one should have to endure.

Back to Work, January Blues

2009-01-11T20:37:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to lie, the past week has sucked. We are all healthy so nothing major has happened but adjusting to our new quarters while trying to get ready to be at work and be gone for two weeks has been more difficult than I expected.

I will be moving again in the next few months to a location yet to be determined. C and I decided to end this dismal relationship and he's basically kicked me out of the new apartment. In a way, it comes as a relief to finally close the door on this chapter of my life and move on. There's just one catch I've been pretty quiet about--I'm 23 weeks pregnant.

Yes, I hadn't mentioned it because of my past history of failed pregnancies and my general lack of enthusiasm as the pregnancy progressed due to the aforementioned dismal relationship. C and I are miserable together so why'd I have to be so stupid as to get knocked up again? Now I'm going to be a homeless, unemployed single mother with two kids.

Eliza is excited so I've tried to share in her excitement. I enjoy feeling the baby kick and grow inside me and I'm sure once I see her, I'll realize that this must have happened for a reason. But for now, I'm simply terrified and feel completely inadequate and unable to care for two children. I guess even people from stable families feel terrified by the prospect of two kids. I am grateful that so far the pregnancy has progressed smoothly and all test results (CVS, anatomy scan) indicate a healthy little girl. And when you have health, you have everything.

On Christmas Eve, my little cousin Bobby had a heart attack. He's 38, I think. His mother died of a heart attack at age 40, he has the same heart problem that she has and due to the fact that he's been in and out of jail for the past ten years, he problem hasn't taken care of himself. Bobby's the family black sheep and I can't say I particularly like the person he became but when I found out he'd suffered a heart attack, all the bitter feelings went away and I remembered the time he called on my birthday and did a surprisingly good imitation of my grandmother. Or the Christmases we spent at my grandmother's house and the time he moved me out of one of my college apartments. That's my little cousin--he shouldn't be having a heart attack. They expect he'll make a full recovery and I'd love to say maybe he'll take this time to clean up his act but I doubt it. So I not only mourn his poor health but the mess he's made of his life.

Two days later, my grandfather had a stroke. He's 102, yes I know he can't live forever but that doesn't make this any easier. He is out of the hospital and not paralyzed but can no longer walk on his own. I so wish he lived closer so I could see him more often.

Now that I have you thoroughly depressed, let me hit you with the kicker. I also found out last week that one of Eliza's little playmates has cancer. He's three, we were all at his birthday party in December and all was well. It turns out he has a tumor on his kidney that burst and he had to have emergency surgery on December 26th. His cancer is stage three and as with any of these things, there are no answers at the moment, only treatment and hope. I am devastated and disgusted that a three-year-old kid has to go through this, not to mention the hell his parents are living. He has to be well, he must get better; I can not imagine a world without him in it. I can't say that I'm close to his mother but I've known them since he was a baby, happily watched him take his first steps at only eight months, I've been to his birthday parties and he's been to all of Eliza's. I feel like I've been walking around in a daze since I found out, a bundle of anger and fire and helplessness, trying to imagine some way I could make him better.

I remember the second time I found out my mother had cancer, some one told me that at moments like this, I had to surrender to a higher power. I'm more or less agnostic so I took no comfort in the idea of my mother's fate being out of my hands. My mother's cancer turned out to be stage one--both times. We were lucky in that regard.

I keep thinking about the children's story "The Snow Queen." To summarize; a little boy is kidnapped and taken to the North Pole by the Snow Queen. His best friend Gerta travels a perilous journey to find her friend. When she discovers him in a palace made of snow, he does not recognize or want her because the Snow Queen has frozen his heart with ice. Gerta collapses at his feet weeping and her tears melt the ice around his heart and bring him back. She saves him not just with ingenuity and fortitude but with love.

I long to throw my arms around this little boy and cry tears that could magically erase the evil that lurks quietly inside his little body.

"Well you don't smell good so..."

2009-01-06T12:04:00.000-08:00

The other day, while spending some more of my hard-earned cash on the lovely Eliza, I leaned in to hug her and she said "You smell bad."

I backed up, allowed her to see that I was hurt, and said "Eliza that's a terrible thing to say to Mama. It's mean."

She shrugged and looked at me rather innocently, completely unaware that she'd hurt me. "Well, you don't smell good so..." I'm afraid I can't how she finished the sentence. No, I'm not trying to censor my daughter, I simply didn't understand what she said at the time or I don't remember.

I didn't smell, by the way. I'd taken a luxurious shower a few hours earlier. We were visiting my mother at the time this wonderful statement was made and my Mom thought perhaps she said this because while I was enjoying said shower, Eliza was downstairs with my Mom, crying for me. My mother told Eliza I needed to take a shower or I'd smell bad. When this line of talking didn't quite work, my Mom then told Eliza that I had to take care of myself in order to take care of her. I think she still kept on crying.

I wonder if she is learning these kind of statements from her peers at school. Today, while I clipped and polished her tiny toenails, she said "I can't go to school with my toes looking like this. I can't let the kids in my class see my toes like this."

I wasn't aware that she was showing off her feet to her classmates but I suppose well-groomed toenails can be added to her list of worries.

Not much more time to write so to summarize the past week--C and I moved all of our stuff out of our old apartment last Tuesday, slept on air mattresses and then moved our stuff into our new place on Wednesday morning. I shouldn't say we moved it because we had a team of movers do the dirty work but it certainly felt like I'd done quite a bit. We spent New Year's Eve unpacking. Thursday, I unpacked all my clothes so I could turn around and pack a suitcase for a holiday visit to my parents for the weekend. It was a bit too much and I'm happy to be in my new home for the moment.

All is well and Eliza returned to school yesterday, thank goodness. It was really tough having her home from school and no babysitting relief while we packed and prepped for the move. But we are more or less settled. The kitchen is unpacked and both bedrooms (yes, Eliza has her own bedroom for the very first time!) are in good shape. However, the living room is a sea of boxes and I've pretty much run out of places to unpack and put things. We had several big closets in our old apartment that made up for the fact that we have no bookcases or entertainment center. While this apartment is spacious by New York standards and the kitchen is the best I've had, there is very limited closet space and no shared storage space. So bikes, the car seat, suitcases, etc. are in full view.

Several boxes filled with books, cds and dvds are also polluting the living room but until we have some kind of enormous bookcase/storage unit in place, I don't expect this problem to be rectified. But I don't care, I've no problem living amongst boxes as long as I can cook in my kitchen. It drives C crazy, but not enough to invest in said storage unit.

Right now is the honeymoon period in our new place but soon, I expect he'll be screaming that these boxes are not unpacked.

But right now, I choose to be happy in my new home with my girl.

wonderful christmastime

2008-12-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

According to several recent magazine articles, the above mentioned tune by Paul McCartney, was voted the most annoying Christmas song in readers polls. Though I myself love holiday music, I don't enjoy the songs we hear in department stores. I prefer classics by great singers like Ella Fitzgerald, the Harry Simeon Choir, Nat King Cole (excluding the overplayed "Chestnuts")--you get the picture. So I found myself in total agreement with these articles.

However, this is not a post about the joys and groans elicited by holiday music. Instead I'm writing to say that this has in fact been a wonderful Christmas time. Though its also a time of stress as we are moving some day to be determined but very, very soon, like next week soon, we have truly enjoyed the holidays.

STEP ONE to suddenly enjoying Christmas the way you did when you were a kid:

Have a three-year-old.

This was the first time Eliza really got into Christmas and the whole idea of a tree, decorations, Santa, delicious desserts and presents. Everything, from decorating the tree, to listening to Christmas music, to making pumpkin pie to opening presents has been a blast. When C walked with the tree last Sunday, Eliza jumped up and down with joy. She put the first ornament on the tree, a Hello Kitty ornament my stepdaughter purchased for us last year. Ornaments with Rudolf, ornaments that made music, miniature Empire State Buildings, everything caused Eliza to squeal with delight. Eliza and I baked cookies and heated up apple cider the day we trimmed the tree--all this brought her great joy--especially the cookies.

STEP TWO:

Start a real tradition with that three-year-old.

This holiday has been a lot about time side-by-side with Eliza in my tiny kitchen. I'll admit its been mostly making sweet treats that cause her eat like a shark in a feeding frenzy, then bounce off the walls for hours when the effects of the sugar rush take hold. I rolled out the cookie dough, Eliza cut out star shapes, I put the star on the cookie sheet, Eliza sucked down a gumball-sized scrap of dough, repeat. We made pumpkin pie together, or rather I should say I made pumpkin pie and she licked the pot I'd used to make the sweet chiffon filling.

Christmas Eve was the evening we established our real tradition. Coming home from church, I washed my hands and set up to hand-make pasta spaghetti. I haven't made spaghetti in about five years but since Eliza has a new interest in the mechanics of the kitchen, I thought it might be fun. It was messy, a little tense and my dough didn't turn out quite right but it was more fun than I thought it would be. Eliza worked the crank and together we made handmade spaghetti. My first real tradition with my little girl. Next year, Christmas Eve dinner, homemade sauce, homemade meatballs and hand made pasta. Eliza wolfed it all down, proud of her contribution to this meal.

STEP THREE:

Get that kid a fair number of fun presents. I overbought this year. I would have done just as well gifting Eliza with half the booty she ended up with but she loved it all, really loved it. The book I got for her about ballet class, the fake Melissa and Doug cookies, the little doll kitchen--her main gift the one thing she'd asked for and a new doll with some doll clothes. She loved all of it, unwrapped every gift like she was the luckiest girl in the world. Even a little ornament with a kitten dressed in a tutu was like the greatest thing in the world to her. Everything she opened had to come out of the box right away so she could play with it. She didn't open all of her presents before breakfast because she was having too much fun playing with the first few she unwrapped.

I felt the letdown that Christmas was over for the first time since childhood last night. When we got home from the lovely intimate dinner party we attended last night, I looked at the tree and wanted to cry because Christmas was over. My little daughter knelt in front of her new kitchen with her new doll, happily enjoying her new toys and I felt that great wonderful feeling--

all was right with the world.

Naked Blowtorch

2008-12-22T19:10:00.001-08:00

Although I've yet to set fire to my hair, I've called a hair dryer the "blowtorch" for at least two decades. I've always hated the loud, blasting whine of the hair dryer. Just bending over to remove it from the cabinet below the sink fills me with dread. It's this nasty, garrulous dart gun of heat that's need will always annoy me.

You see, I've got bad hair and no hair dryer, hair product of fancy haircut will fix this. But this isn't an ode or lament to my bad hair.

Eliza's been sick for over a week now so I've taken to blow drying her hair. After a few days, the hair is too dirty to ignore but my pet peeve against wet hair with nasal congestion has led me back to that lower cabinet in the bathroom in the hope of not sending my daughter to bed with wet hair. (Oh, the bed head, the horror!)

Well Eliza loves it. Although she complains that its "too noisy," the York Peppermint Patty sensation of the wind in her hair elicits whirls of giggles. She crinkles her tiny nose, mouth open and shakes her head side to side.

Ordinarily I sit her on my lap for her blowout, but tonight, I placed her on the floor naked and sat on the closed toilet seat, aiming the dryer at her head like a gun. Eliza saw this as an opportunity to enjoy some mobility as I sparked the torch. Lately, Eliza topless has reminded me of a young Mick Jagger--the moppy hair, the skinny ribs, the grinning, kind of snarly face. Savoring the moment, as she spun around and offered me the back of her head, I aimed the dryer at her butt, her little legs, her shoulders. Eliza squealed happily and turned around, cupping her face with her tiny hands and tossing her head back. Deep knee bends, some hip shaking and wild dance moves accompanied these ten minutes of pure pleasure. Perhaps this night will foreshadow my daughter's adult life as a video music star (she's got the moves and her love of the hair dryer might lead to a future passion for gusting wind machines). However, I hope as an adult she wears clothes.

For tonight, its one tired Mom, one extraordinary girl and hopefully, a forever mental picture of my girl grinding to the roaring blast of the blowtorch like a young rock idol. At least the next time I bend down for the dryer, I'll have happy associations as opposed to the usual disgust with my pathetic bad hair.

so so so

2008-12-02T19:58:00.000-08:00

Today was not a good day. Too much laundry, too little patience, too much anger directed at my little girl because she refused to use the potty. But then the evening rolled around and after I'd had some bad moments with my girl, we went on to have a wonderful night.

As I taped on her overnight diaper, I apologized for my bad behavior and told her that my bad mood was due to my impending return to work.

"You don't want to go to work?" she said.

"No," I said.

This isn't entirely true. There's something liberating about walking out the door alone, no toddler in tow. All I have to do on the days I work is dress myself and walk out the door. I don't have to ask, "Diaper or underwear?" I don't have to beg some dwarfish version of myself to put on her shoes and wear a coat. I don't have to slice apples, skin pears and wipe up shit. Work is not all bad. Its the transition to work and after work that's the tough part for me.

"Oh its okay," she said. "We'll play together when you come home from work. And you always bring me lots of toys."

I laughed at her simple logic. She doesn't really miss me when I'm at work. She knows I'm coming home eventually and she likes the time with other people. After my untaming of the shrew impersonation, who could blame her?

"You like it when I go to work?" I said.

"Oh yes," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"My Tima comes," she said.

This is Eliza's babysitter, a young student I've come to care for very much myself.

"You like your Tima?" I asked.

"I love Tima," Eliza said. "I love her cause she's so, so, so chocolate."

Chocolate was not the word I expected to hear after all those sos. Nice, fun, plays games with me, happy. But not chocolate. My daughter has apparently noticed the differences in skin tones, ethnicities. Pretima is from Guyana and her skin is dark.

"You and I are vanilla and Tima is chocolate," Eliza said.

A place scarier than Hades, more frightening than Oz...

2008-12-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the nap-free zone. This is my world now, the world of the big-girl bed. Without the crib to keep her prisoner, my daughter howls when I leave the room, demands I read one more bookie than demands "one more toy." When I give in and offer the toy, the call to battle "one more toy" sounds again from that tiny mouth.

In my last day as full-time Mom before my return to work, I find our day surprisingly lacking in fun mother-daughter bonding time. Instead, I fold laundry, clean the bathroom, toss out old food in the fridge, skin and cut apples ("more apples Mama"), wipe up pee, pack up summer clothes (I'm moving in less than a month) and shut my daughter outside my room when she won't stop crying. In short, a day I've looked forward to since Thankgiving reared its poultry scented head last week is turning out to be a bust.

I envisioned fun trips to the book store, a visit to the library, perhaps mother daughter pedicures. Instead I find myself completely overwhelmed by work prep, household chores and a daughter who demands more than I can give right now. Finally, hoping the nap would give me the time I so desperately need to read or do something for myself, has vanished. With the bed comes the freedom to get out of it. Oh she is leaving me alone, I am in my room by myself while I type this with no cries for Mama. It's a blessing. But instead of the peace and simple quietude I'd hoped for, I hear legos being tossed around the room, the sound of items falling from closet shelves, what the song "Row, row, row your boat" would sound like if sung by articulate, ravenous, wile coyotes.

I still savor my time in the my room alone, typing at the computer. And I will miss my girl as I rush from one errand after another while Eliza is at school tomorrow. But oh, how I long for a rewind, a way to go back to the start of the day to make it better. I'd hold off on the laundry or the packing until tonight. I wouldn't yell at Eliza because she seems to have given up on the potty. I wouldn't be so damn exhausted.

Let's face it, Eliza is three and just because she seems incapable of using the toilet consistently doesn't mean she can't develop in other ways. Many three-year-olds no longer need naps. She's moving forward, growing up and as long as she plays by herself, at least I have an hour or so to myself without whining.

Now I have to scare up the energy to get dressed, put in my contact lenses and get out to enjoy something of this day before C and the stepkids descend on me, ravenous for dinner.

"We cuddle and kiss ourselves!"

2008-11-30T12:05:00.001-08:00

I haven't worked since November 7th and its been glorious. I return to work this Friday and I'm very sad that my wonderful time with my daughter is drawing to a close. I only work for eight days and due to Christmas hiatus, I'll have another long lay-off between shoot dates but my time with my daughter has been so valuable, I can't help but feel saddened by my return to work.

First of all, I really enjoyed being off for both Eliza's birthday and Thanksgiving. Eliza had a wonderful birthday and Thanksgiving weekend has been nice, though very exhausting. Eliza's school was closed this past Wednesday for Thanksgiving break and Eliza woke up on Wednesday and asked for underwear. So my little girl is officially deep into potty training.

Up to now, potty training has been nearly non-existent she's been so resistant to the idea of it. Though she loved the potty training books, she slammed down the toilet seat lid and refused to go at school. Attempts to force her into it by letting her run around diaper-free resulted in her holding it in for as long as six hours. It seems that attending a class where everyone is already potty trained except for Eliza made matters worse. The best they could get from her in school is she'll agree to sit on the potty, immediately wipe herself and then flush the toilet.

Wednesday rolled around, school was closed, and suddenly Eliza asked to wear underwear. She peed and pooped like an old pro. Her eyes lit up and her smiled covered the width of her face whenever she sat on the potty and achieved "success." I called C to tell him about our daughter's sudden development and we gleefully applauded her newest achievement. I put her on the phone to tell him about our day and she told him about the potty, then said, "I'm with Mama today and we cuddle and kiss ourselves." I think she meant to say "kiss each other" but I still found it to be just about the cutest thing I'd ever heard.

Thursday (Thanksgiving) continued with underwear but after a big pooping accident, she cautiously asked for diapers. I gently refused and the rest of the day progressed without accident but as the weekend continued, her desire to use the potty has been sporadic. She's been in and out of diapers over the past two days. So far today, she's both used the potty and and peed and pooped in a diaper.

Any magical ideas I had about her training quickly once she decided she was ready have vanished. I see with this child I have a long road ahead of me. I'm sending her to school tomorrow in underwear and discuss it with her teachers. Unfortunately, Eliza sees pull-ups as a diaper and if she's in a pull-up, she'll just go in the diaper as opposed to even attempting to make it to the potty. Since she had so much success the first two days, I think her refusal to go diaper free has more to do with laziness/distractions than an inability to go.

But I'm nervous that returning to work will set her back. I am really ready for her to be out of diapers, primarily so she can start ballet class with her schoolmates come January.

Eliza also graduated from the crib to a big girl bed on Black Friday. So far, it's been okay but she refuses to nap. Whether this is due to the bed or the fact that my stepchildren have been here all weekend is anyone's guess. I've really enjoyed hosting Eliza's siblings this weekend. Eliza worships her teenaged sister Katie and its been a real joy to watch she and Katie have pretend picnics and walk like penguins. Eliza loves their being here so much, its worth the sleeplessness that often accompanies their visits.

Our apartment is large, loft-life space so Eliza doesn't have a room separate from the living room, just an alcove. I think its also tough for my stepchildren, particularly Katie who is 16, to sleep on fold-outs in the living room. Basically, for three full days, Katie had no privacy or time to herself though she's handled it all like a real trouper. As much as we enjoyed the weekend, I think Katie was happy to have a tutoring session to return to on Sunday and Eliza was relieved, though sad, to see them leave Sunday night. Sunday evening was all about Eliza and Mama and I think it comforts her to have the quiet routine that goes with an empty apartment. She was in bed fast asleep by 8:15.

We are officially moving out of this enormous one bedroom at the end of the year. There are several possibilities, all smaller than this place but I don't care. Though I might have less closet space and a crappier kitchen (95% of New York kitchens suck), my daughter has never had her own room. The fact that its taken C this long to wake up to the fact that she needs a room just shows you how responsive he is to other people's needs.

Yes!

2008-11-18T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm still here. Thanks for the shout out from Patty, all is fine here, its been almost one month since my last blog confession. Eliza is doing so much cute, fun stuff lately, I've been thinking how I need to come back here and write them down before I forget them.

Eliza's favorite word of the moment is "Yes." She says it very clearly with the Y and the S enunciated. She sounds so much like a little adult. If I hold up a pair of tights and say, "Would you like to wear these?" she says "Yes." If I hand her a toy she likes, she says "Yes." In the middle of the night when she wakes up talking to herself, she says "Yes, you can do that. Yes." I am not doing the cuteness of this work justice. Its something I must get up and running on video but the second I come at Eliza with the video camera, she turns into the photographer herself and heads straight for the eye piece. Like a true TV actor, she knows where the lens is and unlike a true TV actor, she chooses to hide from it.

Speaking of TV, I've left the show I've been working on since June called "Fringe." While I liked the actors enormously, the hours on the show were too much for me. It seems there was one overnight scheduled per episode and I just can't be coming home on Saturday mornings at 7am with an almost three-year-old. The person I started the job with quit back in September and they've been scrambling to find some one to replace her. In the meantime, I was offered to job share with a fellow script supervisor I really like so I opted to jump off "Fringe" and jump onto "Cupid."

I've never, ever left a job early so it was not an easy decision to make. While Cupid might have slightly better hours that Fringe, I still expect it will not be a picnic. The big pro was being able to job share with my friend, who was willing to work through November so I had plenty of time to give my notice. Cupid is also on an eight day per episode schedule, a slightly easier schedule to navigate than Fringe, where episodes tended to balloon into 10-11 days with reshoot days added on later.

So now I'm enjoying some time off with my little girl who turns three on Friday. I'm having a lasagna party for her at school on Friday and then a mermaid-themed birthday party in our apartment on Saturday. I'm easily overwhelmed and right now I'm a little anxious about everything going well for both parties. My daughter loves birthdays and birthday cakes and for the first time, she seems very aware that her birthday is here. I want it to be a wonderful weekend for her.

Thanks all for checking in and I promise to write more regularly for the next few weeks. Happy November to all!

Dark Days

2008-10-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

I've been free from work for the past two weeks and its been a tough journey. Whenever I walk out the door, I have so many hopes for the time I'll have with my daughter. I probably end up trying to do too much to make up for all the time I miss with her.

I got home from work around 3am on Saturday morning which is a good night for us. I was up early the following morning to take Eliza on a short train ride to New Jersey to go apple picking with friends. I should have realized the day would be too much but I was free from work, it was a beautiful day and I wanted to enjoy my time with my girl.

It was a beautiful day but by the time we got back to New York, it was too late for Eliza to nap. C was gone on a business trip and I found myself completely void of anything resembling energy. When Eliza doesn't nap, she gets hyper. I popped in some videos but nothing worked. I counted down the hours until her bedtime.

Sunday was a better day. Perhaps realizing my limitations, I stayed close to home. We went to a nearby playground and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We both napped in the early afternoon and then I took her shopping for more fall clothes in the evening. It was a wonderful day and I felt rejuvinated enough for a jaunt to the Bronx Zoo the following day.

We had a fantastic day at the Bronx Zoo and I'm glad we went. There was trick-or-treating, hayrides, a hay maze and other Halloween-themed activities. Though we had a wonderful day, I found myself shrewish, impatient and exhausted for much of it. The Bronx Zoo is a long subway ride away and on the way home with a hyper toddler who again hadn't had a nap, I really contemplated hurling myself off the train in a place where no one would ever find me. Factor in C who sauntered in with his eldest daughter at 7:45pm just as I was trying to usher Eliza into bed, and you'll see how much fun I had that evening.

I vowed to have a better day the following but again I tried to do too much. Though we had a fun morning with a friend, Eliza again didn't nap. C showed up with his son who was exhausted after a long trip with his mother and I had two exhausted kids in my house. The evening passed smoothly enough with both kids going to bed early. On Wednesday, I dropped Eliza off at school determined to enjoy the day. I confess to spending most of the day lying in bed, trying to catch up on my sleep. I've had a nasty sinus infection since that day we went to the Zoo and haven't slept much because of it.

When I picked Eliza up at school, she was her typically happy, buoyant self. Thrilled to see she's adjusted to school so well, we set off for home where I stupidly prepared a too ambitious meal that she didn't eat. We still managed to have a nice evening and I put her to bed at her usual time.

She woke up sometime after nine, fussy, whiney and writhing. Exhausted myself, I simply brought her into bed with me. C wasn't home so I had the big bed to myself. Usually, taking Eliza into bed with me comforts her but this night it didn't. She kept writhing, crying, and gyrating around. Eliza had had a cold since she started school and I stupidly thought she was frustrated by an inability to sleep with her congested nose.

Except I know better. I know my daughter. She sleeps, even when she's crazy congested, she snores like a little old man. My daughter had an illness coming on and I, in my own, exhausted, oh I can't deal with this kid anymore way, did not see it.

Finally, I dumped her in her crib telling her that since she couldn't stop crying, I had to have some space. Nice Mama moment, right. This, of course, set off the horrific screaming of a devil-child. I flopped on my bed and nearly felt like I could sleep, even with the racket. It was close to midnight. I don't remember when I'd had a full night's sleep.

After a few minutes of letting her scream, I got out of bed and pounded the walls like a lunatic. I simply couldn't listen to that screaming anymore. All I wanted was to sleep, to get away from the screaming and the whiney, writhing child who would not let me comfort her. I'd always been able to soothe her in the past. Why couldn't I this night.

Suddenly realizing my daughter needed me and it was time to be a grown-up, I went to her crib to lift her out. Expecting some kind of scared, angry reaction I received just the opposite. Eliza threw her arms around me, moved in to kiss me like a love-struck heroine in a Greek tragedy. Realizing this was her way of apologizing, she was trying to let me know she was sorry for upsetting me so much I suddenly felt like I might split in two from the pain of knowing how wrong this reaction was.

My daughter needed me. And not only was I not there for her, I was angry with her. I sat in the rocking chair with her and explained to her that Mama was very, very wrong. She didn't need to feel badly for what she'd done, that Mama should have never, ever acted like that. I'm not sure how much she understood but she finally fell asleep in my arms. Finally, I was able to comfort my daughter who'd fought being soothed all night long.

Later that night, Eliza sprouted a monster fever. I brought her into the bed with me and C slept on the couch when he got home after midnight. Eliza couldn't really sleep because of the fever. I offered her Motrin but she threw it up. I continued to feel exhausted, sick, harried like I'd never felt harried before. But I made it through the night.

We saw Eliza doctor the next day who diagnosed a serious ear infection that had leak and could have ruptured had we not seen the doctor. Eliza spent most of the day crying, falling asleep for short periods, then waking up and crying. It was hard seeing her so lethargic. She'd insisted on wearing her red party dress and matching red shoes to the doctor. She looked so lovely, lying on the middle of my bed in her elegant dress. It was so hard to see her so out-of-sorts, so miserable, so clearly not herself.

Around 6pm the fever broke and my daughter was suddenly my daughter again. When I put on her new CD and she even mustered a little shoulder shimmy, I felt reborn. We'd come a long way in those 24 hours. I'd almost lost her and now she was back again. I felt a new appreciation for my wonderful daughter.

After I'd had that bad moment that night, I thought that Eliza would be better off without me. I know C and I will not be together much longer and I seriously thought I should leave her with him. But once he got home and started to help in his negative, passive-aggressive way, I realized no matter how overwhelmed, how impatient I get, my daughter is better off with me.

I'm not saying that he's a terrible father and I don't want to turn this into a competition. I'm just saying that like it or not, my daughter is stuck with me. That's what's best for her.

Shopping with my little lady

2008-09-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I resent that I have to do practically everything with a child affixed to my leg that I forget these excursions are often the best times we spend together. For example, I had to visit the local grocery store with Eliza this afternoon. One time Eliza knocked over a jar of spaghetti sauce, splashing red sauce all over the floor. Other nights have found me running down aisles in search of my daughter who thinks it's funny to run off and hide.

By the way, this store is only a short block away, I have a big stoop outside the entrance of my building and the store aisles are so narrow that I save the stroller for big trips only. Just in case you're wondering why I choose to have Eliza walk beside me.

But then there are days like today when Eliza stays with me throughout the store, obediently puts objects down when I tell her too and some one else breaks a glass jar nearby. Today, Eliza stood beside me and chatted to the cashiers, thoroughly charming them as I checked out. Always wanting to be the helpful one, Eliza insisted on carrying the basket back to the store entrance where she placed it with the other baskets.

It was a lovely excursion. If only she'd eaten the dinner I'd prepared afterwards and would go to bed without a fight.

Love Moments

2008-09-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

I've thoroughly enjoyed my week away from work. The greatest moment of my day is when I show up at Eliza's school to pick her up after naptime. On Monday, though she didn't sleep I found her buried under her little white baby blanket. I crept down on the floor beside her as she slid her little arms around my neck and held me with surprising strength.

"Mama, you're here," she said, hugging me tightly. "I'm so glad you're here."

We snuggled on the floor together as the other kids slowly woke up and I gathered her in my arms to enjoy the rest of a wonderful day.

On Wednesday, I arrived later due to an afternoon parent meeting. When she saw me her face broke out in the loveliest expression of pure happiness. I thought my heart might burst at that moment, I was so incredibly happy to see my little love.

On Friday, the last day of my full week off from work, she waved to me, her hand obscured by the white blanket. I waved and crept over to her. A song by Fiona Apple that I love called "I Know" played quietly on a nearby radio. I scooped my girl into my arms for a wonderful embrace and quietly sang the lovely words from the song "And you can use my skin, to bury secrets in. And I will settle you down."

"You're here for me," Eliza said. "Mama I'm so glad you came home. You came to come get me."

Monday is the last day I'll pick Eliza up from school for a while. On Wednesday, I have to attend a production meeting for work (absolute, complete waste of time) and on Friday I'll be back on set. Though I love the paycheck and the ability to get out of the house, this job is not working out for me. I accepted it knowing it was a big experiment and now I'm sad to say tis really has to be it. I realize I'm fortunate to have a week and a half off every month but I work 65-72 hours the weeks that I do work. Getting home on Saturday morning at 5am, 6am, even 9:30 am only to return to work at 6:30 am on Monday is too difficult for me. I work with people older than myself who do this every day, no week and a half off, without difficulty. They commute from Connecticut and work these kind of hours on a regular basis.

I can't though. I still feel like I'm recovering from last week at work. Forget that I went three days without seeing my daughter even though we worked in the area, I can't see myself working these kind of hours ten years from now. It's a good job, I'm lucky they let me job share but I have to recognize my own physical limitations.

And while I hope to find a job, one that won't enable me to pick my daughter up from school for an entire week, I have to believe that another job will at least allow me the ability to see my daughter's wonderful face every night. When I can walk through the door and say "Mama's home."

What are you wearing?

2008-09-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm off work this week and its wonderful. While I like being around adults and eating food some one else has prepared, the hours away from my daughter are tedious at best, and heartbreaking at worst. The week following the labor day holiday was particularly brutal; I did not see or hold my daughter for three days in a row.

By Thursday, I'd really had enough of no Eliza. Sure, I know its temporary and eventually my daughter and I will be reunited, but three days in a row of watching the world go by while other people tend to my daughter completely was too much. I remember crouching on the floor on the set that serves as our main character's office, begging Eliza to tell me what she was wearing. I felt like some kind of pervert, intensely clutching the phone while I asked an underaged girl this question. I was so desperate for a "look" at my daughter, somehow knowing that she wore her little red and blue dress with the fireworks, lulled me out of my misery for a bit.

Yesterday, I finally got around to doing her most of her laundry from the past two weeks. In the space of those two weeks, she'd worn her new stretchy pants from Target, however not with the matching shirt, her pink shorts, her heart blue jeans and a variety of pink tee shirts. I realized as I tossed the items into the washing machine that I hadn't seen her wear 90% of these items.

Then I smiled knowing for the next week and more, I'll get to see exactly what my little daughter is wearing, day and night.

Going by at warp speed

2008-09-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

As the mother of a new baby, I heard the same phrase repeatedly from older family members, acquaintances and well-meaning strangers at rest stops: "They grow up fast. Enjoy her."

So I did. Writing down as many things as I could so I wouldn't forget. Enjoying the sleeplessness because my extreme fatigue seemed to slow down time. I'm still sleepless but time is now suddenly moving way too fast for me to recall most of the cute things my daughter does. Something wonderful happens and I think, I have to write this down later but when I do, like now, I don't remember.

Eliza started school last week. I took the day off so I could take her. I'm off this week and hopefully most of next so I can enjoy her as much as possible. Now that she's in school three days a week, the days aren't only for the two of us. As sad as that feels, I'm also looking forward to getting back to writing, real writing for the first time since she was born.

Everything she does right now is so cute, so wonderful that it's too much to write down. I stayed with her during the entire first day of school excluding nap time. She did pretty well though she had a bit of a meltdown when it was time to sit down with clay and another kid sat in the seat she wanted to use. When I came to get her after nap time, she told me "I want to stay in school."

Last week, my mother watched her for the day until my babysitter was available. Eliza told my mother "I'm sad that Mommy's at work." As my mother tried to discuss the topic with her, Eliza said something along the lines of "I don't understand why Mommy has to work." My mother explained, and this is largely true, that Mama works so she can buy Eliza presents. "She wants to buy you a Halloween costume."

This delighted Eliza who then started to skip all over the house, singing about her new Halloween costume. And I did, I ordered her a doozy of a princess Halloween costume online. C opened it when it arrived, causing whoops of delight from my daughter. The following day, I decided to try it on Eliza. "It fits perfect," she said as the layers of purple and pink fabric draped over her wonderful little body.

"Thank you for my costume, Mama. You got this for me," she said as she danced around, easily the loveliest princess ever. "I like that Mama goes to work."

I laughed, understanding what she meant. I'll also add that she's said she likes that I work because her Katie, Harry, (brother and sister) and her Tina (babysitter) come over.

But today as we rode the bus home from school together, Eliza cuddled up with me and said "I'm glad you're home Mommy."

Goodbye Lovely Summer

2008-09-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

I know there will still be long gorgeous days but technically, the summer is over. The city pools will be closed so there won't be any days of lounging poolside in a local playground. Next week, Eliza starts school. I am going to be so busy at work the next two weeks (save next Wednesday, when I take off to take my girl to school), there will be little time for leisure.

I love the summer. I don't even mind the heat. I love the long days, with no rush to get anywhere. I loved the trips to Coney Island, the handful of days at the beach, the night we watched the sun set over the Hudson River and I chose not to worry that Eliza was up well past her bedtime and eating ice cream when she didn't touch her dinner.

I love the trip we took to Pittsburgh for my mother's 70th birthday and the two days we visited the water parks.

I spent Labor Day weekend at my mother's house near the Jersey Shore. I chose not to make the annual pilgrimage to C's parents beach house. If you'd read my entry about our Fourth of July weekend, that comes as no surprise. I didn't get home from work until close to 5am on Friday night anyway so I was hardly in the mood to travel 4-6 hours just to go the beach when I can travel for one hour and go to one close to my Mom. Since we'd just returned from a long trip to Pittsburgh, C agreed that strapping Eliza into the car for an extended period of time was best for her either and I go the weekend with my girl.

On Saturday evening, I decided I had to have some kind of wagon, you know like a radio flyer kind of thing, to tote Eliza to the beach when I visit my mother. I dragged Eliza to Target but the only wagon we say was very expensive and too big for me to take out of the store. I decided to take her to a playground. I've seen several along the Bay on the south side of Route 35 and wanted to visit a place different from the playground we regularly stop by.

But every playground I passed, though it looked promising, offered absolutely no parking. The side streets were so narrow, parking along the street was not an option. Eliza sat in the backseat and protested as one playground after another passed her by. The sky grew redder as the night grew darker but it was too late to turn around.

Finally, I found a playground with parking. Only after I pulled in did I see the sign that said it was permit parking only. Apparently the playground was part of some club that probably wouldn't accept me as a member. It was close to 8pm and feeling pretty confident that no one would police the park at that hour, I pulled in. Eliza happily ran out of the car onto the sandy playground, her giggles soaring high into the air. Behind the playground. a group of tween boys played baseball. Three other kids and their caretakers were the only other people at the playground. Eliza raced up a pretty unique kind of jungle gym thing and hid in it's center. It was several tubes that all connected into a cylinder like tunnel that reminded me of a spaceship.

I peered in at Eliza and called her my little astronaut.

She rode the swings, she rode some kind of bouncey seesaw. She was afraid of a steep slide but I finally convinced her to go down it with me. The sun slowly disappeared and one by one, the other people left until we were on the only two people in the park.

"Eliza, it's time to go. It's dark."

"No Mama. It's not dark yet. It's still light. It's not going to rain."

"All the people are gone now honey. We're the only ones here."

"I want to go down the slide with you one more time."

So I did. Here's to the wonderful, long, not so lazy days of summer. I already miss you like crazy.

Letting Go

2008-08-12T04:34:00.001-07:00

Work is winding down for now. Unless the schedule changes, I should be off and free to be full-time Mom to my girl until Tuesday, August 26th. We're going to Pittsburgh the weekend of the 22 to see my grandparents. I can't believe a year has passed since the last time they've seen Eliza. That's way too much time.

Work has been good in the sense that it has given me financial freedom from C. Eventually, I'm convinced it will give me real freedom from C. I vacillate all the time about what I should do as far as he's concerned. It's hard breaking up a family, especially as I care for his other kids and will no longer be a part of their lives once I split. C has some good qualities, I too often focus on the negative. My going back to work has helped us get along a lot better. In the end though, we will never be happy together and I refuse to be one of those women who's always complaining about her situation but never takes action to change her life.

Eliza has taken real steps towards independence and its beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. I am no longer the center of her universe. C, his kids and frankly, the babysitter have all moved into equal roles in her life. Eliza will start preschool in a month with a class mostly comprised of kids older than she. She fit right into the class which was wonderful. But I will miss her on my weeks off from work, I will miss all the wonderful time we've had together just as I miss it now.

I'm sure Eliza would have made this move even if I'd not returned to work. She would have started preschool in the Fall, made some friends and started to form a life independent of all of us. I am grateful and proud of the little person she is becoming.

But oh, how I miss that tiny little baby who wouldn't let me put her down. My little girl still needs me, but she's my little girl anymore, she's her own little person and oh boy, is she lovely.

Because My Girl is Just So Awesome

2008-07-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

The bank dilemma of last week appears to have been solved. The money was credited to my account but it seems the record of the deposit, on their end, is nowhere to be found. When I have more time, I plan to move my money to a different bank. It appears that Chase Bank's system makes them a little vulnerable to these kind of problems.

I don't want to go into that too much because I'm about to return to work, which always feels a little like going underground. We often refer to it as being in the trenches or reporting to the factory only to be released when the foreman tells us it's time to go home. I want to briefly talk about how wonderful my girl is.

Eliza will be starting a preschool/day care kind of program in September. She's a few months younger than the other kids in her class so the center's director asked me to bring Eliza by last week to make sure she'd fit into the class and be able to follow-along. At first Eliza clung to me, refusing to speak any words. The first word the director heard her say was "Dora" as we passed a Dora backpack in the cubby area.

We entered the classroom as the kids were putting on sunscreen. The director spoke to Eliza about putting on sunscreen to protect the skin and asked if Eliza wore sunscreen. Eliza nodded emphatically, said she always wore sunscreen to the pool, to the beach but she couldn't "go into the Dead Sea because the water is very, very salty."

I knew then that it would all go well. Eliza followed instruction, sat in the circle for story time (with a good deal of shushing from me), and even helped put toys away. When the teacher asked Eliza to introduce herself, Eliza's finger went around the circle asking every other child his or her name.

We went back to the center today to drop off our deposit and Eliza immediately asked "Can I go meet my friends now?"

We visited my mother over the weekend to celebrate my mother's birthday and Eliza's interaction with my autistic adult brother also was lovely and amazing. When I was young, my brother could pass for normal. However now, with his lobotomy standard haircut, coke bottle glasses and frequent seizure expressions, he is easily categorized as "different." Billy is also pretty tall, often doesn't make eye contact and doesn't interact in a regular way. When he first pressed into my mother's house in the middle of a coughing fit, I didn't blame Eliza for clinging to me and saying "I'm afraid of Billy."

I told her I didn't want to be afraid of Billy. When he came out of the bathroom and I said hello (ignored) and Eliza grinned and waved enthusiastically (ignored), I wondered why we'd gone through the trouble of visiting on his birthday in the first place. Billy didn't look at either one of us, bent in an odd position and farted loudly. Then he smiled and acknowledged our presence. Nothing like a good toot to get the party started.

Later, as I tickled Billy and Eliza jumped to my side, ready to tickle and tease, I suddenly got emotional. My daughter's kindness and tolerance is astonishing.

The day after Billy's party, I took Eliza to visit my mother's neighbor. This neighbor, who I'll call Karen, runs a small day care center out of her home. With a pool, seasaws, mini cars and mini-roller coasters, it's like candy land for kids. Eliza has come to know Karen's regulars. At one point, all the kids were clustered on the swings. One girl crossed too close to another kids swing and ended up on the ground crying. I picked up the crying child and Eliza immediately crossed to the kid who was swinging and said "You hurt her." Eliza wouldn't resume playing until she knew the other girl was alright. Her consideration was wonderful.

That's my girl. Less than three years old and looking out for everyone. I wanted to record some of this stuff so I won't forget. Years from now, when my daughter is a teenager screaming about how much she hates me, I want to come here and remember the person she really is and will be again.

Because Chase Bank Sucks

2008-07-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

If anyone out there is still reading, I could really use your comments here to pass along to Chase Bank. Last Friday I deposited my paycheck from my first week at work--a 72 hour work week. I have the receipt to show that a deposit was made on that day. However, according to Chase Bank. this transaction never happened.

There is no record on Chase Bank's computer of the transaction. No entry that says a deposit was made, the money is pending, nothing. The little slip of paper I received after I made the deposit only states the amount, the last four digits of my account number, the branch address and a transaction number. Apparently, none of these numbers were capable of effectively calling up this transaction.

I spent a large portion of the day on the phone, punching in numbers as I was passed from one automated system to another. When I finally got through to a person, they told me I'd need to call the branch that accepted the deposit. Unfortunately, whenever I called that number, I found myself back in the same automated system I'd just come from. Insisting some one transfer me directly to the location led me to a woman at a different location. She was kind, took down the same information for the third time, and told me she'd put in a request for an "inquiry." When I finally dragged Eliza to the bank and produced the receipt, the woman at customer service said that yes indeed an inquiry had been made and I should be contacted shortly.

The end of the day rolled around with no contact. When I called the 1-800 number, this time to file a complaint, I detailed the information a fourth time. No answers were provided, no promises to rectify the matter were made. The receipt I've been given apparently is useless in terms of tracking down exactly how my money was misplaced. Basically, the woman told me I'd have to wait 48 hours and then return to the branch with my receipt in hand. I asked her repeatedly why the receipt wasn't proof enough that the transaction happened and she again replied, "I'm sorry, I understand your frustration."

I desperately need that money that Chase Bank can't find. I was pretty sick all day because of this. I explained to the woman today that I don't have the time tomorrow to spend on the phone in the hope that they'll fix what they've done. I realize that mistakes do happen but their inability to offer any real assurance that the problem will be solved and that the receipt is proof that I made a deposit is inhumane, cruel and completely unacceptable.

Sing it loud, sing it clear, Chase Bank sucks, they suck, they suck. They have to fix this, immediately.

Why Coldplay Rocks My World

2008-07-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

So Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow, aka the lead singer of the band Coldplay has taken over XM satellite radio. Not satisfied with the heavy rotation they enjoy on practically every contemporary radio station, this band has such world domination that XM has dedicated an entire station to all Coldplay, all the time. My response to this news was, as I'd said to a recent paramour (yes, you read that right), "We all need more Coldplay in our lives."

More on that recent paramour later. Don't get excited; there's nothing to tell. It was only a work crush that passed unacknowledged and ended when the job ended.

Tonight, while ODing on Coldplay and liking it, I recognized that the band had done a cover of an excellent Echo and the Bunnyman song. "Lips Like Sugar," a song from the early 1980s that would have surely been a classic had anyone actually heard it, pounded from the stereo with the lush orchestration of a typical Coldplay song. Eliza, already dressed in her tutu and swimsuit top, sashayed with joy, cognizant of my newfound Coldplay, stuck-in-the-80s happiness. Facing her, I did the funky monkey (arms pedaling up and down like a jackhammer), the snappy sway (wiggling side to side while snapping my fingers), and the non-trampoline bounce (jumping up and down like an idiot). Every move I made, my daughter echoed with the sure steadiness of a miniature clone. Roaring into the funky monkey yet again, I started laughing wildly flattered by my daughter's apparent attempts to create a mirror image of Mama.

Eliza threw her head back, imitated my laugh, and pumped her arms up and down with the vigor of a steam engine. The song blared through the apartment and I remembered the early 80s, the fantastic boyfriend who'd introduced me to Echo and the Bunnyman, and felt overjoyed to share this moment and this Coldplay with my wonderful, wacky and utterly delicious daughter. I've said this so many times and I'm sure I'll continue to say it until Eliza hits the terrible tweens; this kid is the big love of my life. So many moments I spend with her are so great, so amazing I think I might implode from the inside from complete and devout happiness. How great is music and dancing and the joy of sharing the two with my love.

So this is me for now, relishing Coldplay and the lovely Eliza. Going back to that paramour, as I said it was really nothing. He was 26, fourteen years younger than myself, great-looking, smart, kind and totally interested in me. How lucky did I feel when a guy with that much going for him found all 40 years of me interesting. Back in April, I'd had the move-out date set and an apartment secured. I went to work deliriously happy, amazed that I could still feel that way about anyone. In the end though, I let it go, as did he. I'm a mother now and I've no room in my life for mindless flings. It was flattering, it was fun, but there's nothing more to add.

On the last night of a six day work week, he and I chose to spend our lunch hour sleeping in the video room. Nothing more happened, we simply slept on couches that were joined at the armrests in an L shape. We lay down, both knowing we were only a few inches away from actual contact. I lay there, my iPod blaring Coldplay in my ears, thinking this was closer to actual intimacy with an adult than I'd had in years. It felt sexy, daring, and enormously comforting all at the same time. When it was time to return to the real world, I sat up, pulled out the earphones and told him that we all need more Coldplay in our lives.

Timecards

2008-07-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

Lest anyone think I exaggerate about the hours we work in TV, here's my schedule last week. We are not paid for travel time so these hours don't indicate a big pay day. This is a big travel job with only two days scheduled to be shot at the stage.

Monday--left at 6am, home at 9:50am.

Tuesday--left at 7:30am, home a few minutes before midnight.

Wednesday--left at 10:15am, home at 2:30am.

Thursday--left at 3:25pm, home at 6am.

Friday--left at 3:30pm, home at 9:30am.

Everybody wants to be me!

The Necessary Action

2008-07-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

I'm on "vacation" this weekend with C and his family at their beach house. His parents hadn't seen Eliza in a while and I thought I could make it through a weekend without any dramatics. I should know better. I start work tomorrow and didn't want to send Eliza off with C to his folks without me. I thought I could be a grown-up and make it through one weekend.

Unfortunately, I am such a screw-up that I didn't. I realize I am only human and my relationship with C is so unfortunately bad, of course I'm going to mess up. It's impossible to pretend in close quarters that he and I get along. His parents love Eliza and she is having a fantastic time here. I don't belong here, I'm not really wanted here, I shouldn't be here.

C's mother has been perfectly welcoming to me. She has her agenda with Eliza, and though I don't agree with a lot of what she does, she is Eliza's grandmother and she loves her. She is much healthier than my mother, she tries to make us all happy and she wants to have a relationship with her granddaughter. The beach house is beautiful in a wonderful town with a boardwalk and rides. It's a little paradise for Eliza. I wanted to come here and enjoy my daughter at the beach. C's mother also wants to enjoy Eliza at the beach--the problem is, she wants me to go away.

Now I have to preface this by saying, she doesn't want me gone all the time. She just wants her moments with Eliza and she doesn't want me to interrupt. The problem is; I love being with Eliza so much I do interrupt. We all went to the beach on Friday and I gave Eliza some time alone with her grandmother by the waves. But she was having so much fun, I had to finally approach them to be a part of it. I'd already told C's mother they'd babysit Eliza the following night and they could take her for to the bookstore in the morning. I figured we could all enjoy her together on the beach. For the most part we did but if Eliza and I were playing in the sand, his mother would come up with a toy and say, "Come over here." Little things, manageable things really, but it feels like a competition.

So yesterday rolled around and C started to act like a jerk. His parents took Eliza into town and C spent the morning with his brother and brother's girlfriend. I worked while everyone else was out having a good time. C's parents brought Eliza back for her nap and I'd hoped to take her to a local water park for the afternoon. She didn't want to go. C had been nasty to me all day and finally I exploded and told his mother we didn't need them to babysit after all. I know this was stupid and wrong for me to do. I don't want to put her in the middle of our shit. But I didn't want to spend the evening with C.

Eliza decided she wanted to go to the beach with C and her uncle and "aunt" and the three of them took off for the beach, leaving me with C's mother. She was in every way kind to me, didn't bring up my outburst and helped me get out a bike. I had a great bike ride but I missed my daughter. I knew she was having a great time at the beach and I longed to see her. I enjoyed the ride and tried to make the most of my time without her.

When C returned, his mother encouraged him to include me in his plans with his brother. I refused, saying I wanted to spend the evening with Eliza. His parents were taking her to the boardwalk rides and even though I knew they wanted to do this without me, I'd be happy to be the third wheel, watching my daughter have fun from afar. I don't have a good time with C. I don't enjoy his company. I know it's awkward and it makes his family uncomfortable. I know my presence now makes everyone unhappy because C and I don't get along. This is his family. We are not married.

C finally convinced me to go out with him by saying I'm so on top of Eliza, I deny everyone else the chance to have a relationship with her. This is not entirely untrue. It's not that I don't want others to have time with her, I just enjoy her so much. This is part of the reason I'm returning to work. I know I have to get a life in order to allow her to have one.

His mother was thrilled to have Eliza all to herself. She said repeatedly how much she has to have time with Eliza without C or myself around. This is a bit of an alien concept to me. We don't act like this in my family. While I'm sure both my parent relish time alone with Eliza, it is not forced upon me whenever I'm with them. I am extremely close to my grandmother and we saw her once a year. I don't even think she and I did things alone together until I was older. My family would never say, as C's mother has said to me, that Eliza acts differently towards them when I'm not around so I have to give Eliza time with her alone. I don't have a problem with this if I've got something important to do. However, on my last weekend with her before I return to work, it's hard to let go.

And this is the necessary action, letting go of my daughter. I went out with C and we had an okay night. His mood swung back in the wanting to please me mood. Whatever had been bothering him before had disappeared. I am not blameless--I freak out about his mother and her eccentricities when I should not complain about them to C. She's not going to change and as much as he defends her it probably bothers him too. But I would have much rather been on the boardwalk watching my daughter smile and wave from the rides then with him.

I missed her so intensely while I smiled through dinner. Usually I enjoy going out, having an adult night but I'd hardly spent any time with her during the day and let's fact it, C doesn't really want me around. And even if he did, we're past the point of saving this now. I don't belong here. And yet I came so I could be with her before I returned to work. I came so she could have the wonderful weekend she's having and I could be a part of it.

I know I have to leave and I know that I will. But how will I handle entire weekends without her? Weekends where she's happily jumping in the waves with her grandmother and father while they all rejoice in my absence? What kind of life will I be able to give her alone? She doesn't have beach houses and siblings and healthy grandparents in my life. I'm afraid she'll go for a weekend and decide she doesn't ever want to come back to her crappy life with Mama. And then there's the other issue of how much I'll miss her because I don't have a life.

I have wanted things to work with C for so long for this reason--my inability to spend blocks of time without her. This is the way it is for split and divorced parents; they shuttle the kids back and forth. C will go on to have a new girlfriend, one whom Eliza might relate to and love. I am 40, in a terrible career, virtually ignored by many of my friends because people fall into busy lives.

This weekend proves that I can't stay with him. I can't put his family in the middle. He is their son, they love him and see him as faultless. To be honest, I find it shocking that his mother is so open about time with Eliza without her own son around. My father used to say how much he wanted time alone with Eliza when she was littler and didn't respond to him. Now that she's more into him, he seems to really enjoy the times that we're all together. As my stepmother said recently, "Your father is your father first. When he saw Eliza hit you, he was really upset." So I don't really know how to take C's mother being that she's so different from my own family. Tonight as we left, C's mother was in the driveway with Eliza saying "Who are you going to go on the ferris wheel with first?" When Eliza didn't answer, she asked again and again. Finally, she offered the response she wanted. "You'll go one the ride with Grandma." Eliza repeated this statement and C's mother hugged her, elated. It's no big deal, but I find it funny and a little bit creepy. I think her heart is in the right place but it does take some getting used to.

Like I said, I need to get a life so my daughter can have one. I need to do something with myself so when she's happily enjoying her time on the ferris wheel with people who don't love me, I'll live.

The Off Switch I So Desperately Need

2008-07-05T02:36:00.000-07:00

My mother has told me that I need an off switch for my brain and she's right. I think too much. I don't have the ability to enjoy life. My father asked me recently if I was ever happy. My job starts on Monday at 6:30 am and I don't want to do it. With such an early start on Monday, it's quite possible I won't see Eliza at all during that week. Five days without seeing my daughter is not a life I want.

I really want to work. My mother started to work full-time when she and my father split. I became acutely aware of how much happier my mother seemed as a working woman. Her job provided her with a real sense of personal accomplishment. She was a reporter for a local newspaper. Growing up, I dreamed of being a writer as well though I thought I would do better than a local newspaper.

Now I'd happily take a local newspaper job but I can't seem to make anything happen with my writing. On one hand, I haven't tried as hard as I could but as I get older, the chances of anything happening with my writer grow slimmer and slimmer. I took a magazine writing course earlier this year and wrote a wonderful essay about my three miscarriages. It has since been rejected or ignored by every magazine I've sent it to. At More Magazine, they sent a kind personal rejection which would indicate that it will get published somewhere but my follow-up with a different story idea was ignored.

I continue to write for my freebie magazine and hope it will pay off in some sense. So far, I've only managed to accrue one good clip. They'll publish a personal essay if I write one they like so I've got to get on that.

I want Eliza to know a happy Mama, not this odd basket case that I've been for the past two years. Part of what was missing when I was home with her was the working me. I don't mind my job as a script supervisor, I simply don't want to do the hours anymore. It feels great to be in demand, even after close to three years out of the loop. It also is flattering that they're willing to let me job share with a great friend. What other kind of job offers some one two weeks off a month?

But being completely unavailable to my daughter for five days in a row is not the kind of mother I want to be. Although my mother worked, she was always there for me. I could call her, in an emergency she could be home for me in an absolute emergency. She only worked 15 minutes away.

How do I get to where I want to be? With a decent job, a home for myself and Eliza and the ability to have dinner with my daughter most nights? I feel like such a failure. I'm 40 years old and this is the best I can do. A career where I make less money than I did when I started, work longer hours and will never get promoted. It can be fun, there's still elements that I love about being on set but who else would work 80 hours a week for entire seasons and never get promoted. And the skills I've acquired on this job aren't translating into another position.

So I made an extremely bad career choice, now how do I fix it?

Photos from that day on the beach in Tel Aviv

2008-06-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

Gifted

2008-06-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

I had a bad Mama day on Friday but made up for it with a perfectly wonderful day on Saturday. We had a lovely day together with a morning spent at the playground, lunch at a nearby bagel place and then a wonderful afternoon and evening together. C and Harry were around in the evening and Eliza enjoyed her time with all of us. Then it was time for bed and she only wanted Mama.

I wonder what it will be like to not put her to bed for two straight weeks. I worry about what that will do to our relationship but I have to keep it all in perspective. I need money, I was offered a job. I'm doing what I have to do and these two plus years at home have to count for something.

I want to travel back to a wonderful day in Israel. After a week in Ramat Bet Shemesh, I felt pretty trapped. I think I started to have a bit of a nervous breakdown. It really started to hit me how gone my friends are, how little I'll see them from now on. I had also put down a security deposit on an apartment and here I was in a foreign country, pretending all was well with C. I felt incredibly guilty. We'd been staying in a city where women covered themselves from head to toe by choice! I heard more Hebrew than English. Our first bus experience didn't make me confident about traveling alone.

On Monday, three days after C arrived, he rented a car. We'd planned to head to Masada that day but by the time he'd picked up the car and we found a map, it was well after noon. We chose to head into Tel Aviv, about 45 minutes away. I can't say I was excited about visiting the city. I wanted to see history, not a city that sounded like Miami in the guidebook.

The Mediterranean Sea is more beautiful then I realized. While Tel Aviv certainly felt like Miami, the Med cast it's spell. Still I felt discombobulated. Though I pretended to be in a better mood, I felt very depressed. As we climbed the hill into Jaffa, the historic port adjacent to Tel Aviv, the Sea and the landscape was overwhelmingly gorgeous.

We parked the car and posed for the obligatory photos in front of a stone wall that overlooked the Mediterranean. The water was a clear and aqua blue. Eliza saw the water and begged to go swimming. We'd packed swimsuits and towels and made for the beach.

C chattered cheerfully as we walked down to the shore. I smiled, nodded, went through the motions. Eliza wiggled and screeched as I spackled her with sunscreen. We passed a cafe/bar on the water that looked incredibly inviting. I longed to sit there with a glass of wine and watch the world go by. Eliza rushed ahead, reminding me that such places are no longer possible.

I changed Eliza into her swimsuit on the beach. C changed hidden by a stack of towels. He and Eliza ran for the water but it was too cold and Eliza quickly rushed in the other direction. He wanted to swim and left me to chase her up and down the steps of an abandoned lifeguard station.

I didn't feel like being on the beach, no matter how gorgeous it was. I was stuck in a foreign place with no ability to find my way out of the situation alone. C said that I'm the sort of person who is easily overwhelmed once I step out of my comfort zone. That's true in a way but I went to Italy by myself a number of times and greatly enjoyed the experience.

I am fiercely independent. Strip me of the ability to rely completely on myself and I'm lost. I'd even managed to travel to a foreign country, rent an apartment and live alone. Yes, I had a friend there to pick me up at the airport, to take me to the grocery store but ultimately, I could have stayed indefinitely in Ramat Bet Shemesh with Eliza. I felt trapped because of the lack of transportation but I'd managed to enjoy the time we'd had alone together.

But I couldn't be adventurous with her. I couldn't sit at cafes and write for hours. I couldn't spend two hours on a bus to the Dead Sea. I was sitting on a beach, totally dependent on some one else to provide me with a ride home. I didn't even have a cell phone should C and I some how get separated.

And while he swam, I was stuck chasing Eliza up and down a set of rickety steps. I wanted to put on my swimsuit and jump into the Sea.

I looked at Eliza, and thought "I don't want to be a mother anymore."

C returned from the Sea and took Eliza on a walk along the shore. I sat in the sand and watched them walk away, thinking how much I'd like to go home alone. I wondered if I even loved her anymore. All I wanted in those moments was my freedom. I didn't want to be dependent anymore. I wanted to be completely reliant on me.

Slowly they returned and as they approached I snapped photos. I will post them later, these lovely photos of Eliza in her pink swimsuit, walking towards me with blue sky behind her head. She smiled with a smile I hadn't seen before.

"Mama," she said and held out her hand. I opened my palm and she softly pressed down a handful of shells. Her little fingers wrapped around mine.

"See Mama?"

I looked at the shells in my hand. They were small, nondescript, white. Utterly unremarkable. Eliza smiled at me proudly and pressed her head against my chest. Her hair was damp and I hugged her. She looked at me again, smiling and seemingly waiting for something.

"Oh they're so beautiful!" I raved. "You found such beautiful shells! Eliza, these are wonderful!"

Little kids and shells, I thought. They collect them and think they're getting something special when shells are just as common as seagulls. Shells sit in small boxes on dresser tops and fill up drawers for years, forgotten after only a few days. Once you visit beaches on a regular basis, you learn there's nothing special about shells at all.

Eliza grinned, overjoyed by my false enthusiasm. She ran back to her father and said, "Mama likes them, Daddy. Mama likes the shells."

Only then did I realize, Eliza had given me the shells as a gift. I'd thought she'd handed them to me to show me what she'd found. I hadn't realized that her little mind would want to gift me with something. Something small and round and white and beautiful. Imagine how beautiful shells are to a child. Imagine that child collecting them so she could give them to her Mama.

I snapped back to life in that moment, amazed by the thoughtfulness and generosity exhibited by my wonderful daughter. I wondered how I could have created such a magical child. The rest of the day was perfect.

I wish I could say the rest of the trip went well but it didn't. I think I lost it completely on Tuesday night. Again it boils down to everything that was going through my mind: the fear of being in a country that feels a little unstable, the bad food, the uniformity of the people in the town we stayed in, the lack of ability to get around the country by myself.

The joy of spending time with Meredith and her family again. When would we all be together again?

But not once during the trip did I feel I didn't want to be a mother again. I still have those shells in a pocket of the diaper bag I took to Israel. I take them out and touch them from time to time. I will keep them and treasure them. I will never forget where they came from and the happy little girl who presented them to me, with a look of overwhelming pride.

Exhausted Ramblings of a Failed Mother

2008-06-27T19:42:00.001-07:00

Tonight I feel like a complete failure as a mother. I worked yesterday, the first day on my new job. It was one day of reshoots for the show's pilot. The day only went 13 hours, not too bad. I even made it home in time to put Eliza to bed.

I looked forward to spending the day with her today but somehow everything got a bit out of hand. After C left for work, I realized we were out of toilet paper. I also desperately need to go to the grocery store. I had an interview scheduled for my freebie writing thing for the magazine in the morning and a get together with Catherine, the woman I'll be job-sharing with on the TV show in the afternoon. Since the woman I interviewed for the magazine is a friendly aquaintance with a son close to Eliza age, I said yes when she suggested I bring Eliza and her nanny could watch both kids while us Moms did the interview.

Bad move. Getting out the door with Eliza in tow isn't a good idea when I don't have a lot of time. At first, Eliza refused to play with my friend's son and the interview was interrupted several times. The TV seemed to unite the kids in ways I'd never imagined (my friend's suggestion) and when it was time to leave, Eliza refused. Eventually I coaxed her into the stroller but didn't get home in time to hit the grocery store. With virtually nothing to offer her for lunch but yogurt, I quickly plunked her to bed for her nap and made one quick phone call.

Catherine arrived and we went over some stuff for the job. Eliza woke up and Catherine and I sat at the computer, creating forms we'd need for the show. We went for a walk but I realized not shortly after leaving that Eliza had taken a massive dump and I hadn't brought diapers. Catherine left and I was stuck carrying Eliza home. It was a messy poop that managed to get all over my shirt and skirt. The night just went downhill from there. I got dinner on the table too late, she barely ate it, C walked in the door just as I was putting her to bed, wondering where dinner was which is often the case. I never know when he'll be home. I am so tired of his strutting in the door at 8:30 and wondering if we've had dinner yet. It's his passive aggressive way of saying, "I'm home, feed me."

I hadn't had a fun day with Eliza, I wish he'd go to grocery store with a list or unload the dishwasher sometimes. How about letting me know when he's used the last of the toilet paper and running turning on the dishwasher when his kids have dinner at our place? Transition days--the days after I've worked are always tough for me. I'm a little tired and out of sorts and have to adjust back into my role as house slave.

I didn't have one fun moment with my girl today. About an hour after I'd put her to bed (abruptly, I'll add, annoyed when she ripped one of her books), I went into her room to apologize for my lack of patience, my anger, the silly things I'd done wrong that day.

"Mama," she said softly, lifting her head.

I touched her cheek and said, "Eliza, I'm so sorry for everything I do wrong."

"Good night Mama," she said.

I've got a lot on my plate right now and with so little outside help, I realize I'm not always going to be a fun Mom to be around. But still, days like today are so hard. Eliza and i didn't have one fun moment, I was simply too busy and too exhausted.

I went into my room and cried, then read the script for my first episode. It's good, in a gross way, but very, very tough to shoot. I won't have as much time off between episodes as I thought because we will have a lot of second unit to shoot. So I'm going to have transitional days, days like today constantly for the next five months. I am trying to look at it as a gift, it is a gift to have a job when so many people are struggling these days.

I'm 40 years old, I don't think I can do the hours anymore. I don't want to be a tyrant with my girl.

Just because

2008-06-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

And just because this is so freakin' cute, I must include this. I sold my baby bjorn and my baby backpack on craigs list yesterday. I'm not going to have another baby so I might as well clear some space on my shelves. Eliza cried as the woman who bought the backpack left our building with her tiny baby on her back.

"I want my ladybug backpack!" Eliza cried. I am not sure where the ladybug came from. Earlier that day, when I'd put the backpack on to see if I could remember how it worked, Eliza saw it, shook her head and said "That's too small for Eliza."

Apparently, her feelings changed when I slid another baby onto another mother's back and said good-bye to my daughter's babyhood. While corresponding with the mother who purchased the backpack, I emailed her this picture. This is Eliza on C's back in Florence, Italy. I had to share it with you...

Just because.

Update

2008-06-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

Mom went to the doctor today. Her heart rate is too high and her pulse is through the roof. They adjusted her medication. I wish she'd head to acupuncturist or holistic healer at this point but I am not a doctor, I am not qualified to tell her what to do. It's frustrating, knowing that her heart is not working properly and that she could have a heart attack at any moment. I tell myself this heart attack thing, it could happen to anyone. It's not much of a comfort.

The good news: the symptoms of internal bleeding have disappeared. I am grateful.

Yesterday morning, I accepted the job on the new TV series. I will be alternating with a good friend. I will work for two weeks and then be home for about a week and a half. I am already mourning the loss of my time as a full-time Mom and the life that I saw for Eliza and myself in that apartment away from New York. I am stuck in New York with C for now. If the show gets cancelled, I'll move out then. If the show gets picked up for another season, I'll move out and hire an au pair. Since I often have to leave for work in the wee hours of the morning, there's no way I can work in my field without a live-in. I'm only committed to work on the show for five months (even less if the network pulls the plug right away) so I can't seek an apartment or an au pair just yet. It sucks, frankly. The very thing I need to make the break is keeping me here longer.

The apartment that I loved that I had to say good-bye had sliding glass doors in the dining room that overlooked a grassy field. I see Eliza and myself sitting there for dinner and I think, what a nice life that would be. I know the reality might be very different but this is the life I want. Dinner with my daughter every night. A life without him.

Oh, how I dream of the ability to earn a living doing something else entirely, something that won't demand the kind of time and energy that this TV world requires.

I took a magazine writing class this winter and hit it off with the teacher. I thought she could be something of a mentor and have emailed her since the class ended in March. On June 1st, I mentioned an essay I was writing about how parents in the United States are far more over protective than parents in Israel.

She sent me a blanket email that she'd sent to several people searching for sources for a story she was writing. Her story is apparently about today's hyper-parenting culture and how we are overwatching our kids.

Coincidence? I don't f-ing think so? Funny? Not to me, not at first. Now I find it amusing and realize how I've got to crank this essay and send it out. It's apparently such a good topic, established writers feel compelled to steal it from me.

Maybe I've got what it takes to make it as a writer after all.

A Day in the Life/Wednesday

2008-06-13T11:33:00.000-07:00

8:11am, Wednesday morning, my cell phone rings. I look at the number and realize it's the the producer from the job I interviewed for on Tuesday. I'd decided to say no to the job but I wasn't ready to tell them, so I let the phone ring. Two minutes later, my home phone rang. I know they wouldn't call both lines to tell me they'd decided on some one else.

I called my mother for reassurance. She agrees that just because I say no to this job doesn't mean another TV series won't call me some time in the future. I call the producer back and prepare my refusal as I listen to the phone ring. The producer shocks me by asking me for the name of the person I'd like to alternate with.

Quick explanation: sometimes script supervisors (my job) alternate on TV shows. It's basically job sharing. I work episode 10 and then kick back while the other script supervisor works episode 11 and then I return for episode 12 and so on. Basically, I work for a week and a half, then have a week and a half off. The time that I work, I work 14-16 hour days so it's far from a walk in the park. But then I have a week and a half where I work a day or two from home and that's it. I don't get paid for my week off but I'll take it. Instead of not seeing my kid for nine months straight, I don't see her every other week. It's about as doable as it gets in my line of work.

The producer had told me during the interview that alternating wouldn't work on this particular show. I hadn't even brought it up, didn't even suggest it. He made it clear that it wasn't a consideration. To have them call me less than 24 hours to say they were considering it felt like quite a coup. They'd liked me, they'd really liked me.

It's also pretty busy here in the TV world and there aren't a lot of script supervisors with solid television experience. So maybe he realized he had to consider it or end up with no one.

I call my mother, ecstatic that they'd consider alternating. She says she has good news too, that the doctor's office called to tell her to stop taking Coumadien. She's been on this blood thinner in order to prevent a stroke since she went back into Afib (rapid heartbeat) this past winter. Blood test reveal her Coumadien level is dangerously high and she must stop taking it immediately. Why does she see this as good news? Her body's been acting weird lately and she's relieved to have an explanation. The drub also makes her very tired so she's happy to stop taking it. We hang up, both happy.

My babysitter arrives for the morning and I head out to write and do errands. I return to find Eliza freshly awake from her nap. It's a a beautiful day and I pack up to take her to a nice playground along the river. Eliza has fun running through the sprinklers and repeatedly filling a bucket with sand. I call my mother from the playground to tell her what a nice day we're having and after two rings and get her answering machine. The long beep lets me know she's got a lot of messages. Suddenly, I wonder if that call from the doctor was good news. I leave a message and ask her to call me later that night.

It's past six so I take Eliza home and make macaroni and cheese with broccoli and zucchini. We eat around 7:30p, a time I consider way too late. I excuse myself saying it's summer. I put Eliza in the bath and while I get her ready for bed, the phone rings. I need to get Eliza to bed so I check the caller ID and I'm relieved to see it's my Mom. I get Eliza in bed and call my mom around 9p.

My mother spent the day in the hospital. Apparently, the Coumadien levels and some other symptoms indicated internal bleeding. They wanted to admit her but my mother refuses. She's happy to be at home, not in the hospital. She sounds okay, just tired and sick of spending half her time in a doctor's office or hospital. We hang up and I look up some information on the internet.

So my mom could be bleeding internally. It could be all kinds of things, many of them fatal or it could just stop on it's own with the elimination of the Coumadien. I read accounts of people who'd lost family members due to internal bleeding and people who swore Coumadien saved their lives so please don't sue.

I talk to my mom again and she sounds great. She is already feeling better, free from Coumadien. I am not good at waiting but that's all I can do right now. Wait and hope that whatever is going on in my mother's body rights itself.

I go to bed and wonder how I'll swing child care if I take the job. Even if I alternate, I'll still need some one to come at 5:30 in the morning when I leave for work. Who's going to want to do that? Will I have to stay with C longer, just so I can work? It almost defeats the point of my returning to work in the first place.

And then I lie awake in the darkness and wonder if my Mom will be okay.

The Dilemma

2008-06-10T18:18:00.000-07:00

I spent Sunday looking at more apartments for my daughter and myself and found a nice place. It's not in the neighborhood I'd wanted but it's a nice apartment and I think it'll make a lovely home for us. After looking at several other places, I called the owner to tell her I'd take it.

As I was on the phone with her, my cell phone rang with a work call. I interviewed today for the script supervising position on what looks to be one of the biggest new shows on TV this upcoming season. If I agreed to do the show, I'd make a great salary, enough to free me from C for a long time. I wouldn't be able to take the apartment I looked at on Sunday but I'd find something else and stay in New York.

There's always a catch and it's a big one. With car chases and special effects galore, I can expect to be at work all the time. The producer was honest during the interview. He said if the show goes for a few seasons, I'll see my daughter again when she's five.

The hours I've complained about on television shows are not an exaggeration. We report to work where and when we are told and we leave when they say we can. Sometimes the locations are convenient, other times I'm in a van for an hour going to some remote park two hours outside of Manhattan. Mondays start at with us arriving for work at 6:30am and end around 9:30pm. Since the start time for the following day is determined by what time we finish shooting, I can't even say when I have to leave home until the night before.

Can I do this kind of job as a single mother? I want Eliza's home to be with me but if I work, her living with me doesn't make a lot of sense. Although C works long hours too, he can be home for dinner more nights a week than I can. Occasionally, he can work from home and he can adjust his hours if necessary. His oldest daughter can babysit. His brother's fiance works close by. In a pinch, his son's babysitter can probably step in.

Me, I got nothing. So if I take the job, I have financial freedom from C but I feel like I risk losing my daughter in the process. If only some one could assure me that I will find another job, create another career, one that will enable me to give my darling daughter the life I want for her, then I could say no to this without remorse.

Instead I sit here wondering, why I'd want to say no to something that will provide me the freedom to get C out of my life. And I know why I don't think I can say yes, it's that little girl in the next room I'm so afraid I'll lose.