LA Moms Blog

My Big, Sad Reminder

Being a comedian, I fly the friendly skies for a living. This morning, on board my flight home to LAX, waiting for take-off, I decided to read my complimentary hotel copy of USA Today. The Haiti earthquake, of course, is still the biggest news story and while flipping and skimming through the articles and photos about the devastation and relief efforts, the mom in me just couldn't be contained - I started to cry. It's no fun crying in public, but it's especially no fun crying on a plane. In the middle seat. Between two strange men. It's down right embarrassing but I couldn't stop myself.

I, like many self-absorbed Americans and busy single moms, don't have nearly as much time as I would like to read and watch the news. While I had been hearing all about the earthquake through friends and news snippets, headlines here and there, the magnitude of the devastation didn't fully hit me until I sat down with the paper today and really absorbed the figures and photos. 

One of the poorest of all nations in the world, flattened by mother nature. The death toll keeps rising and we all know nature does not discriminate. Mothers, fathers, children, babies, dying and suffering and with the collapse of major infrastructure, many more will die. I can't help but imagine my own child in these situations and reading article after article about the devastation in Haiti made me count my blessings. It also made me admit that I am completely unprepared for a large earthquake. 

No Christmas For The Weary

Christmas 2009 officially goes down in the books as the WORST Christmas ever. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, Christmas hasn't even happened yet. 

Aubrey's father, my ex-partner, and I live about 26 miles apart from one another. It was her turn at his house but this year we co-purchased her "big" Christmas gift and both wanted to be with her when she opened it. Our plan was for me to drive to the ex's house Friday morning and do Christmas morning gifts together. Our nanny is on vacation until Monday, so it would be just the three of us. 

Well, Thursday during the night, Aubrey woke up with a fever. By the time I arrived on Christmas morning, she had a high temp, sore throat, cough and was listless. When we decided she needed to see a physician, our pediatrician's office was just closing shop. It was nice of them to have Christmas morning hours available, but there was no way we were making it from Westlake Village to Santa Monica in fifteen minutes. Stupid far away Ventura County.

So we spent Christmas day in the emergency room doling out a small fortune to be told something along the helpful lines of, "it's probably viral but could be bacterial". Thanks Dr. Holmes. The doctor didn't say a thing about her ears and just that her throat was a little red, but not bad. He wrote a prescription for amoxicillin and never ran a strep test. When you're in the heat of the moment with your one and only, never been sick like this before, screaming, feverish child, you don't necessarily think to ask questions, like, "Should we run a strep test?" Or "Are you sure you didn't see any inflammation in her ears?" Or "Tsk tsk," the doctor for writing a prescription for an antibiotic when he's guessing whether or not your child has a viral or bacterial infection. You kind of hope the doctor would think of these things on their own in a professional, doctory way.

Can't We All Just Get Along Santa?

Decision made. I'm going to leave the mom-guilt on the shelf and make the decision that feels right to me and that is: I am NOT going to teach my kid the Santa Claus myth. This is always a hot parenting debate around this time of the year and I've heard every good and bad argument for and against Santa Claus and his whole posse of reindeer, elves and that very supportive wife of his. I'm talking EVERY argument and people are cut throat and passionate about their position on the matter to the point of being absolutely rude. Bottom line, I don't think the pro-Santa parents need to be so mean to the non-Santa parents and vice versa. Can't we just agree to disagree? 

My daughter just turned two and a half and this is the first Christmas she knows who Santa is. She recognizes his image, but she hasn't been taught that he flys around the world in a sleigh pulled by magic reindeer to come down the chimney and leave gifts for good boys and girls. At this point, I'm pretty sure she just thinks he's a pretend character that is a lot of fun. Wacky, huh? 

My Toddler, The Basketcase

I know everyone thinks their kid can do no wrong and for a while, mine was pretty darn close. I'm totally aware that this sounds SO stuck up, but in the great scheme of things, she really was a textbook "good" child. Especially for a two year old. Very few tantrums, likes to share, naps and sleeps well, potty trained like a champ, eats almost anything you put in front of her, never gets sick, plays well alone or with others, intelligent and kind. And beautiful... because she looks like her mother. I was kind of living on toddler easy street until - dum dum dum dum (you're supposed to sing Beethoven's 5th there) - my ex, her father, went on a three week business trip out of the country.

Neither of us had ever been away from her that long and I truly underestimated what a traumatic effect it would have on her as she had always been such an easy going child. My ex - let's make up a name for him so I can stop referring to him as "My Ex". How about Lex. It rhymes with ex and also reminds me of Lex Luther. Lex and I split when Aubrey was still an infant. We have shared custody and a full time, live-in nanny between our two homes so Aubrey is accustomed to a back and forth lifestyle but she had never gone without seeing one of us for more than a week at a time.

During the first week of Lex's trip, things were pretty normal, but slowly, sneakily, the anxiety started to seep into my child's behavior. First were the sleep disturbances. She woke during the night crying, completely inconsolable. She fought naps, crying for over an hour at times until she finally gave in to exhaustion. 

Going Bye-Bye

I had a crazy last couple if months. Well, let's be honest, the last 37 years of my life have been crazy, but the recent craziness tops a lot of the craziness. A large part of the the craziness involved my live-in nanny.

I had debated for quite a while whether or not to mention anything about canning my nanny of 2+ years as it turned into a mellow drama beyond my wildest imagination and really pushed me to the edge of my sanity. Note to self: Fire employees with undesirable traits sooner than later. Undesirable traits don't tend to go away by themselves and actually, magically, they escalate out of control. Enough said.

My Wild Weekend

I was in complete disbelief, looking at my calendar last week. Was it true? Could it be?! I was going to have a full three days of an empty house to myself?!! GET OUT OF HERE! My boyfriend went to the Midwest for some work and it was my daughter's and nanny's turn to go over to my ex's house. For the first time in I-don't-know-when, I was going to be alone in my own house! Just the dog and me! Immediately, I started making plans:

• Change the tv channel to something other than Noggin and PBS 
• Watch a DVD that is not "Free To Be You And Me" or "Elmo's Potty Time"
• Sleep in the middle of the bed with all of the covers to myself
• Spend quality time with the dog before she kills me in my sleep
• Work out
• Read an entire magazine on the toilet with the bathroom door open. Wide open. 
• Take long showers (eco system be damned)
• Catch up on writing
• Party with my childless, single friends at night 
• Sleep in late in the mornings.

I had a LOT of plans for the weekend! Wednesday night, the man headed down to LAX and Thursday afternoon, the baby and nanny rolled out to daddy's house. Let the craziness begin! My motto was, "What happens in Sherman Oaks, stays in Sherman Oaks!" WOO-HOO!

The Summer Struggle

There are so many things I love about summer here in Southern California: jumping in the pool and striping down at the beach, The Hollywood Bowl, eating dinner and having drinks on restaurant patios, dressing down and chilling out. Nice! But this is also the crappiest time of the year in my profession. 

The entertainment industry typically slows down a bit during the summer and on top of that, I make most of my living performing at colleges and universities. Schools kind of shut down during the summer so summer is my time of financial SUCK and I dread it every year. 

Last summer and this summer have and will be particularly dreadful though because they are my first summers as a single mom. Motherhood as a struggling artist in La La Land is expensive and even with child support, it’s enough to make you want to rob a bank every now and then. And now, the banks don’t even have any money, so… what’s a comedian with a toddler to do?

Going, Going... GONE

The high chair is GONE! The crib is gone (well, almost gone… it’s in the garage and listed on Craigslist)! All in the same week my girl decided to jump out of her crib, stand up in her high chair and she even pee-peed in the potty three times! My little baby is a “big girl” now and I’m feeling emotions of, well, honestly? JOY! I will openly admit to not being a baby person. Women and moms especially are usually afraid to admit this because it makes you look like a “bad mother” to say you don’t care for babies as you’re holding one that is suckling off your breast. But I find it funny that moms are often first in line to talk about how much they dread the teenage years or the terrible twos. Yes, babies are cute (most are) and it seems a little evil to say, “I don’t like babies” but I’m into honesty. Babies are not my thing.

NOW, this being said, don’t take this to mean that I didn’t like MY baby! I totally dug her in a motherly kind of way, but doing the baby day to day was nothing short of mind numbing to me and if I didn’t have full-time help, I’m pretty sure I would have checked into the looney bin at least a year and a half ago.

My Dinner With Aubrey

In twenty days I will have a two year old. AHHHHH! So many milestones in the last two years – first steps, first words, first “I love you mommy.” And to think only three years ago, if you told me I would be a single mom, living in the Valley I would have laughed in your face and run you over with my two-seater convertible. Well, time certainly marches on and this past Friday, my little Aubrey and I hit another milestone, together. A BIG one.

WHO Is Watching You?! why are these kids running around without parents?

 I am very fortunate to live walking distance to a great park and just another quick jaunt down the road to a shopping mall with an indoor play area. My girl is a running and climbing toddler now so we take regular trips to both locations, according to the weather.

During these outings, I’ve encountered an irritating and disturbing trend… young children without their parents or care takers around. Maybe this has been going on for years here in the greater Los Angeles metro area: young children running willy nilly around public places sans supervision, and I’ve only noticed it in the past two years, since I’ve become a mother.  Or maybe I just need to let MY kid run around willy nilly. Maybe I’m being hyper-vigilant with my two year old because I’m a first time mom. I’ll set the scene and you tell me.

Scenario at the park: