Mental Health Day

Everyone needs one every now and again and today is my day. I am especially fried right now. Running a 4-show rep season and being a full-time mommy with no child care (except me and full-time Dad) is taking its toll. This has been an incredibly stressful week, so the opportunity to relax a bit was quite welcome. Marcus and I spent the morning playing with Dean. Dean and I even took a little nap together. We had baby bath time (see adorable picture), worked on sitting up, played with some new toys, read some new books and had lunch at Cracker Barrell. Dean continues to amaze Marcus and me. His personality is the sweetest little ray of sunshine. I couldn't imagine a better baby. He is so happy and easy-going. He loves almost everyone, a blessing when we bring him to the theatre with us. The company has been amazing. Everyone has accepted Dean with open arms and people are starting to make reservations for "Dean time."

Our housemate, Donald, is gone for 4 weeks to do a job out of town. We miss him, but not as much as his kitty cat, Dil, misses him. Dil is currently sitting on the desk staring at me and purring. He and I had a nap together yesterday morning from 5:30-7 when a coughing fit sent me to Donald's room so I wouldn't wake up Dean and Marcus. (Did I mention I think I'm allergic to Dil? Yeah.)

This summer has already taught me a lot of things. Part of me is so, so happy to be back at work. It's filling a void that was definitely there in the early post-partum days. However, I'm still having a hard time balancing work and motherhood. I feel guilty when I can't be with Dean, though if he isn't with me, he's usually with Marcus. We have some wonderful friends here who beg for time with him, so finding a sitter is easy if we need one. I keep reminding myself of what I said when I was pregnant, that my work life is a big part of who I am and I want Dean to get to know that part of his mom. I assume it will get easier once all the shows are up, but that seems like a very distant dream at this point. Being the mother hen, disciplinarian, teacher and many more things at work have just taken their toll on me this week. Hopefully by Tuesday, my batteries will have re-charged. I miss blogging regularly, but let me outline my typical day for you and you shall see why I'm not around much:

5:30am Dean cries for bottle. Feed him, then put him in the bed with us, cuddling him until he falls back to sleep. (we hope)
7:15am Get up. Shower. Drink coffee. Play with baby. Wake Marcus up. Dress baby. Wake Marcus up again. Make bottles. Tell Marcus he HAS to get up.
9:00am (if we're lucky) Leave to pick up fast-food breakfast.
9:30am Arrive at rehearsal
10am-4pm Rehearse (with Dean in-tow)
4:00pm Dinner
5:30pm Arrive at theatre for pre-show set-up, warm-ups, fight call, any small rehearsals we need, company meeting, prep time.
8:15pm Show
11:00pm Leave theatre, drive home, fall into bed

Crazy, huh? But I love it. Always have. We're just trying to figure out how to do it all with a baby who is, naturally, now our top priority.

On another note, I love being Production Stage Manager here and will blog about that soon. It's always been a goal of mine to be a PSM and I'm enjoying figuring out how to make it work for this company. It helps that I have two phenomenal assistants. (Thank you, merciful Jesus!)

Hope everyone's having a good weekend. Will write more soon.

still kickin'

We're still alive. Today was rough. I'll try to find more time to talk about it later, but now I have to go to bed. I did, however, want to check in, tell everyone that I still love them, and that I will someday return to my regularly scheduled blogging. It's been quite hard to juggle 4 shows, a baby, and about a thousand little incidentals that seem to pop up every day.

I do, however, think you all need to know that I got 7 INCHES cut off my hair. Pick your jaws up off the floor. It was supposed to be a 3 inch trim, but the dude got happy scissors. It was horrible when I left the salon, but I came home and wet it down and fixed it myself with a little mousse and I'm starting to like it. Pictures soon.

Back in Blacks

Stage blacks, that is. Which is why I haven't blogged in FOREVER! I've missed it. Anyway, our first two shows are open and we're in rehearsals for High School Musical right now. We start rehearsing Cinderella on Friday. No rest for the weary. Things have been good, though a little more interesting than I'd have preferred in some cases. Here's what's been up:

*Tech rehearsals and opening for our first 2 shows went well. There were some very late nights and some moments of "Wow, I want to pull my hair out," but all went well.
*I've already had understudies go on. It's super early in the season for that, but they did a nice job.
*I can't give any details on this, but it's my blog and I want to mention that I had my first experience with terminating an employee last week. I hope I never, ever, EVER have to do that again.
*I am wearing a High School Musical t-shirt right now. HOT.
*I finally got to make a surprise appearance in Honey in the Rock. There's a scene called Guinea Station, which takes place in a hospital camp during the Civil War. I put on a Confederate uniform the other night and went on as a wounded soldier. Marcus was already onstage laying on the ground, so I spooned him (We were waaaaaaaay upstage out of the light.). Quite fun.
*Dean Lane started cereal! He's like "MOOOOOOOOM! Where has this been all my little life!?!?!" He's so cute with his little cereal beard. Pictures to be posted soon.
*We had Fiesta Night last night with our pals, the Hights. There was an absolutely obscene amount of food, including Marcus tacos, Lola Fajitas and Lee salsa. MMMMMMMMMMM. There was also a pinata, as there should be at all fiesta experiences.

That's kind of what's up in our neck of the woods. Check back soon to hear all about the cool package I received all the way from Hong Kong as a part of the Bloggy Friend Swap.