Reality Check

This was a post I wrote back on Nov. 23rd 2012 that the production company made me take down prior to the show airing.  Not sure if I'm even allowed to post it now -- but since the show is airing tonight at 10PM on A&E -- I figured I would repost it and see what happens....big brother is watching...so if I end up in court for breaching my "contract" you'll know why I'm unable to blog from my prison cell.

I can officially check "Have Been on a Reality Show" off my bucket list.

I didn't really have a bucket list until I ended up on a reality television show a couple weeks ago -- but given recent events -- I'm thinking I'll go ahead and start one and see how much crazy shit I can pull off before I'm six feet under.  Yes, you can look for my mug gracing across your television screens sometime next year on A&E.  I wish I were kidding.  But this is actually true.

As a favor to a friend, I spent the entire day filming an episode for her reality show a couple weeks ago.  Spoiler alert:  As a snobby, judgemental, yuppy mother, who makes fun of waitresses and anyone who has used a hand-me-down breast pump -- I am far from playing myself on the show.  I waitressed for over ten years and every damn thing I own for my kids including my breast pump was a hand-me-down.  So,  I guess that kind of debunks the whole "reality" part of it -- and makes me super duper two-faced for thirty minutes -- but whatever.

The show is called Southie Rules.  It follows a longstanding local family and how they are faring against the recent gentrification of yuppy transplants who have brought their sushi bars, boutique stores,  and organized mother's clubs with them -- changing the face of the gritty working class neighborhood they've known and loved for a bazillion years.  They fancy up Southie while they are here for a couple years but then they take off for the burbs -- leaving the original Southie's trying to find a pint of beer in their own neighborhood that costs less than $7.  It's a highly contested show here in Southie because people are worried the filming of a reality show will give our community a Jersey Shore type reputation.  I get it.  But in my humble opinion, that's just ridiculous.  Especially if the people at the center of the show are making fun of themselves the way they are.

Reality TV is on a long list of indulgent and disgusting crap that Americans devour until they've eaten so much they puke.  I don't think a reality show is ever going to make or break the future of any one community.  Listen, every neighborhood has a couple of Snooki's in it -- let's just be honest.  And I'm thinking New Jersey has more important things to worry about post-Hurricane Sandy than the Jersey Shore show's impact on the community's reputation.  All I'm saying is -- who cares?  Stereotypes exist and people exaggerate and make fun of stereotypes on television.  All.  Day.  Long.

That's not to say that it's ok that American society spends an exorbanent amount of time and money exaserbating stereotypes and creating reality television shows -- far from it.  Clearly there are better things we could all be doing with our time.  But you know what, you only live once, and let's not shake our fists at the sky for no reason either.  I honestly believe that if you can't laugh at yourself then you probably need to get over yourself.  So, with that far-from-intelligent-rationale....I agreed to be on my friend's show.

I ended up being on an episode where they had members from the local Mom's Club go to my friend's house (the center character of the show) to see if she would be a good "fit" for our group.  The episode reeks with judgement about my friend's family not really being "acceptable" to our yuppy standards there are many awkward moments and awkward exchanges throughout the episode including the shit I had to say about waitresses and hand-me-downs.  So, yes -- it's scripted.  And frankly, not based in reality at all.  But more importantly?  How in the hell did I end up NOT being myself on a REALITY television show?  Don't I have enough on my plate, you ask?  Good point.

Ironically, I met this awesome local mom through the Southie Mom's Club, who has since become a fast friend, someone who is not offended in the least by the way I carry myself, talk smack, make fun of myself or the crazy people around me.  As you can imagine she is cut from a similar cloth -- speaks her mind, doesn't hold back, and is about as "real" (no pun intended) as a person can get.

Most Mom's Club Members are transplants and not originally from Southie.  Somehow, one of the other moms in our group convinced this local mom to join the Mom's Club and then subsequently our playgroup.  Even though she had no desire to meet a bunch of yuppy mother's from all over god's green earth who are only going to live in Southie for all of five minutes -- she joined.  Well, let me just say -- when I met this mom at the first playgroup of ours that she attended -- she pretty much said just that.  And I immediately adored her.  She was the real deal.  And I had so much respect for her -- for going outside of her comfort zone and agreeing to join our group.  You could practically hear the 75 family members back at her house giving her a hard time for joining the Mom's Club -- "what the hell do you need a mother's club for?  There's like fifty mothers in our family alone!"

Anyway, it was a ballsy move on her part and she's become a great friend and I love, love, love the fact that she's basically bridging the gap of the old southie and the new southie by being in our group.  And since it's highly unlinkely that we'll ever move out to the burbs and instead my husband and I will likely be carried out on a couple of gurnies from our home in southie in about a 100 years time -- I could use a legit southie mom like her in my arsenal.  She's awesome.

Well....after really getting to know her over the past year, her husband, their daughter and the day-to-day craziness that exists within the walls of her three family triple decker -- her life literally is like something from a reality television show.  And now, that's actually what's going to happen.  They have been filming for close to a year now and A&E liked the pilot so much they picked up the show for a first season.

The show is based on how the gentrification of Southie is perceived by families like hers who are watching their old neighborhood change right before their eyes.  The episode she asked me to be in pokes fun at the concept of the South Boston Mom's Club and the divergent stereotypes that exist in the new Southie -- specifically local mom vs. transplant mom.   White trash, raunchy, working class South Boston mom meets high-end, snobby, judgmental yuppie mom.

Southie has definitely changed over the past several years and some of these original triple deckers with the born and raised Southie families in them are now being bought by contractors, gutted and turned into sweet ass condos which young couples are snatching up and then subsequently starting their families in.  The thing is -- these young new families aren't staying.  Once they start their families and the kids get closer to school age -- they outgrow their condos and head out to the suburbs so their kids aren't (god forbid) raised in the city and have to go to Boston Public Schools.

It's not so much that the new Southie has entirely replaced the old Southie -- it's just that alongside the hundred year old family owned hardware store, flower shop, and Irish pub is now a brand new chi-chi hair salon, sushi restaurant, and high-end clothing boutique.  Today, you have crusty old Southies living next door to fancy new yuppies.  It makes for some interesting people watching on Broadway:  guys in scully caps, with sweatpants, smoking butts while carrying a 30-pack over their shoulder walking by hot moms in heeled boots pushing a double stroller with their Coach diaper bag and a small dog on a leash.  I find it utterly fascinating and absolutely love the eye candy around here.

But let's be honest, the South Boston Mom's Club is very much the product of the gentrification of Southie and probably why they chose to do an episode about it.  I mean, why the hell would some born and raised Southie locals need a mother's club when they are living with their entire extended family in a triple decker not to mention their grandmothers, grandfathers, cousins, aunts, and uncles all live within a few block radius of one another.  The Mom's club is for people like me.  People who have recently moved to Southie, who were not born and raised here, who aren't related to anyone and therefore need to meet other transplants who have moved here to start a life.  Now, the fact that I have an Irish name has definitely helped with the transition to Southie -- but this is Whitey Bulger territory for Christ Sake -- they know right off the bat when you're not originally from here.

What I learned by being a part of an episode is that it's not really reality.  For the first part of the episode, I had to play a super judgmental, yuppy mother who was actually screening my friend to see if she was an "appropriate fit" for the Mom's Club.  Which the Southie Moms Club absolutely, 100% does not do.  Anyone and everyone is welcome in the club.  So, not only did I have to pretend I'd never met her before -- I had to be super rude to her and her family, asking her if she'd ever used hand-me-down clothes for her children or a second-hand breast pump (both of which I HAVE DONE MYSELF).  So, that was a little awkward.  But once I realized just how much the purpose of the show is to exaggerate stereotypes in the newly gentrified southie  -- the actual filming of it was really fun.  And funny.  I mean, I have no idea how this is going to play out on TV -- so here's hoping it's not the most offensive television show of 2013 that it ends up being banned in certain countries (I'm totally kidding -- it's A&E for Christ sake) -- but nothing takes the cake of how much fun this family is making fun of THEMSELVES -- it's a little hard to get bent out of shape about thinking this episode as being a bad portrayal of the Mom's Club in Southie when -- the butt of the joke is at the expense of this family -- and from what I saw the other day during filming -- they are having a freaking good time making fun of themselves and eachother.

So....we'll see what happens.  Who would of thought.  Move to southie, start a family, join the mom's club, meet some yuppies, meet some locals, end up on an episode of reality TV.

Just another item checked off the ol' bucket list.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Haven will have her next open heart surgery sometime during the last two weeks in April 2013.

It's official.  We've made it to the Fontan.

I read that back to myself and it brings tears to my eyes.  She made it.  We made it.  We've just got one more major open heart to go.  We are among the lucky in that we have a chance at having a child with half a heart live a pretty normal life once we get through this last major hurdle.

Three years ago with this baby in my belly -- the doctors set out hurdle after hurdle, milestone after milestone -- explaining to us that if we we were lucky enough to find ourselves on the other side of each of these hurdles -- the baby's chances of survival would steadily increase:

• Get the baby/pregnancy to full term
• Have an uneventful, complication-free delivery
• Survive the first major surgery -- the BT Shunt -- and the subsequent caths that go with it
• Avoid failure to thrive at all cost, get her to grow, grow, grow so she's a good size leading into the next surgery
• Survive the Glenn -- the second open heart procedure and the caths that go with it
• Have a successful enough Glenn to ENJOY watching your baby grown into a toddler so that they are as physically active, robust, and healthy as possible prior to the Fontan
• Survive the Fontan -- the third and potentially LAST major open heart surgery -- and your kid -- while never free from needing some additional medical procedures and medications for the rest of the their life -- will live a happy, healthy, pretty much normal life.  
• If you get to this bullet - it means you've survived the Fontan....go enjoy your child.

When we were in and out of the hospital during the first eight months of her life, I remember seeing the Fontan families.  I couldn't even picture my little peanut, my little newborn blob...a toddler.  An actual kid, who could talk, tell me how she was feeling, sitting up in her hospital bed with tubes and wires attached to her and having some kind of child-like comprehension of what was happening to her.

I remember thinking to myself.  God, that looks hard.  Those are real kids.  Kids who can talk and have feelings and can express those feelings and thoughts.  How the hell am I going to do that?  And then I would look down at my little blob of a newborn and think -- god, I hope we're lucky enough to have to go through however hard that's going to be.  Please God, get her to the Fontan.

So we're here.  And as scared as I am to take this talking, walking, feeling, thoughtful, expressive, feisty, PERSON into her next open heart surgery -- I feel so lucky that we've made it this far -- that we get this chance at normalcy.  And I feel equally as grateful at how uneventful the past almost TWO YEARS has been for our family.  Because that's also just about as unheard of as anything else.  She has done so well.  Remarkably well.  We are forever grateful.  Forever grateful.

She knows something is coming up.  Just the sheer amount of time I have to spend on the phone with her different doctors and specialists, the health insurance company, whomever -- she hears the word surgery, she knows I'm talking about her, she gets it means she has to go back to hospital.  Sometimes he even cries about it -- saying she doesn't want to go to the hospital -- she doesn't want to have surgery.  So, it's hard.

You can't get too into it with a toddler for obvious reasons -- I mean, think about Christmas.  This was the first year she was really trying to wrap her head around the concept of Santa.  She had lots of questions, she obsessed about his whereabouts and who he was, where he lived and what he was doing at any given moment.  Toddlers tend to obsess.  So, I don't want to get into it too much with her until we're closer to the surgery date.  No need to build up unnecessary anxiety around something she can't fully understand.  

How could she remotely try to understand what's coming, or even worse, why it's coming, especially since she doesn't necessarily feel sick -- although I am seeing signs that she needs the surgery -- blueish lips and fingertips, limited energy and stamina when playing with other kids, trying to run around or exert herself usually ends in a "mommy my body hurts, I need to take a rest."  All of which they told me was normal for her at this stage.  Normal signs that it's time for the Fontan.  But when it comes down to it.  She's really not going to understand why she has to go to the hospital, why she has to have her chest cut open, why she's in a world of pain, and why mommy and daddy are letting it happen.

But we'll hold off on all that nerve wracking stuff -- we'll wait until we're closer to the surgery and sometime, maybe a week before we take her in, we'll start "playing" it through -- you know, play surgery with one of her teddy bears kind of thing -- just to get her even remotely familiar with the hospital life that she simply just can't remember is such a huge part of her little past.

So, in the meantime, to get away from our unrelenting PT schedule, and just our regular day-to-day crazy shuffle in general -- we're so fortunate and so lucky to be able to leave the frigid New England winter for the cloudless, sunny, blue and unbelievably beautiful landscape that is Southern Utah.

We are so fortunate that my family has a little place in the Utah dessert where we can get away from it all, let the kids run around in the fresh air, swim, play and just have some normalcy and get a nice long break before we hunker down for our next major hospital stay.  My husband will only be with us for the first part of the trip and the last part of the trip -- going home to Boston to work in between -- but it's a busy time of year for him anyway and it'll be good for him to get a ton of work done before the surgery as well.  We'll miss him but it's healthier for all of us -- especially Haven -- to get out of the cold and into the sunshine.

All of us will need to soak in as much sunshine as is humanly possible heading into April and we are beyond fortunate to have the opportunity to do just that as we head out to the desert.

Like I've said a million times before -- we are so lucky -- in countless ways -- we are just so so so lucky :)