Traveling Offers Melissa Joan Hart the Opportunity to Focus on Family

The life of an actress can be filled with travel and various shoot locations, and while it may be fun, it’s a lot of work for celebrity moms. That’s why it was important for actress Melissa Joan Hart and husband Mark Wilkerson to figure out a way to make it work for them and their sons Mason Walter, 3, and Braydon ‘Brady’ Hart, 13 months. Luckily, they have “got a good system down now,” Melissa says. Having worked “quite a bit” this past year — and almost always out of town — means living out of hotels, which Melissa enjoys because she treats it as a break. “Being on location means there’s only two focuses: whatever job I’m working on, and my family,” she explains. “There’s no outside — I don’t have to worry about feeding my dogs or taking care of the house or opening the mail, because I’m staying in a hotel … it’s been really nice.”

The couple “have a wonderful nanny” who travels with them and assists Melissa while she works. “We hired her last year when we had Braydon. She went with us to Louisiana and Atlanta and everywhere we went last year,” she notes. “It’s nice because she or Mark or whoever is there that day will bring the boys to see me at lunch.” Melissa, 33, is also a fan of “the schedule” of acting because “you’re not always on — it’s not a 9:00 to 5:00. Sometimes it’s a 6:00 to 6:00 … in which case I get to go home in time for dinner and bath time, or maybe I have a late call and I don’t go in until noon and I get to have breakfast with my family.” Thanks to that type of scheduling, when Melissa was filming in Atlanta, GA the family discovered a new favorite.

“We went to the aquarium a lot. It was really fun because the aquarium in Atlanta was unbelievable, and my son became obsessed with whale sharks … and anything in the aquarium. I got to go diving with the whale sharks and my son got to watch me in the tank in my scuba gear as I went, so it was really cool.”

Acting not only provides Melissa with a great schedule, but it has given her some of her closest friends. The actress stays in touch with a lot of her previous co-stars from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, including fellow celebrity moms Soleil Moon Frye (mom to daughters Poet Sienna Rose, 3 ½, and Jagger Joseph Blue, 13 months) and Caroline Rhea (mom to daughter Ava Rhea, 6 months). Also, “my wardrobe dresser [from the show] is one of my best, best, best — I would call her my very best friend. She is Brady’s god-mom and her husband is godfather, and their son is Mason’s best friend.”

Source: MediaBlvd Magazine

–Angela