My daughter and I battle over food. She loves to eat at everyone’s house except mine. She once told me to go over to her friend’s house and get the recipe from the mother. Now I know if I cooked the exact same thing in my kitchen, she’d snub her nose at it.

I’ve completely lost it over this issue. And, at times it wasn’t pretty. If someone could show me a video of it (like in Albert Brook’s Defending Your Life) these blow-ups could cost me heaven. Although I do dabble in the style of Bon Appetite, I keep it simple when it comes to my kids. Tonight, I made yogurt, lightly fried plantains (a staple here), cucumbers, and a cold mint tea. The plate was clean. As she left the house to go back to her friends to play, I said:

Wow! You ate the whole thing.

Just before the door slammed she said:

Yeah. And it was actually good.

Heaven can wait.

Take me to the pond and dump my head in waterso I wake up from this midlife dream.I slather in strength only when I am alone in my roomOut there the beasts rear their ugly headsI crawl backwards beepingTail between my legsA product of my generationIf I feared death all I would have to do is dieInstead I have to live with myselfThe one I invented yesterday and the oneI am trying to tear apart today.Just when I think I’ve got itA two-by-four cracks me upside the headWithout a bruiseBleeding from the insideI am doomed to liveUntil tomorrowPlus one day more

When I was little, I always thought tiny humans ran the innards of our bodies. When I sent food down my throat to the stomach, I imagined a crew started tossing water on it and stomping it like fine Frenchman squishing grapes (kind of like Woody Allen’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) meets The Fantastic Voyage).

Now we have the Internet. I swear the first Mac I owned had these little people turning wheels and shoveling coal to make it work. I get the "jist" of how stuff operates, but I can’t remember an atom from a particle, and if I think about it too long my brain hurts. I just hate to give up the thought of those itty bitty people keeping me cranked up. It’s too darned fun talking to all the voices in my head.

I feel like I don’t have the answer to anything, yet all day I have to proceed as if I know what I’m doing. Or, at least I pull off a good act. After running to yet another doctor to try to solve my son’s sleeping problem at night (which is my sleeping problem at night), I’ve got another paradigm to assimilate, another doctrine to disseminate.

Who’s right when it comes to our kid’s health? I’d like to think it’s me, but I spent the day at the dentist then the internist. They’ve got all the things I should do, and I feel as though I’ve been doing it all, yet I have to do more. And more.

Addison was a trooper as the doc looked down his throat, tapped his reflexes, and peered in his ears. Addison held on to a bell and clanged it, but eventually he started to cry. I brought in my daughter who acts very, strangely "happy" at doctors. It freaks me out a bit. I think she doeth not protest enough.

We got home at 8 p.m. I dispensed "all-natural" syrups, mixed herbs, and fired up the vaporizer all in the hopes of getting a good night’s sleep.

I told a friend I’d dance naked in the streets while swinging a hula hoop around my waist and shaking a tambourine. I wonder where I can get a hula hoop?

Someone told me spiritual truths all stem from the same root. Every few months, I get invited to a very typical, Costa Rican family event. Kids birthdays go like this: give a gift; have a cup of coffee; eat rice and chicken with macaroni topped with potato chips all on a plastic plate handed to you by the host or the person in charge of the kitchen that day (usually a tia -aunt); sing happy birthday; eat cake; bash pinata; more coffee; ice cream cone; and then mill about until it feels socially acceptable to leave.

This event went as usual except for the blessing of the birthday child, her mother, and their home. A woman took out her rosary, a prayer book, and older ladies gathered in a U around a small nativity set with a candle burning in the middle. In my earlier days I would have scoffed and rolled my eyes at the whole thing. Life sat me down and taught me a thing or two. I’ve mellowed. Now I love listening to the rosary. I can watch the mouths of the women race over the prayers in harmony. I can laugh because after many years, I can still whip out a quick Hail Mary with the best of them.

It is such a peaceful thing to pray. No matter the language or religion. It is a moment of thinking about unity, love, forgiveness, and others. Upon finishing, the ladies were served up treats by our newly blessed mom and her three-year old daughter. My daughter came up to me and asked for more candy. My son woke up from his nap, and little ladies who’d come to pray all left for home, holding a piece of birthday cake in their hand and a rosary in the other.

“Potty training” is a bore. My daughter zipped through the process at 1 year and 9 months. She was out of diapers - day and night. But that meant: time in the bathroom. Lots of time sitting there, waiting for things to progress. Unless it is my quality alone time, I don’t like going into bathrooms. Public bathrooms are the pits, no matter how clean. The chid will usually crawl on the floor or touch the toilet seat or miss the bowl or my skirt will drop in the water as I try to manage all this. 



Addison started “potty training” (it’s such an awful term isn’t it?) a long time ago. But as with most things pertaining to Down Syndrome, it’s going to take a long time to get it all to come together. I taught him sign language awhile ago, and he signaled to me that he need to go. 

Hey! We’re on to something! I thought. I walked him over to the bathroom. Popped him on the seat; placed myself on the floor; began the wait.



Immediately he pointed to the cabinet. He wanted the brush stored underneath the sink. I handed it to him, and he started brushing my hair. Gently he smoothed it from one side to another. Then, he’d lean back and study his work. When he couldn’t see my face, he’d immediately start parting it to one side. Ten minutes went by. I noticed there was no action on the “business end.” He kept combing me, once he even tousled my hair. When he thought the job pretty complete, he bent over and gently kissed me on the head. 



Ya, he said, as if to admire his work. I got tingles all over. This kid’s got the touch.

I pulled him off the throne and set him on the floor. I went to get his shorts. When I returned, he had peed all over the floor.

My neighbor made donuts. Donuts. Real donuts. She did this after a long day’s work, and she’s also quite pregnant. I walked in the front door and saw my child’s face full of gooey glaze. Her two friends sat behind her. All three spoke as though they had mounds of marshmellows stuck in the back of their throats.

I walked home with a wonderful carmel/sprinkle specimen. I don’t eat wheat and make few exceptions since eating it, for me, is like hitting the bottle for an alcoholic. Two bites and I was transformed back to my childhood: I’d walk down to the corner store and pay 20 cents for a puffy sugar-glazed donut and saunter home eating it slowly, whiling away the afternoon with my good friend. I’ll save the rest for tomorrow.

Addison caught a cold. What kid doesn’t? Two months later, Addison’s cold has manifested into bronchitis. All was slowly, very slowly, clearing up, but a week ago it took a turn back to where we started. Plus, since the windy season has started in Costa Rica, we’re all breathing in dust, pollen, and goodness knows what else. Addison doesn’t deal with the dust well. When he finally goes to bed at night he has not been able to breath through his nose. When he breaths, he coughs. When he doesn’t cough, he can’t breath. It sounds like he’s drowning.

Keeping up with these pesky chronic illness gets tiring. Regular-old doctors offer little help. Even if I did submit to this drug or that drug, which I have in the past, a child can only take them so long and let’s face it, do they really work? I mean really get to the root of the problem. Down Syndrome children are “supposed” to have smaller tubes in their ears and nose. This may complicate the problem, but I know I’m not alone on this pesky adenoid problem because I’ve been on the Web.

One of the things I love about the Internet is that it is this growing, living collection of brain cells, coming together to share ideas. I sat down to research, again, and found a site I’d never seen before: Earth Clinic. Low and behold there were people from all over the world sharing their experiences with Western drugs and old fashioned cures like tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (ACV for those in the know), hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, banana peels, and something called oil pulling, which I have no idea what that is. Over the days I read. And read.

The funny thing is…I don’t have a deep fear of sickness. I know this has driven me to surgically remove body parts in the past such as tonsils and cysts, but this new information coupled with the amazing resilience of children, has enlightened me to take a lot more control over our family’s health. Heck, with just a little bit of information, Addison got rid of two (supposedly) incurable, cancer-causing cysts. My daughter conquered Scarlett fever without a single anti-biotic. I still go to the emergency room. Addison has allergic reactions to things, and thank goodness for all those smart people there. But, for the day-to-day illnesses, I’m loaded for bear and on the warpath to health.

Little Addison just has to tolerate me and some of my foibles. We both hated the raw onion hanging in the bedroom, and the honey and lemon didn’t do the trick this time. We’re on to onion/honey, baking soda, peppermint oil, eucolyptis oil, ginger, tumeric tea, apple cider vinegar, grapefruit seed extract, and there’s a few more I’m forgetting right now. It’s amazing he doesn’t scream when I come near him. No, he only smiles.

A few days ago, I fell at the end of this sidewalk. This photo is an improvement from the day I took the big nose dive. I’m not kidding on this - this is an improvement. Since I talked to the construction workers, they’ve filled in the two gaping holes on either side of the sidewalk (I use this term loosely); cut down the unfinished, jutting rebar from one end; and notice at the far end (I’ve included a closer shot below) - the old bleach bottle stuck upside down on a long piece of rebar. Believe it or not this is quite a normal way to mark potholes in Costa Rica. Over the years, I’ve seen lawn chairs, bouquets of flowers, and PVC pipe used as markers for dangerous ruts in the road.

People worry about safety in Costa Rica. Usually the word ties to crime. Crime is here, no doubt. But we’re stll safer than many many comparable places in the world, especially considering the poverty and the proximity to other, more volatile nations. Watch where you step. Take it easy on the road. After living almost ten years in Costa Rica and walking in many, many neighborhoods, including downtown, this was my first big fall. Even after the fall, all in all, I feel safe here.

As the season turns towards our hot months in Costa Rica, bathing suits go on sale; sunsets glisten; the moon’s visible at night; and my daughter returns to vomiting in the car on car trips. It gets hot in my car and the old air-conditioning has a hard time keeping the interior cool, especially during the noon hour.

Coco started turning white/green about 3/4 of the way through the trip over the windy mountain road. She shifted in her booster chair. I searched for a plastic bag. I guess my stock was low. During the rainy season, she throws up while traveling a lot less. In the side holder/thing in the door of my car I finally found a little plastic lunch bag. It was still full of little pieces of cereal from a the last trip we took. I handed her the bag. She held it in her lap.

Do you want me to stop?

This is where I feel torn between wanting to help her and getting to the destination because I know in the long run, she’ll feel better once we’ve made it to familiar turf. I scanned the shoulder and the only places to pull over were skinny strips of dried grass that looked like we’d fall off the cliff if I parked. She laid down on the seat and said she felt o.k. We forged on.

Then, she sat up and started barfing in the little baggie. What a sad sight. But after depositing what looked like all of her lunch, color returned to her face and she looked alive again. She sat up and stuck her head out the window like a puppy.

She handed me the bag of the contents from her stomach. It looked like an old bowl of cereal that sat in the sink for day. If I didn’t get rid of it soon, I’d loose it.

About a mile from our stop, I pulled over on a dirt road and dumped the liquid out on the road and tucked the bag back into the door of my car. I’m always amazed at how resilient kids are. I’m also always amazed at how much those little stomachs can hold.