All of a sudden, it was quite. I opened the door. The puddles were still. The air was cold and chilly. After almost a long string of rainy days and nights, the rain had stopped. My daughter slept off a fever in her bed. My son was insisting the nanny read one more book as he sniffled and coughed. I put an extra blanket on my bed. As head off to bed, he was so bundled up in clothes, it looked like he was ready to play in the snow instead of sleep. The quite didn’t last long.

Although Coco slept the hours away and awoke free of a fever, Addison coughed the night away. Neither one of us got much sleep. The blue sky and warm sunshine was the only thing that kept me from screaming and throwing all my dinnerware against the walls. I called the school and the bus driver to tell that Coco was sick. She plopped in front of the television, and the nanny took over the care of Addison. I went back to bed.

We’ve been watching, and listening, to non-stop construction next to us since we moved in. Work is allowed to begin at 6 a.m. here. The condominium next to mine is half finished. Since the developer probably hasn’t sold it yet, it’s one of the last units to finish. This bright morning, the guys decided to chip away at a cement wall just six inches from my bedroom wall. The guy would slide a metal ladder along the wall and then tap tap tap on the cement. That might not sound like it’s loud. But consider this: Homes in Costa Rica can be built just six inches away from each other. You can place a back wall on your property line. The home next to you can plop a wall six inches from that wall. (There’s all sort of rules for windows so everyone is not peering into everyone else’s home.)

The guy with the hammer and chisel was tapping right above my bed. Scream inside a cement wall and the sound resonates and bounces all over the place until the vibration dies out. Tap against a cement wall, and it sounds like it’s right inside your head. I put a stuff lion over a blanket, which was already over my head. I managed to doze off. The guy slid his ladder further down towards my closet door, muffling it enough for me to fall asleep. The quite didn’t last for long.

I moved to my daughter’s room; placed blankets and a stuffed kitten over my head. After twenty minutes, the guy had made his way to my daughter’s room and now it sounded like he was chiseling in her bathroom. I sat up and remembered I was hungry. I had a day full of errands and chatter of cartoons,”things-to” to get ready for a theater performance my daughter’s in tomorrow. It was 8:30 and the sun was still shining, but it wouldn’t last for long.

I cleaned my car battery (see Daily Tip to Paradise for action photos!); Fed my daughter, again; and decided I better get out for a run. The rain has stopped. But as a seasoned ex-pat or Costa Rican knows: There’s a short time to get out and do IT. As I huffed along my route, I passed sofas drying on the sidewalk and dogs in the sunshine. I hopped over muddy puddles. The sun felt cozy on my shoulders. One puddle was so large and muddy, I had to wait stop and walk on the road with cars whizzing by. As I waited for a turn to join traffic, I saw this bouganivilla plant. It took a bit of a beating in the rain. More petals sat in the grass than on the branches. It was almost hard to tell where the plant began and ended. Sometimes I don’t know where the day ends and where it begins, and after four years of my sleep turned upside down, I feel like a hamster. It’d be nice to snuggle up in the corner of my wood chips and wait for the nibblets to be dumped in my dish.

The clouds are moving in. The construction workers have finished their coffee break and started not only tapping, but also sawing too. They’ve got to get back to work. There’s only a short time to do it.

It’s raining, and we’re going nowhere. These last three or four days resemble more of what the rainy season looks like in October or November in Costa Rica. Yet even then, we tend to get a little sunshine in the morning.

Not a patch of blue peaks through the sky. We are covered in a thick blanket of gray. A layer of fog hangs down from those clouds, steaming up the sidewalks and windows. The rain is a few feet short of turning into snowflakes. In Spanish, we say encapotado - we’re blanketed in overcast and cloudy. It’s a great word that rolls of the tongue just like water off my yellow raincoat.

And with a storm in the Pacific threatening to keep us wet with this driving rain for a few more days, we might have to turn to almost every inside activity we know: reading the dictionary, drinking hot tea, drawing, cleaning the house, scrubbing the battery in my car….oh, the fun never ends.

I have three nannies. They all give great care to Addison, but each one is different. One nanny is like a grandma, one is like an aunt, and another is much younger and more like Addison’s big sister. She also accompanies him to school. She takes a lot of pride in what Addison learns. She fiercely defends Addison as one of the most normal, if not more than normal human beings on the planet.

Do kids really know what we are saying? When speech is not mimicked back, it can be harder to find out if a child is comprehending what we adults say. However, Addison can hear a song once and repeat it. Not in words, but in the hand signals and motions. He nods his head to the beat and knows exactly what line is coming up. In his class one day, a teacher was teaching the kids yoga. You know that one where you sit cross-legged, pinch your fingers together and humm? With a prompt from his nanny, Addison was doing yoga. He pinched his pudgy little fingers together, looked up to the sky, and hummed. Is there any chance at all this kid gets it?

The question is one posed by Jill Bolte Taylor - the singing scientist who had a stroke and became her own best experiment. She lost the ability of her left brain. She couldn’t speak or create labels. Life had to be learned from the ground up; the left brain life that is. On the other hand, her right brain was there, being all-encompassing, passionate, present, and flowing with the great life force of the Universe. At least, that’s how she explained it. In her book, My Stroke of Insight, she explains that we need to “step to the right of our left hemisphere.” Bring our presence to each other - not our labels; not our egos.

Addison understands this left brain language. And he is teaching me how to communicate, this time without that part of my brain (which Dr. Bolte Taylor explains is the size of a peanut. A peanut!!) driving me insane with a crazy crop of voices in my head always in charge. Down Syndrome kids, or any child or person with so-called “brain deficiencies,” can easily be tossed aside as not “getting it.” I am afraid this kid gets more than I may ever know.

Since my daughter was now privy to Queen, Carole King, Rusted Root, Prince and many other fine artists I grew up with over the years, we decided it was time for her to have her own radio. She had a bit of money saved, and it was burning a hole in her pocket. I told her I’d chip in the difference if we could find a CD player for a reasonable price. A few miles from my house is a large, tin, barn-like structure that sells stuff. Lots of stuff. It’s called Hipermas.

Until I figure out on-line banking, Hipermas is the best place to pay my Internet bill. Go figure. But that’s how it works in our town. We got a cart and wheeled over to the electronic sections. Buying electronic gadgets in Costa Rica is like settling for microwaved coffee from yesterday when you’d prefer an espresso: really disappointing. AND always over-priced. Need a blender? Get ready to drop thirty dollars easy (and more if you want one with a motor in it!) Coffee maker? It might be cheaper to do Starbucks everyday (no - we don’t have a Starbucks yet). And if the machine breaks who is going to fork out the money to ship it to the dealer and fight with customs to get it back into the country?

When I first arrived in Costa Rica ten years ago, it was almost impossible to return something. Luckily, times have changed. IF you have the receipt, AND the item is returned within a few days. (Although I know keeping the receipt is a must I am not sure what the exact policy on how much time you’ve got to exchange things, but unless pain is a distinct pleasure in your life, returning something past even a week or two could be as excruciating an exercise as root canal without anesthesia.)

Hipermas is owned by Wal-mart - another reason I get sick upon entering the store. There’s just something so, so, so fake and “un”right about the whole set up. When I can wrestle my bank into submission, I will hopefully be able to pass by the store all together. Until then, I know I’ll end up there occassionaly.

We got the radio home and took out one of her favorite CDs by Coco Lee. No lights blinked. The CD just sat there. I unfolded the instructions. There was nothing about first-time use. I opened up the lid and inspected the inside as if I knew what I was doing. Tried again. The CD made a scratching sound and the motor moaned. It didn’t take Navy Seal instincts to know something was wrong. We tried other CDs. Same result. I packed up the machine carefully in the styrofoam and plastic wrapping and promised Coco we’d go back to the store in the morning.

There I was again: looking pale and pushing the enormous cart up and down the isles of the whale store. (The logo for Hipermas is a big, blue whale.) The young man in electronics tested the machine and got the same results. As I waited for him to get another player down from the shelving 15 feet above our heads, the nanny was communing with another family who had a daughter who had Down Syndrome. We do this is stores and at restaurants. “We” Down Syndrome families seem to seek each other out and bond closely in a matter of seconds. Addison blew kisses and waved to the group.

The exchange proceeded without any problem. In fact I was surprised at how nonchalant everyone was about the whole thing. When I showed my receipt to the check-out lady, she waved her hand at me as if we were “tight” friends. “No problem. That’s just fine,” she said, not even bothering to look at the factura. Back at home, Coco sat on her bed as the night came to an end. She held up lyrics to a song and sang. Although all I had was a little transistor AM/FM radio that looked like a flying saucer when I was her age, the music coming over those airwaves was something that always saved me and lifted me up, especially when the world let me down, or when I felt empty as if all the color had drained from my skin. Keeping my daughter away from Wii and Nintendo and television feels like it has paid off in moments like this: when the simplicity of music is taken into the soul and discovered with open eyes still untainted from too much distraction. The music, no matter how cheap or tinny, old or new, will always help keep the clowns at bay.

In the west part of the Central Valley of Costa Rica, the rain was persistent all weekend. Even this morning, I look out to the mountains lining the south ridge and the clouds look as though they are just regrouping for more. Already I can smell the workings of mold gathering in my closet. My front door is bloated and I have to kick it shut.

Trees, perhaps rotten on the inside, topple over, and branches, swollen with water, drop to the ground. I’ve been canoing in deep rain forests and heard the sound of falling branches cracking and dropping as our group paddled under hanging green vines and over tree trunks that sometimes blocked our way.

La sabana park was full of fallen branches and trees that broke or tipped over due to the weight of the water. It seems nature is shedding the old and allowing the new a bit of space to grow. In the rain forests, those branches become food for insects and fertilize the ground. It’s a little harder to let these grand things just rot right in the middle of a major park. Hopefully no one was standing in the way of the branch as it let loose it’s grip and hit the ground.

As I wade through divorce, and single parenting, and “life,” I realize I’ve got these branches hanging off of me that are heavy, old, and swollen with an infectious ego that wants to burden me and constantly remind me how stupid, ugly, fat, skinny, smart, sexy, silly, cold, incredible, miserable, and on and on I am. How did all these labels come to hang off me in the first place? As I ran through la sabana, I hopped over the logs and even tripped over a few, remembering that I am not the labels that me or anyone else calls me. It’s just too much weight to carry. A drizzle started as I finished my run. Maybe the next time someone asks me what I do or who I am, I can just say I’m a tree. It’s much simpler, plus so much more accurate.

Amidst even quite times, there’s always something there to remind me of how quickly brightness can turn a little dark. I promised an evening out with the kids. My daughter was giddy with joy. Addison only knew he was going to get in the car - one of his most favorite things in the world. After packing up our gear and managing not to get too wet as we loaded and unloaded our group into the shopping center, we walked around and even had the delight of meeting some good friends.

Coco’s “buy-me-something” mode was subdued, and she was thrilled with a notebook she got to pick out. We walked past bored vendors hanging around outside their store as business was slow. All the female clerks know Addison since he comes to this mall about two or three times a week to play on the dinosaur park play set. He flirted with all the women and blew them kisses. He has a way of driving women wild. Our meal was acceptable and no one spilled much of anything.

We bought a few other things and head for home at the late hour of 6:30 p.m. My garage is skinny and getting in and out takes a lot of traffic management in order to open doors and unload children from the back of a two-seater car. Addison is learning to get out of his car seat and walk over to me so I can lift him out. He stood at the door and played peek-a-boo with the nanny and Coco as they stood in single file down the slender slip of space between the car and the wall. I picked up Addison and pressed my back against the wall to shut the door. I looked down and saw Addison’s foot caught in the door.

Emergency management with children requires the ability to subdue panic and proceed with intelligence, speed, clarity, and calmness. Easy? No. I don’t know why I have this particular talent - it’s not really one I can put on my resume.

Hobbies and talents:

In case of office emergencies - ranging from paper cuts to falls on slippery ceramic to heart attacks - I can attend to the sick and the injured with a the expedience of a paramedic and just the right mix of a mom.

But this I can do. I’ve tended to dying dogs, sprained backs, raging fevers, and major surgeries. For some reason, I just don’t panic. I’m sure the trait comes from my mother. She grew up on a farm where life shows it’s cycles without sparing us our feelings. And she’s lived through a lot with that same matter-of-fact temporment. I knew, without looking, that Addison’s foot was caught in door. When the language caught up to my tongue I yelled:

His foot’s in the door!

Before I finished speaking, I had the door open. Our giddy moment was over as he screamed in pain.

Addison’s legs hang from his body when he’s held. He often goes without shoes. If he had had them on, I’d have never been able to shut the door on it. I carried Addison to a chair, and I held him as he cried that distinct cry of: Man this really hurts! A cry that is much different than: I’m tired. Or, I’m mad. The good thing about Addison’s softer muscle tissue is that his foot bent with the car door like a Cabbage Patch Doll’s would. I could tell the door hadn’t caught that big bone across the top of the foot. He’d be left with a bruise, but no bones were broken.

In just thirty minutes, Addison was laughing and playing with his sister. He downed some coconut water while listening to his favorite High Five song. As the nanny and I marveled at his recovery, he knew we were talking about his feet. He pointed them, in harmony as if to say: Yup. I’m just fine. And with that the darkness turned light again.

After hours of listening to my daughter sing to many varied renditions of You’ve Got a Friend. Addison decided to join in with his version by Elton John.

I’m thinking these guys are crazy! They are going to drive down the highway like that? Up and down mountain passes, along the freeway, and through the narrow city streets?

That’s insane! Heck there’s room for one more bag up there. What were they thinking anyway?

Being a parent means I get to be an expert in everything - or at least in the eyes of my children. Coco’s learning a song for a father’s day breakfast. The moment she got off the bus, she starting singing off-key (sadly she’s inherited my genes here) to You’ve Got a Friend. I joined in. She looked up at me because not only did I know the chorus, but I knew other versus, all the versus. For a few moments - before I explained to her that the song was written by one of the most successful female song/writer singers in the last fifty years named Carol King and the album was this huge success - I was in that goddess status of: mommy knows EVERYTHING.

I waited until I got into the house to explain that Tapestry was one of the biggest albums - like ever. I mean, four Grammy Awards, Album of the Year, Song of the Year. Carole King was such a big roll model for me. She did IT back in a time when girls were stuck with imagining what life “could be” like if only we could dress, act, and be more like a man - THEN, we’ll be making some serious money and get all that respect. Carole came out as herself with this one and the world ate it up.

We sang the song a couple of times over. Coco’s already got that kereoke thing down. She tilts her head and does heart-felt hand gestures to the words. We played the song at breakfast a couple of times. Addison clapped, though I spared him the brief history of the great song writer behind the words since he’s only two and would prefer to rip the CD cover to shreds than listen to what I know. I showed Coco the album cover and she said:

She’s got a cat. She’s lucky.

The bus arrived and Coco and I mouthed the words together as she buckled up. Addison blew me kisses as he was plopped into his car seat. The door shut, and I went back inside. The house was quite. I pushed play and listened to the entire album.

Almost every morning, there are three to five dead cockroaches - on their backs - on my first floor. As the kids finish up their breakfast before getting on the school bus, I walk around, broom in hand, in search of carcasses. We’ve all gotten over - to some extent - the icky feeling a cockroach brings on the moment it appears. Addison puts his hands up to his sides, palms wide open, and flutters them with a big OOOHHHhhh expression. Coco will yell out: Cockroach! and in a very matter-of-fact manner, put her shoe on and attempt to kill it. She often misses, and I’m left to follow after the crippled insect and finish the job.

Some things just bring on shivers automatically: cockroaches, humming with your lips together, running nails against a chalkboard, a pee in the middle of the night, or protein drinks. The nannies and I got in the habit of counting them. Four this morning! I got six! Slow night - only two. Sweeping the bodies up is annoying because the legs stick in the straw and when I go to swish them onto the dustpan, several of them are hanging down and I can’t get them off.

Then, someone ALWAYS starts in with a round of La Cucaracha…..

La cucaracha, la cucaracha

Ya no puede caminar

Porque no tiene, porque le falta

una pata para caminar.

Why do they die on their backs? I suppose there is some scientific explanation, but I like to imagine that the ones that make it out to the ceramic tile managed to escape torture within their tribe. Crawling inch by inch with every last ounce of dignity to a place where they can peacefully “cross-over” to the other side. With one last breath, the tip over, ask for forgiveness, and die.

Before moving to Costa Rica, cockroaches were something “other” people had. Not me. Here, everybody’s got them. They do not discriminate. And a fumigation will get rid of a crop under the sink and behind the cupboards for awhile, but they’ll be back. Heck, these blattodeas can live a week without their heads. Talk about a shiver.

I respect this bug’s right to live right along with the mosquito and the flea and the fly. But in my home, I feel like it’s self-defense. The poop can spread disease and can increase the severity of allergies. I suppose I’ll always let out a little scream when one lands on me, but I kill now without remorse. Late one night, I went downstairs to get some water. A cockroach ran across the floor in search of a hiding place. It bumped up against the wall before I could do it in. I wasn’t in the mood to hear that “crunch” from the kill. It ran onto the wall and finally found a place to disappear. I finished the water and turned off the light. I bid goodnight to the insect, knowing this was most likely his last.