One of the few jungles of life in Costa Rica I’ve yet to explore is the social medical system first hand. I’ve taken people to hospitals, listen to the crowded stories of patients explain stressed, but good, care. But never had to check in. Until now.

My son has a way of taking to many worlds, so now I can thank him for this adventure. After getting a bit wheezy, he took a trip to the hospital to help loosen up a cold that is trying to cause problems. He’s doing great, but Down Syndrome gives us always an extra challenge due to the extra chromosome factor. I’ll be posting when I can and keep all updated.

I’ll be waiting out time looking at the peeling paint and wondering how anyone survives hospitals with that freezing air conditioning. I’ll remember to bring hand towels and toilet paper as it was a bit thin. I’ll wait and watch him get well with the loads of other parents and loved ones, tired but grateful the hospital is there.

One new shirt. That’s it. That’s all it took. One new shirt and the world lit up. Stepping back and looking at children, all off a sudden they’re a little more grown up.

Pants get short; cheekbones rise; and the fuzzy-bear-rattle slippers are tossed into a bag for another baby to wear.

Addison sprouted up. Not sure when. Could have been that birthday cake. Or good luck. Whatever it is, it sure looks good on him.

If the World Bank could hand out this kind of cash - whew, imagine the credit we’d have.

A bus falls off a bridge and the country throws up it’s arms in anger and sadness. Dramatic pictures of the rescue makes us all think of what could have been done to prevent it.

The bridge was famous for it’s wobbly planks and swinging suspension. It’s the kind of crossing that one might have wanted to consider taking up a religion before crossing. The route passes through a busy, yet beautiful, back way from San Jose to the Pacific coast. La Nacion reported that the bridge was built in 1924! It was a miracle it lasted that long.

This administration blames the other one blames that one. A new idea could be for all of ys: It’s part of my world, I’m going to take on the blame, and I’m going to help fix it. Enough of us step up to the plate to take blame, even when it’s hard to swallow, even when it might not be completely justified, might move the world ahead into a productive healing energy instead of wasting our time pointing fingers. Maybe responsibility for neglecting our planet is better than blame.

Falling down bridges is not just a “developing” world problem. A few years ago, many of us may remember a bigger bridge, up in the “developed,” world fell into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis during the evening rush hour on August 1, 2007, collapsing collapsed into strong current of the Mississippi river, killing thirteen people and injuring 145.

Of course the Cruz Roja and others risked everything to help those in need. I have this weird dream that some day the Cruz Roja will be so bored, ambulances will sit idle, and pain and suffering will come to an end. A preventive, proactive life by all of us - me included - might start this ball rolling.

Instead of letting my own life and times get out of hand so I ended up with the chaos of splitting a family up, I’m looking to what I could have done differently. But we all must not dwell to long on the past, for those bridges do need to be fixed, those hearts do need to mend.

I’ve yet to see harsh words or arguments bring someone back from the dead. And that’s what the families of the victims have now - they have to bury their dead. Blaming is just a waste of time. Action and responsibility might begin to save lives not yet lost - on all the other bridges and catastrophes and broken hearts, waiting to happen.

(As of this writing, repair has begun.)

Perhaps it’s happening around the world, perhaps it’s me, but Internet solving Internet issues has got to be a good career to look into. We’ve become dependent on this fast-finding, facting-foraging maching. So, MotherJungle has experienced a few days of no-service limbo. A post that meant to go up a few days ago will come soon and then if we shake our lucky rabbit’s foot, we’ll be back again.

Quit barking you mutt! And just listen! Addison held up his hands to scold the mechanical puppy one more time as it kept barking and wagging it’s tail to the sound of his voice. Night time entertainment hadn’t been this exciting since we gave the guinea pig a bath.

Four years after the birth of my son, our family has officially moved into the geek zone. After watching a story about “geeks” being “in,” I knew I’d find a group to which I could relate.

• We go to bed early.
• America’s Funniest Videos are our favorite shows.
• We make asses of ourselves in public because some bodily fluid usually ends up smearing or smudging on something that doesn’t belong to us. W
• We tend to skip and giggle and trip uncontrollably in public places.
• Our clothes rarely match.
• I wear funny, black glasses that slip off my nose.
• I spend more time talking to my computer than humans.
• Scoring nifty oxygen hoses is a true thrill.
• I own a Johnny Mathis album.
• I sing along to that album.

These last years have proven to be tough. But without them, perhaps I wouldn’t have realized that watching my son read a bedtime story to a mechanical puppy may not rank as a fabulous night out, but it may rank as one of the greatest moments of my life which followed another great moment…and another…and another…

Whether in Costa Rica or New York, we’ve got to bring with us our stuff. No matter what stage of my life I’ve been in, I seem to always be hauling a cart. On the airplane, I’ve always got more to pull along than others. I’m amazed at those with the single fanny pack. I admire people who get it all in one bag. I even had a job once that ran out of office space when it came to me, they gave me a cart. Just find a space that’s open I was told.

With my car in for another adjustment, I pull my orange cart out and take it from the kid’s school to the grocery store to the pharmacy. One night, a rat crawled into my garage and must have discovered something I’d neglected to take out of the bag after shopping. The little rodent chewed a huge hole right through the bottom. Now, I’ve got to be sure I don’t put a wandering avocado on the bottom.

Few people stop for pedestrians in Costa Rica. Being pregnant or crippled doesn’t always add to the advantage either. Having a cart surely gets no exceptions. I have to fight my way across like the rest of the world as I lug my stuff to it’s next stop.

I go through phases or trying to downsize and get sleek. It never seems to work. Between diapers and snacks and water and my camera and…..I’ll be pulling more than my share for a while to come.

I twirled my daughter’s favorite stuffed animal in the air and sang a song in thanks, in remembrance of her eighth year. I started singing off-key about all the fun things we did. Before I could finish, I looked over to see her sobbing.

“I don’t want to leave the number eight! I love eight!”

“So you don’t want to turn nine?” I asked her.

“No, I want to turn nine! But I love eight.”

Witty responses eluded me; comforting words didn’t seem to ease the pain. This child loves both sides of the scale: The coming and the going; the beginning and the end; the new and the old. She wants to everything to be as perfect as she believes it is. It’s a great quality to end. However, change gets a bit tricky. The stuffed dog and I sat while she let it out. I moved on to another subject.

As we sang Happy Birthday to Coco the next day, she smiled in glee. Nine turned out to be just fine after all.

This blog has suffered in the last few days due to the operator’s pain in the neck. I dislike when my kids get colds. Who doesn’t?  With Addison, it’s an extra challenge as the child can produce more phlegm than I thought possible for a horse.

Usually, I by-pass the colds and sickness the last few years and end up getting up in the middle of the night to un-stuff noses. I’d be a little tired but able to manage. This time, whatever he got, I got. And boy does it suck. So I’m trying to practice positive thinking by pretending it’s not there while I pop another Tylenol.

So, this is short, and I’ll be back as soon.

With Internet service spotty lately in Costa Rica, I hoped for the best when I sat my daughter down and opened her favorite game to play. After leaving her for awhile, I heard a chuckle.

“Oh that surfer,” she said. “It’s gone crazy again.” I wondered what she had opened and sauntered over to stand behind her. The page was taking a while to load.

Coco’s about to turn nine - our last year of single digits. She’s grown taller, cares a little bit more about nail polish, and can “surf’ a bit on the web.

“Oh,” I said as I re-entered the page she wanted to play. “You mean the server. Not surfer.”

The mindless music began to play as her page loaded. I walked away to finish lunch. Although I have a son and loads of time yet before he marks his first decade, there is something I will so truly miss as my daughter moves into a bigger piece of her SELF. She outgrows her pants faster than I can run out and buy a new pair. Her curls have soften and her darkened. She ignores me and talks back but still runs to mommy when the shadows creep about her room at night.

I would be lying if I said I wanted all those days back again. Mothering a smart, perky, extremely energetic girl wasn’t the easiest thing for me. I am looking forward to her growing up and taking on her own life.

But I wouldn’t mind being able to grab those moments in between the vomit and whining where we danced in the surf and forgot that anyone else existed but the two of us.

Then, those things we’ve struggled so hard for start to fall into place. Addison now walks with ease. He races across the living with glee and looks like he’s in a walking race as his arms move to pump him along. The two are not quite coordinated yet.

He stands up on his own. And he got his captain’s license.

Ok. So, I’m kidding on the last one. But he IS definitely the captain of his own ship - setting sail and heading down stream.