My daughter receives an allowance every week. I wrestled on the right amount and came up with $2 a week. This allowance has raised the bar in my
parenting/her childhood. Now, when she wants something I get to say:

Well, you certainly can buy that. Do you have
enough money for it?

It’s a monumental moment; as exciting as when she could buckle that
seat belt and go on sleep-overs.

The connection to the source of where exactly money comes from is a great source of
discontent in our lives. My money - my control - it actually doesn’t just "appear" in
mommy’s wallet. Avocados grow on trees, not cash.

When she decided she wanted a hamster because Hamster Monster Chase was the best game ever in gym class, I quickly defferred her want to her own pocket book.

We looked at hamsters (have you seen the testicles on these little bitty males??!!); we priced cages; then there’s the monthly food budget; tumbling balls (they must exercise you know);
and those little chips you throw on the bottom of their cages. Adds up.

Coco has managed to save about half of the hamster capital investment. This morning, she declared she wanted an iPod.

Quick to see my opportunity to tip the scales away from a eating, pooping, smelly rodent to a small piece of electrical equipment, I said:

Well, might have enough saved for an iPod or at least half. Geez…but that’s your hamster money.

Her reply was swift:

I think my guinea pigs are cute. I don’t want a hamster anymore.

Deal done.

Our dogs tried to kill a possum that they discovered in our yard during the night. Since the canines sleep inside, the possum probably thought the coast was clear. Yet, she almost didn´t escape. After I heard rounds of yelping – a bark much different than they do when the cute golden retriever walks by – I knew they´d cornered something behind the lawn chairs.

I screamed and flailed my arms and managed to get the pair of hounds off the possum and out of the back yard. After I returned, I found the little thing breathing heavily in a nook of palm fronds. But, she was alive. She had a bloody scratch on her back and some missing hair, but I assured her she´d make it.

Since my daughter was asleep when this happened, I related the story to her. I told her even though the dogs are fed, they still have the instinct to kill an animal like a possum because that would be quite the lunch in the wild.

Mom, what is instinct?

It´s that thing that makes us do things without thinking. I said.

Like walk.

And Talk.

And scrounge the fridge for a snack.

Animals, including us, do things to keep us alive so we can keep the species going.

I went on a bit about the nuances of instinct, but I always know when my daughter´s had enough of me. She forgets to segway, and without warning, moves on.

Can I play Club Penguin?

Well, at least I´d gotten a few good words in about instinct.

I went outside and looked for the possum, and she was gone.

Some days I just feel like the little piggy that can´t even get it together to go to the other side of the pen let alone the market.

Can you relate?

When I took on guinea pigs, it was a weak point in my mothering career. But what harm could one cute little guinea pig cause? Besides my daughter was crying and pointing at this cute furry brown thing. She was only two, and my experience with big NOs in our short life together was limited.

Needless to say…..

One guinea pig led to nine. That´s right. Nine.

We called it a virgin birth.

Four years later, we are down to the original guinea pig and her daughter (note they are both females - a key ingrediant in rodent care).

Now my daughter is ga ga for a hamster. In summer gym camp, they play hamsters and she´s latched on to this like peanut butter to the palette.

I´m taking the long way around a wishy-washy NO.

You could save your money and buy one.

This will buy me some time.

Then, there´s the cage. Let´s do some research first!

In addition to Rainbow tubes, water bottles and dropping trays. You can buy Hamster Toilets and even a Hamster Farewell Burial Kit for when that fateful day comes about two years down the road.

Coco, my daughter, says she´s naming the critter Squeaky.

I´m not doing so well on this am I?

I took pause this morning on a walk to mourn a life, a life that passed right before my eyes.

It’s been awhile since I’ve walked outside my little neighborhood. A few times around my block is what I’ve been able to handle on top of sleepless nights. But, my son’s sleeping! And thriving, doubling in growth and happiness due to his sound hours in slumber. And…that means so am I!

I put my iPod on this gorgeous 16th century-folk music and walked. The nature in front of me played like a music video. Life!

I got to a busy street and this thought flashed through me: Do we get a message - that ½ second we’re going to die – like a subliminal flash in our brain. And because the message is fast, no one has ever been able to communicate it?

These thoughts are not reckless, wacky ideas because in Costa Rica pedestrians get killed a lot on the roads. And, I’m afraid; this small country has a terrible, terrible record of deaths every year due to motor vehicles. So, my eyes and ears and senses – all six of them – are quite alert when I have to cross the street, any street.

The music video continued and up ahead I saw these two dogs playing and running after each other with such joy, I couldn’t help but catch the energy waves from where I stood.

Their tongues hung out in that “it-just-can’t-get-any-better-than-this-if-you’re-a-dog” kind of panting.

I began to worry though because they played on the boulevard and crossed the street without a doggy, dog thought. Well, I thought, this isn’t a busy street, and I am amazed at how adroit dogs are around cars in this country. Yes, some do get hit, but considering the estimated 600,000 strays on the streets, many make it much longer than you’d think. These creatures have come to accept that cars are predators and learn at a young age to walk along the highway. I’ve even seen a dog stop at a red light, and then cross on green.

The sound of a vehicle rumbled a few blocks in the distance. I saw the big black dog - tongue a’drooping - on the grass taking a break. Whew, they knew better. But where was his friend?

The bus approached in the distance, a big one with huge tires.

Then, as if on cue, the small dog darted into the street with as much joy as he did a few moments early. His joy knew no bounds; he played as if there was no tomorrow.

He almost cleared the bottom of the bus. If it hadn’t been for the bounce in his step, he probably wouldn’t have smashed his head into the axel.

There was one last yip, and he lay on the asphalt. He’d see no tomorrow.

I held on to the fence as the music played on in my ears. Now the melody was a hymn good-bye to this life that had spent only a little while here. I approached the body, though I knew he was dead. I decided it was right to see if there was any chance. There wasn’t.

I bowed and gave a moment of thanks for his life, for his joy.

We all know it can only take a moment. But do we really understand that?

I walked home and saw hundreds and hundreds of seeds blooming in the cracks along the street. Theses seeds belonged to the large Guanacaste tree. Every bloom would eventually be “weed-wacked” by the gardener with all the best intentions.

I picked up a few seeds. My daughter and I will plant them in the park in honor of this life that left us today – this life that gave it his all.

Almost every foreigner that I have come to know has at one time or another tried to help a suffering dog or cat. Even before coming to Costa Rica, I rescued animals on the streets. I have rambled across intersections and down boat docks after stray dogs. When I lived downtown San José, five zaguates (mutts) lived across the street in a falling down house with a tree growing through the roof.The house was surrounded by a 10-foot high cyclone fence, topped with ribbons of barbed wire. Two dogs lived in the front yard, and three were caged along the side that I rarely saw, but usually heard. The owner of the rickety house told me he rescued the dogs from the streets.My husband and I named one dog Gabby, for his goatee, and the other we called Blue, for his one blue eye. Gabby and Blue’s owner would disappear for months at a time. Though I do not officially speak DOG, I do have a basic understanding of the language. My heart ached as I listened to the lonely barks; the howls even when there was no moon. Night after night, I couldn’t sleep.A woman did appear several times a week. When her raggedy green car pulled alongside the house, the dogs were crazed with joy. The woman unlocked the gate; stomped her foot to shoo the dogs; filled the bowls with food; poured water into a soup pot and left. Once in my feeble Spanish, I complained about the poor treatment of the dogs (she pick up right away on the fact that I wasn’t a native Spanish speaker) and told me (in English) that her boyfriend would be back soon. Then, she left.About once a week, Gabby or Blue escaped. While the one dog galloped through the streets, the other barked nonstop until his return. In order to end the incessant barking, we had to return the escapee back into the yard. We called the woman who visited the dogs and filled the soup pot, but the phone was disconnected. Soon, my husband and/or I could deposit one/or both dogs back into the yard in about 10 minutes. (This included dragging the ladder from the garage, finding rocks to close up the newly dug escape routes, and depositing one and/or both dogs back into the muddy, feces ridden yard.)Every time Blue and Gabby escaped, I did not want to return them to their life. Who would adopt these dogs at the overstressed animal shelter? Didn’t they have a home already? Many dogs were worse off than Blue and Gabby. I questioned whether I could save the world, even a little part of it.Since many dogs live outside in Costa Rica, neighborhoods acclimate to the sounds of barking dogs. Coco often goes to sleep (and wakes up) with the sound of dogs yapping. I, on the other hand, feel extremely tense if a dog barks more than two minutes. One night, Gabby escaped at 11 p.m – the third time in one week. Blue barked. And barked. At 1 a.m., I kicked off my covers, walked outside and stood under the street light. Gabby ran up and down the street. I lured him close with a biscuit and grabbed the rough of his neck. Unable to find the escape route, I placed Gabby in my yard. Now, both dogs barked.I gathered towels, leashes, rope and put on pointy tennis shoes. I spotted an opening on top of the fence free of barbed wire. I inserted my toe into the links of the fence and climbed. I dropped the last ten feet into the weedy yard. Blue bounced as if to say: Some to love! Someone to love! He jumped at my shirt and ripped a hole in it. I wrapped Blue in towels, securing his brisket and belly in ropes and leashes, and fastened him to my stomach like a backpack. Holding Blue, I felt his muscles melt under my caress. We stood, Blue and I, under the clear night, and I rocked him for a minute and told him what an attractive, beautiful, and wonderful dog he was. I walked up and down the fence that seemed much higher than 10 feet. Gabby, back in my yard, screeched and yelped. It was time to leave.The weight of Blue pressed on my stomach. The fence looked a lot taller from the inside out. I paced up and down and doubted if I could finish my mission successfully, when I spotted a hole I had missed. I unwrapped Blue and set him down. He bounced a circle around me and bit another hole in my shirt. I promised him I would return. I climbed back over the fence; coaxed Blue to the hole with a biscuit; pulled on his paws; and tugged at his body until he popped out the other side. I reunited Gabby and Blue in my back yard and gave them food, water and towels to sleep on. I would have bruised and sore muscles in the morning, but this night, I would finally sleep.I bathed the dogs the next morning and debated what to do. Call the animal shelter? Find them a home? I knew that our neighbor would only replace these dogs with new ones. Gabby and Blue had escaped before, but they had always returned to the house that was falling down – it was their home. They had food, water, a fenced in yard, and they had each other. I had failed to make the world run according to my plans, but maybe Gabby and Blue knew of something I did not. “All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained in the dog,” wrote Kafka. As long as we lived across from the falling down house, I waved to Gabby and Blue and brought them a biscuit and gave what I could to a small, falling-down corner of the world.

Deep in the heart of the jungle, I gave birth to a child. Well, o.k., I delivered at the hospital down the road with the newest technology imported from the , but I did bear my first child in . I immigrated to a little over eight years ago. My daughter is Tica (Costa Rican) and American. I am an American acclimating to life as a mother while living side by side to the wily jungle.

My family lives in a semi-rural (soon to be suburban) city outside of San Jose, . Across the street is a family that I rarely see. They live in a yellow/orange house with a gray dog that squirms in and out of the gate during the day.

The backyard of this house is a canyon - a gorge that drops 600 feet or more to a rushing river. Sheath cliffs jut out of every crevasse, ledge, and crack. Animals, insects, amphibians, serpents, and arthropods creep up the canyon in search of a snack or dry land. I’m reminded daily of how close we are to nature - of how little I am compared to the powers that be.

Earthquakes rattle through frequently, but big ones happen only every few years. The National Theater and the railroad suffered major damage in the earthquake of 1991. Renovations for the Theater took years. The railroad became impassable, and though talks always rumble about running new lines.

I know people who can feel the slightest tremor.

"Did you just feel that?"

a friend asked me once at a meeting.

"No,"

I said, as I tilted my head as if that would help me feel the quake.

Some earthquakes feel like a dog bumping into my chair. Others, like a few weeks ago, shake the ground we walk on and rattle all sensibilities. This earthquake was the third largest one I’d experienced in - the second at 2 a.m.

The earthquake mixed with my dream. I thought my husband was falling out of bed, which is pretty tough considering we have tile floors over poured cement. The windows shook like someone was banging to get in; dressers and nightstands jiggled as if they were trying to walk across the floor by themselves.

A few hours before the earthquake, my daughter, Coco, had wanted to dance in a room where we have several sculpture sitting on tall stands. My daughter and I battle about who’s in charge. I know she’s testing her boundaries and that I’m the rubber mat that she bounces the desires of her ego against the need to find a true inner self.

At 6:00 p.m., I ‘m tired, and I’m in charge, and I don’t care about self-development. I salivate at the idea of reading a book (without fluffy bunnies of cuddly bears) and having a glass of wine. Every night after dinner, the battle begins.

On the night of the earthquake, Coco rolled on the floor and whined,

Please! I want to dance to my music.

Instead of fighting, I gave in. I moved five wooden and bronze sculptures to the dining room table; pushed the stands aside and turned on the Nutcracker. My daughter danced to Tchaikovsky until she fell to the floor.

I’m tired,

she said out of breath. She brushed her teeth without a fight and went to bed. Coco is a light sleeper. It took me three years to get her to sleep through the night; waking her is not something I choose to do if I do not absolutely have to.

The earthquake didn’t stop, so safety outweighed a good night’s sleep. I flipped the covers off Coco and lifted her up (when did she get so big?). In order to carry her from the bed, I used the inside of my thigh for leverage and pushed all my weight against the shaking wooden frame.

Wood furniture can be made in for incredible bargains. My husband and I brought a catalog home from Holland, which pictured stoic furniture a minimalist would love. We showed the bed we liked to a carpenter living in a village up the road from our house. He replicated the frame and headboard for a king size bed (plus end tables and delivery) for $600. Overseas, this set would cost $3000, at least.

The bed is beautiful; the bed is dangerous. Luckily, our daughter was past the fall-over-her-own-feet-twenty-times-a-day stage when we installed the modish set. I’ve whacked my knee and shin several times on the corners and edges, but we’ve managed to keep anyone’s head from cracking open.

The earthquake rumbled on. I scooted to the edge of the bed; stood up and ran for the door.

Do you have Coco?

my husband yelled while steadying a lamp. In all relationships, each person takes care of certain things. Some tasks fall, almost without choice, to one person or another. I breastfed; my husband worked. I bandage and tourniquet cuts; my husband drives and waits in the emergency room. The task of getting out bodies through emergencies fell on to me as naturally as milk leaked from my nipples.

This adage included our pets. One morning, one of my dogs started bleeding, spontaneously, from a black, bulbous pouch on the end of her elbow. My husband wanted to call the vet. I chose to save a little money and perform the procedure right in our own back yard.

I pinched the sac and wondered if a torsalo, a worm, was gestating inside of my dog’s elbow. This worm begins as a fly, which bites dogs, cows, horses (and people!), and then deposits the eggs into its victim. The larva grows; snug in its perfect pouch - until one day. The torsalo either forges out a hole on its own and flies away to continue the cycle of life or has to be popped out manually. Farmers often spray a purple antiseptic on cows and horses, which kills the larva. The carcass still has to be cut out so as to stave off infection. Cutting out the larva would be easier for me than watching a worm burrow out of my dog’s leg.

I gathered towels, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, a razor, needle and water. My husband tackled the dog as if she was mad (she has been known to nip). He barked short commands at me and comforted the dog.

Don’t worry,

he said to the dog,

Mommy isn’t going to hurt you. This is for your own good.

When I drew blood, my husband grew pale. He tossed out the idea of calling a vet again. I sent him away to play with our daughter. I wrapped my leg around the dog and poked more holes into the sac with a needle. When I squeezed, long strands of white, wormy things wriggled out of the black sac. I pinched, poked, squeezed, and poured hydrogen peroxide on the elbow until the dog decided she’d had enough. I wrapped her sore in gauze and tape and begged her not to bite it off.

I repeated the routine about once a day for a week until I felt the sac would no longer start leaking either white wormy things or blood. While I was at it, I pinched and squeezed other sacs on the dog (including one on her eye). The vet, on a routine visit months later, and I decided the sacs were not egg larva, but just greasy fat deposits that accumulated over the 11 years of the dog’s life.

This dog slept through the entire earthquake. I asked my husband what he was doing during the tremors while I hauled Coco out of bed. He said he had no idea:

I guess I was trying to figure out what was going on.

Seven people died in the earthquake, six from heart failure. I had a bruise on my thigh that looked like I’d been hit with a metal pipe. It hurt to walk. My daughter didn’t like the earthquake (she did wake up for a few minutes). She tried to convince me it was a birdie hitting the window. I told her mother earth had gas and just needed to burp.

Costa Ricans don’t talk much about the weather or weather related events. It either rains here or it doesn’t. But everyone talked about the earthquake, which measured 6.2 on the Richter scale. Relatives called loved ones and friends (even at 2 a.m.) to see if all made it through the tremors without harm. All my family friends, their homes, and even our sculptures, survived the earthquake with little or no harm.

The next night, a small tremor rattled the house for a few seconds. My eyes shot open, and I waited for more. Nothing happened. I rolled over and hugged my daughter. She’d gone to bed without a fight and slept as sweet as chocolate. Between a child and mother earth, I’m reminded daily of where the true power lies and that I must never forget who’s really in charge.

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