I do believe there is someplace for everybody. Costa Rica is the place for me now. Though I love to come and visit friends and relatives, it seems that little Central American country has me wrapped around it’s finger for now. Most ex-pats make a trip home every year to reconnect and see family, shop, and possibly get a break from paradise. Costa Rica is wonderful, but getting away from even paradise gives me the ability to stand back and ask those same questions as to why I live where I live.

I try to imagine jamming Addison’s little limp legs into snow boots, and I can almost feel a panic attack coming on. Just that factor alone keeps me in Costa Rica. Then of course, there’s those wonderful nannies. It’s a shame the Western world has priced itself out of help for mothers. We need it. We deserve it. There’s more to life than being a mother. Costa Rica gives me a tad more of a chance to break away here and there and work, study, and develop myself as the person I can be here on this whirling orb of ours.

So good-bye to the old and hello to the new. For what is new will be old again. I guess then I’ll have to pack up the kids, and the blender, and peas, and stuffed animals and return to ask those same questions all over again. Because didn’t someone once say: Where ever you go, there you are. After it all, I’m still following myself no matter where I go.

It’s amazing how much I let slide while traveling. Those golden moments I capture on the digital camera take over the entire scope of life. Plus there’s still the feeding of the children, I can’t seem to get them over that hunger thing. My teeth are caked with strange substances, and I wear the same thing over and over again. This is traveling. If you’re a traveler - if Costa Rica’s on your agenda or possibly Holland - you know what I mean.

Floss? That’s not really necessary anyway, is it?

Bathing? Well, we can stretch it out just one more day.

Greens? Isn’t ketchup a vegetable?

Ripping fingernails off counts as a manicure, doesn’t it?

I can eat ice cream four times a day, can’t I? And the children too?

But I believe I am finished. Toast. It’s not that I’m itching to be away from this place. Heck, there’s at least a few more weeks until it snows. No, I want to be home and be around my stuff. I want to once again be thrilled with dental hygiene. I want my kitchen and my refrigerator full of the strange, exotic food I like to eat like papaya, coconuts, and avocados. I’m tired of milling through a pile of clothes and debating with myself which ones are clean and which ones cannot under any circumstances be worn again until they are heavily treated with chemicals.

One more day until we fly again. I can see it now: Washing dishes after a lovely meal and sending the kids off to school. Yes. Back they go. We’re done with the tourist thing. It’s time to return to paradise.

The amount of attention and work children takes is mind boggling. There is always a need; always a want; always a question to answer. How do we all make it? I watch all these kids around me grow, and I am amazed we adults can still laugh, and well, we’re still alive.

After getting them out of diapers, there’s the whole teenager thing….then we watch them go away to do it all over again. Perhaps better than us. Perhaps. We’ll see.

Although Costa Rica has over 800 species of birds at certain times of the year, it’s good to see some old favorites. They are like old friends. I pointed out a robin to my kids. We stopped and slowly crept closer in hopes of getting a look at the rare creature. The big orange breasted bird kept hopping just far enough ahead of us to stay distant. I told Coco that’s how we know it’s spring here.

Her spring is different. Instead of melting snow, she feels the Trade Winds begin in December. And the rain stops. There is the same feeling of relief as we know we’ll be getting a break from the deluge of rain and rain. It compares nothing to trudging through the winter months of snow, but she can relate a little bit.

These babies were nesting out on my mother’s patio. A sure sign spring and summer are here. The same thing happens in Costa Rica. We have nesting birds right outside our window at home. The same things seem to happen everywhere: life, death, happiness, sorrow. It’s just the packaging is different from a red robin’s breast to the color of our skin to the foods we eat. We all still eat, love, give life, and screw it up and bounce back again.

After holding Addison up to the nest, we hid in the living room so the mother could return. I couldn’t tell exactly what kind of bird the mother was, but the babies chirped and held open their beaks again, waiting for life to come - like it always does.

We’ve removed all the contents of our suitcases and promptly have deposited them on my sister’s basement floor. Thrilled not to be anywhere near an airport, we settle into the routine of “visiting” (one of our favorite Midwest words). This “visiting” tradition is more important to me this year than I can ever remember.

Traveling with kids has always meant I get to do less of what the grown-up me would like to do. And, I’ve learned to be content with zoos and playgrounds and cutting short all my trips to these delicious coffee shops due to an almost, death-like boredom that overtakes my children as they wait for me to finish typing. But this year, I am so content and relaxed and almost - dare I say it - thrilled to wile away the hours on the deck with the kids or trying to again straighten all those clothes on the floor. And when I try again and again to connect to the Internet and that $5.00 Starbucks card I just bought isn’t working and Addison wants nothing to do with the FREEZING interior and groovy decor, I pack up and move on. I may have said a few “bad” words under my breath as I folded the stroller into the back seat, but over it I got. And so quickly. I even amazed myself.

I owe this peace to my kids. I owe this peace to my family. These people who put up with all my goofy odds and ends. I sat across the table yesterday at Caribou coffee (where I later found out had FREE internet!) and saw the same blue eyes of a dear friend behind those slightly tinted glasses I’d known for years. After ten years, he still thinks I’m an O.K. person. And I am grateful I can be his friend again. We really always have been. Those ten years, well, I guess we all have gaps. A little filling in, and we were back to those carefree nights -the ones we used to spend as kids -playing ping pong and skating and just being. Funny it took me such a darned long time to get back to just being all over again. And this time, I have more. I owe my peace to it ALL: from the green peas Addison just slopped on to my lap top to the long summer nights and to all the hearts, and to all the hearts.

As if following the script of a better-than-average made-for-T.V. movie, our beloved guinea pig, Mouse died this morning. A few days ago, we pulled the little rodent and her daughter - Maisy - out of the cages for a “running of the guinea pigs.” Mouse has been with us for 5 and one-half years and Maisy is one of a lineage of eight cavies that followed.

Although the needs of children usually shove pets down on the attention scale, we still tried to get those piggies out for some fun. Oh how we giggled! If you haven’t seen a guinea pig’s bottom wiggle across the floor, you haven’t lived (put it on that list of 100 things to do before I die!). I noticed something odd but didn’t think much of it. When I snuggled the two creatures up on the yellow towel to rest Mouse sighed and closed her eyes - even with all the commotion - she looked like a tired little guinea pig.

This morning, something odd happened again. Usually Coco is responsible for feeding the animals. We gather together lettuce and set it on a plate. Coco goes out every morning and night and spends some time talking to them and kisses them good-night. Here’s the odd thing: This morning Coco and I ascended the stairs together, but I held the plate in my hand and said, “No, that’s O.K. I’ll feed them. You got to put those slippers on.” It was a cool morning.

I opened the cage; tossed in a cucumber; and stopped short of burying the lifeless Mouse in lettuce. She lay across the cage as if she’d stretched out to yawn and stuck there. How odd it was that I found the body and not Coco. Or was it? I descended the steps and joined the nanny and kids at the table while everyone finished eating. I gave hand signals to the nanny that we had a dead body on the grounds. We both knew what that meant. Soon their would be tears. The odd thing was, I had a little time to prepare for it.

I don’t believe in turning away from the facts of life. Look straight into it; feel IT all; and move on. For this much I know: If we don’t, IT sticks in our craw and causes havoc for years to come (but that’s just my little theory). If Coco had found the body, we’d have managed, but it was as if this script had been written for me, I just had to keep turning the page. Coco finished her breakfast, and I got to have a cup of coffee. Then, I retrieved the body and put it a towel so my daughter see the soft little face she so loved.

We moved to the living room, I nodded to the nanny a signal as if we were about to launch a secret raid. Coco wiggled around on the floor, pretending she was a dog. Her brother was thrilled. I called her over to the couch and looked into her eyes. I brushed back her hair and knew in less than a minute, there’d be tears. I took Coco to the body. As tears streamed, one after the other, over her cheeks, she leaned over and kissed her beloved pet good-bye.

“I love you Mouse. You were the best guinea pig ever in my life.”

We moved to the patio. I grabbed the shovel and found a spot of dirt that wasn’t a clump of roots. It’s odd isn’t it? Or is it? I have this feeling it’s not just chance. I have a feeling that the more in tune we all get with this good energy vibe; the more we unwrap ourselves and give to others; the more we become flexible and graceful at all times, the more we stay on the page and can see that movie unfold, the more empowered we become to direct the movies or our lives into gorgeous little scene, after scene, after scene…..

The nanny said a blessing and a prayer over the grave, and Coco made a plaque. Rest in peace little Mouse. Cross over the Rainbow Bridge to bliss. Run like you’ve never run before!

Costa Rica put me on this one journey. When I moved here, I realized I was starting life over in so many way. Then, I had these two kids, one of the them with Down Syndrome.

Journey number 1

1). I had to learn a lot of life all over again.

2). I had to communicate in words I didn’t know.

3). I had to watch and assimilate.

4). Relax and give in to other’s way of doing things.

5). Step by step, I became acclimated to this new land.

Then, I had these two kids.

Journey number two.

1). I had to learn a lot of life all over again.

2). I had to communicate in words I didn’t know.

3). I had to watch and assimilate.

4). Relax and give in to other’s way of doing things.

5). Step by step, I became acclimated to this new land.

I know now that one does not have to travel to a new country to discover life or become enlightened. Probably the best place to do it is right in our own backyards. Yet, I do think there is a place for everyone, Costa Rica may be it for me (though I’m not ruling out that penthouse in New York yet!). Melody Beattie, a great writer helping us all to find a way home, grew up in my hometown in Minnesota. She knew she needed to move to California. She went on to write fourteen books and too many news and magazine articles to count. I see her books translated in Spanish and in the shelves here in Costa Rica.

Some of us do need a good bonk in the noggin’ to shake us up and finally move up a notch in our thinking. That was me. With all I know now, I would be content in Minnesota (though I’m still a little squimish about that snow thing). But I may have not known what I know if I didn’t know Costa Rica. I’m sure I’m loosing everyone here, but perhaps we can all get the point.

Dorothy was right: There’s no place like home. Home can change quite a bit. And if you seek that adventure that I did, know that life still has a way of rearing it’s wild head, even in paradise. Anyway….what to do I know?

As a note….Laurie, I believe it was stopped by and true to my amateur form, I deleted her comment. Sorry Laurie! Hope to see you again.

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.

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.