Preparing my son to leave for school is an act in precision and cooperation. And generally, it goes surprisingly well. When the mini-bus toots its horn, we’re usually just a walk away from loading up. But with a five year old, there are exceptions.

When the bus arrived today, it was fifteen minutes early. I figured I could put Addison’s shoes and socks, clothes on and brush his teeth in two. Coco ran up and down the steps trying to help. When I approached the child with the aforementioned items, he was sitting in a pile of, well you know, unpleasant smelly poo. Smeary stuff too.

So that is exactly why I put the butterfly picture here. Butterflies really come out in August in the Central Valley of Costa Rica.  I’m amazed at how they find flowers among the muck and goo. When I put Addison on the bus, he was barefoot and screaming with delight at the wildness of the morning. I handed the assistant the shoes and socks and asked if she could help.

The door slammed shut and my butterflies flew off in their mini-bus, pretty clear of the muck but definitely full of color.

There is something about the fifth. Addison turned five, and I felt this breath release. Those first years of parenting are more than most bargain for, whatever the mix: Traditional family of mom and dad and kids; single parents; big family; one child; adopted; special needs…..we’ve all been given a gift to unwrap and make more than the best of.

Happy Birthday Addison, you’re such a big boy now.

A child wandered in front of my car holding a yellow balloon. I could see his mother in the distance. He raced ahead of her to get to their car. I stayed parked and waited for the mother to arrive. The child had slipped behind the car, and I didn’t want to take the chance he’d pop up somewhere as I backed up.

Addison and I just finished a round of x rays. In Costa Rica, x ray “locations” can be found scattered throughout the city. With a prescription in hand, one will get the x rays and take them back to the doctor. What I thought would be one x ray (since I can’t read doctor’s writings in English or Spanish) turned out to be four. As Addison nears his fifth birthday, doctor drama is much less. He happily held his head here and there for the “photo.” We were told to come back in a few days as the doctor only comes in on Wednesday to read them. Addison and I walked around the back. He walked down the steps, commanding me to leave him alone so he could do it on his own.

The boy with the yellow balloon stayed hidden behind the car until his mother appeared. Once she was near the car, I shifted into reverse. The, she gave me this strange look. For a second I thought her son had dashed out behind me. Then, she looked in the back seat. Her face crumpled. Then, she smiled. I rolled down my window.

“I have one,” she said, pointing to Addison. That’s how the sentence translates literally; however, it’s nothing to take offence at. It just means: I have a son with Down Syndrome. In the next five minutes we bonded quickly. She told me about her son’s ear tubes; removing his glands; what school her son goes too; how he just doesn’t can’t swallow well; and his name was Santiago and he’d be five in a few months. I shared a few things about Addison. We both had to go.

I looked to see her other son with yellow balloon climb into the backseat. I shifted back into reveres. Coincidence? Are there any? I may never know why we shared those five minutes, but to meet as we did is loaded with more than I will ever know.

Quick as a flash I can be struck by lightening. In an instant I can swept away by the beauty of my son, just like any other parent does with their child. In any moment I can roar at laughter at the silly things he does, just like any other parent does.

Down Syndrome exists like a subset in my existence. Addison is still expected to put his dishes in the sink and not scratch his sister’s eyeballs out. His sister is expected to return the favor. I have two kids that fight, agree, love, wrestle, giggle, and love to dress up in play capes and silly hats.

When I last looked, I have two kids, just like any other parent does.

Awhile ago, I related a story to my daughter about having to throw out my pet fish, Sam. I told her the story when her beloved guinea pig died. On our recent trip to the U.S., I was able to show her Sam’s final resting place.

I’d gotten a gold fish when I was about nine years old. Sam. I had a small tank and had to clean and care for it. It sat upon the television in the living room. Over time, Sam began to grow. A little bit seemed normal; however, he seemed to grow with an enormous speed unlike a goldfish should do. He outgrew his tank quickly. I couldn’t keep up on the cleaning and my mother needed to take matters into her own hands.

“We’ve got to find a new home for Sam,” she said. I knew a big fish tank was out of the question. I solemly accepted her suggestion: Sam would be depositied in the local conservatory where loads of other fish swim about. “He’ll be happy there,” she said.

It was a cold January day. My mother put Sam in a bag. I held him on my lap as we wove around the windy park roads to the conservatory. His enormous head bumped against the bag as we came to stops. He was bigger than my hand now.

My mother put Sam under her coat jacket, and we walked into the conservatory. It was lush and green and so full of life. We walked to the edge of the pond. Fish came to the top of the water. They were freaky looking and didn’t look anything like Sam except that they were roughly the same color. My mother leaned over and opened the plastic bag. Sam, and all the water, plopped into the pond. I watched him swim away and saw one last flick of his tail.

When I showed Coco the pond where the “Sam story” took place, she was interested for less than a minute. That’s the amazing, fantastic thing about kids. They are so involved in the present, and if we give them the space to deal with the pain of the present, they move on with the speed of light. Coco skipped on to continue taking photos (she’d gotten a new camera and was testing it out). The guinea pig was a sweet and distant memory.

I turned and waved goodbye to Sam, where ever his little soul may be.

Coco brings me a drawing every day. She folds it, usually backward, and puts: To MAMA on one line, and then LOVE COCO underneath.

Where ever I am, I have to unfold it and study it. There is usually long story behind the photo. She’s been working on the idea of perspective in drawing: What’s close is bigger; what’s farther away is smaller. I’ve taught her this joke that was on Kid’s in the Hall. (Great show if you’ve never seen it. Hopefully Internet world could make these shows live again.) I digress…..

On the show, Mr. Tyzik (Dave Foley) would “crush” people with his finger. If he’d get mad or frustrated with someone, or even for a little harmless fun, he’d eye someone far away and “pinch” him between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m crushing you!” he’d say, with a long rolling “rrrrrr” sound.

So Coco and I drive around crushing things - without the mean intent; we’d be in it to gain a little perspective - the closer the object, the bigger the pinch. The sun, oh so far away, we can usually crush with a quick pinch. She’s gotten down the “rrrrrrr” part too. Since she’s bilingual, she can roll a mean “rrrrrrrr.” A building in the distance takes a bigger pinch, and so on.

The latest picture was of a bird flying home to the babies in the nest. The mother was close to us as was the rose bush with one blooming rose. The babies were far away, but not such a distance that we could crush them. Their little eyes peeked out of a hole in the tree, waiting for their MAMA. And, she always comes home to the nest. From Coco’s perspective, this is the absolute truth. I guess as close as I loom in her large in her psyche, I present a bigger perspective, perhaps, than I really am. As she grows away, to be her own, she’ll look back, from a distance and hold me right between her finger and thumb.

Note: This story first went on-line in 2007.
We still enjoy a good round of crushing here
and there, especially on long rides in the car.

If you wear sunglasses, wear black, and walk down the street with a gang of other sleek people behind you wearing sunglasses and wearing black – you’re cool, you’re in. I’m so out, I feel like I need to come out of the closet: Hello world, it’s me! I’m uncool, and I’m proud of it!

I got in the car the other day and put on my $5.00 sunglasses and they snapped, spontaneously. It was my last chance at any ounce of cool. I was going grocery shopping with two kids; green avocado was smeared all over my shirt and something white, that I couldn’t identify, was spotted on my jeans.

I swore I would run in the store and get just a few things. About ¾ of the way through the store, my son needed to breastfeed. There are two places to sit in this store: the wooden bench in front of all the cashiers or the toilet. My son won’t eat with dinging cash registers and rustling bags passing in front of him. I’d fed him in the bathroom before, and I don’t like it. Who wants to eat on the toilet? I’ve sat on the floor before, but I just wasn’t up for the cold ceramic.

I’ve worn both my kids in a sling that goes around my shoulder. If the child and the breast are positioned just so, it is possible to nurse; throw packages of raw chicken into the cart and open a bag of potato chips for the other, non-nursing child.

We continued to the checkout. I turned Addison around so he could face the people and see what’s going on. I dug into the cart for each item and tossed it on the conveyer belt. I reached for the blueberries and looked down at my shirt. My breast was hanging out. I tucked it back into the tank top/bra and flipped the blueberries up by the chicken.

I handed the cashier my credit card. “The system is down,” he said. He and all the other cashiers stood around the manager’s desk while she called each purchase in for approval. The young man who’d bagged my items stood patiently next to my bags of groceries. Had I exposed myself to him? The cashier? After awhile it doesn’t matter who’s seen my “this that or the other thing ” - birth did that to me. Child rearing keeps cementing it in.

I left the market and passed the video store on the left. There they were – the posters with the cool people. Funny thing….I didn’t look anything like them. Now that I’m out of the closet, maybe I could start a whole new kind of cool.

Note: This story was first published in 2006.
Though grateful for all those breast feeding years,
I'm also really grateful it's a thing of the past.
Funny thing...I'm still not cool.

Playing on vacation with family brings back a lot of memories like watching the kid’s play sports on a warm night; scaling playground equipment; and the open green fields. Licking cars wasn’t one of them.

Addison loves running and has sparkles when he sees a long, flat, obtainable sidewalk. That’s a rare site in Costa Rica. Coco can’t believe how perfect the lawns are and how the grass almost shimmers. We’ve covered a lot of ground so far on our adventure.

One afternoon, as I shuffled kids in and out of cars to go here and there, Addison stood waiting for me, and no longer content with just wiping his hand along the dirt on the cars, I caught him with his tongue stuck to the metal. I never thought in all my years I would ever say: Please don’t lick the car to my child. I can’t recall licking cars as a youth (bumper skiing sure, but licking cars??), but it’s good to know the kids are creating their own memories in the good ol’ summer time.

Coco wanted to make a To Do List for the morning. So, I wrote out the words she didn’t know, and she proceeded to hide in a corner and make her To Do List.

As I worked on the computer, she didn’t make a sound. I could hear pen and pencil rubbing against the tile behind her piece of paper as she worked on the floor. We were both content because when my daughter is occupied, I can dabble at something for awhile.

About ten minutes went by, and she stood next to me and leaned her head against my shoulder. My time was up. When I didn’t pay immediate attention to her, she began to wobble the underside of my upper arm.

What’s that mami? she said.

It’s my flop.

What’s flop?

It’s the fleshy soft underarm of my limb. Even though I’ve lost 45 pounds from the pregnancy (plus a little more), amd no matter how much exercise I do, the flop will not go away. My mother has flop, I have flop, and so too shall you have flop.

She showed me the To Do List. Turns out it was for me. There was a picture of a comb, toothbrush, plate with food, a diaper, and her brother in his high chair tossing food on the floor.

This is what you have to do in the morning mami.

She began wiggling my flop. I warned her: Stay away from the flop. It’s just one thing I don’t want to be reminded of.

Note - this story was originally posted in 2007. As a follow up:
We continue to comb our hair and brush our teeth in the morning;
Coco's original To Do List is a framed treasure I keep in my home,
Addison doesn’t look much like that anymore;
and I still have flop, sort of.

As my daughter and I scaled the escalator in search of something that turned out not to be there, we chatted about nothing in particular. I looked at her as we continued to climb. Her hair baby hairs curled around her face due to moisture in the air. She flipped the purple scarf around that hung around her neck, exposing the letters on her shirt which said: Power Love. I could tell she was thinking of the next thing to say.

I can see her forming into a person. She tells me what she likes to wear; what her style is; and three times a week she changes her careers. She’s starting to make choices. As she goes farther away from home, for longer periods of time, she begins to navigate the world on her terms, deciding what to make of it all.

We got off the escalotor, and she began telling me a story of something that happened to her at school that day. We turned to go out into the parking lot. The big world was wet as it was raining hard. She popped open an umbrella. I flipped up the hood of my jacket, and held on to the tip of her sweater as we walked to the car. We jumped in the car, wet despite our efforts to stay dry. She laughed, and in seconds she asked me to turn the radio on to her favorite station. As we drove towards home, she sang all the words to the Latin pop song. I looked in the rear view mirror and admired the person I was with.