Addison had a birthday party yesterday, so I walked to the mall to get a present. When I left, this cat was hanging out under the 4×4 in the corner spot. She’s the mall cat. We see her almost every time we go. She’s either lounging under a palm tree or snuggled under the warmth of an engine in the parking lot. When I took out the camera to snap a few photos, she stepped out and began doing that cat thing of rubbing up against me, purring, and then peaking in my bag.

There are so many stray animals, I am sometimes afraid to pet them or even talk to them for fear they will follow me home. Been there. Done that. I’ve rescued more animals than Noah. However this cat was well fed. She has some place to go when it rains and at night.

Later that afternoon, while my son and daughter jumped around on inflatable bouncy things at the birthday party, I took in the sites: Cinderella hanging from the ceiling and the princesses, with their heads tipped a bit to the side. I sipped on a super-sugary cafe mocha and smiled at how much that little tilt of the head reminded me of the mall cat. Then I had to smile. I’d forgotten the present I bought was a sticker book of cats. Four princesses, cats, mall….there’s got to be a message in all this, right?

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.

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.

All of a sudden I look at a photo, and I am blown away at how much my kids have grown. Teeth fall out; teeth come in. Freckles sprout; feet outgrow shoes. When I step back, I see miniature grown-ups. Coco limped off to school today because her knee hurt. She twisted it while running. Sounds like something I would say. All grown up. She brings home this homework that’s full of intellectual stuff “we all” have decided is important: solids, vertices, nouns, verbs, spelling, geography…..

Which way is north? I asked her.

That’s easy mom, as she points upwards.

What if east was over here? I ask her, where would north be then? She adjusts her body a bit; thinks, and appropriately points to north.

Would you like to take the compass to school tomorrow? I asked her as we finished up the evening book and talked for a few minutes before turning on the light.

No! Mommy, she said as tears welled up in her eyes and her voice cracked with every syllable. That’s yours, and I don’t want the kids to break it.

Well it might be fun to show everyone how to you learned to use a compass. It wasn’t that expensive, I said. We can always buy a new one if something happens.

She shook her head, bowing in reverence as if I just asked her to reveal her deepest secret.

All right, I said. But it’s there if you’d like to use it.

She opened her brain and said her thank you for all the things she can think of that day.* She worked her way from her family, to things in her room, to her toes, all the way to the Universe. She then closed her brain; locked it with a key; and we said good-night. As I left the room, I spun her globe twice for good luck. If you asked me to reveal one of my deepest secrets, I would tell you something like this: I don’t really care what it is she learns. What I care about is how she contemplates what she is learning, and what she does with the information and how it effects everything in that spinning world. Maybe you could say after all those degrees, and careers, and titles, and all that jazz…I’m growing up with two of the best teachers in town.

*Brain opening is a strange little ritual that evolved out of bubble releasing. It’s possibly too lengthly to completely reveal here, but it gets the child to sleep.

Kids have to put up with all we do to them: paints, art, glue, projects, classes, medicines, rules, and all our goofy baggage. At times I can see Addison just sit and consider it all. After carefully pushing each leaf onto the paper with one finger, he tolerated his mother sticking these cute pink glasses on him. I’m graced he puts up with me.

I sold lemonade on the corner of my block. Little table, a sign, and a few cups…I think I made 30 cents. So my daughter decides one day off from school she’s going to sell lemonade. She makes the sign - in Spanish and English - squeezes the lemons - which are really green limes here - decides on a price of 100 colones (about 20 cents) and sets up for sale.

It’s amazing how songs and traditions pass down like blood pumping away, and we don’t even know it. I told her nothing about selling lemonade on the street corner. Well, today it’s in the condo complex, but the lessons are all the same. The budding entrepreneur made 300 colones. As she wait sitting for more customers to pass, she drank the rest of her profits.

So one mask says to the other mask while hanging out at the park the other day:

My friend’s wife’s cooking is so bad, I broke a tooth on her coffee.

So the other mask says:

If a parsley farmer is sued can they garnish his wages?

Then the other mask says:

Say, so you know when you’ve drank too much coffee?

The other mask says: No, when?

When you forget to open candy bars before eating them.

The other mask says: Dude, you got to get out more often.

(The above text is clear evidence I spend way too much time with kids. Wait, wait, just one more! Click here to see one of my favorite cartoons - like ever!)

One night my daughter couldn’t sleep. There’s been a few of those lately. I think “we” parents can too quickly overlook the intensity that children feel over things. Sometimes divorce isn’t so easy to take: a new life, house, and family order. Who are her parents anyway? Who is she?

We all know that pesky little ego begins it’s march into our brains around 5 - 7, perhaps earlier. We start getting attached to all those labels we’re given and begin to give them meaning. Whereas, when a child is two, you can call them a “bubble-headed-goofball” and they aren’t going to understand all the ramifications of those words.* It’s not very nice, but it passes without sticking. I watch Coco get older and deal with bad days, name calling, and a small circle of kids that just don’t behave all that well. Basically the same circle we form as adults, more or less.

I remember being almost mortally wounded at the names kids would call me. Clutzy - because it rhymed with my name. One time in 6th grade, one of the boys in my class called me over to his desk after we’d gotten our class pictures back.

Everyone looks good in this picture except you, he told me pointing my photo. You’re hair is greasy, and you’re ugly.

Can you tell I’ve carried that with me for years? And the bag of others: skinny, fat, short, slow, never going to be able to write -you’re bad at English! - poor, and that overbite!

What’s going to change in the world? Maybe the tools I can give my children to lessen the blows and not react to those words that are really people’s unhappiness about themselves. So when Coco came into my room, I told her the story of the names kids called me. I made fun of myself, and it helped her see that with a little humor and distance those awful words and crazy thoughts in our heads can go away.

When Mr. Ego comes around and tells you to believe all those things kids say, you know what you can do? I said.

What?

Look over on your shoulder, because that’s where he hangs out, and give a quick blow and say: Bye Bye Mr. Ego! And watch him tumble right on his bum and fly away.

He lives on you shoulder?

Well it’s really in your brain, but when he comes out he sits on your shoulder because it’s harder to see him, I said. Then, when he’s gone try saying this: I am.

I am?

That’s it Coco. You are.

I am what?

You just are.

I am?

You are a beautiful beaming light and beating heart and pulsing breath and that is.

I am, she said a tad more resolved and looking sleepy. She blew the ego away over her shoulder and rolled in bed with laughter.

The next day when I went up to my office, she’d made me a snow flake and wrote: Mama I am.

It’s still going to be a ride for my daughter. And I worry that my son, who looks “different” and has special needs will suffer even more at the cruelty that we all harbor inside ourselves. But maybe when the dog bites and the bee stings we can say those two words: I am. And it’ll feel like a little nip rather than a huge bite out of soul that never heals.

*Of course the case of real verbal abuse changes a child no matter what age and a something that must end immediately.

The rainy season has started. Some years, we get ushered in softly. One weekend it rains; then it stops for a few days; starts again. This year, in Costa Rica, the rain is following a schedule. In the afternoon it rains. And with the rain, the kids can’t go out to play.

After finishing up the laundry, I sat back on the sofa and the idea of squeezing in that Yoga before bedtime was a pipe dream. My daughter, now seven, can easily entertain herself for hours with a scissors, felt, paper, bits of cardboard, pens, or just about anything. But after awhile, she’s need some “hanging out” time. Before the rain, she’d linger in the garden in her imaginary tree house until dinner. Last night, she hauled down Candyland and Chess. We split on the Candyland and she won in chess.

Her yellow kitty blanket was still warm, and we crawled under it and watched Mother Earth/moon- on our coffee table that is. Andrea Boccelli was playing on the stereo.

Should I dance? asked Coco.

Of course, I said.

She kept looking my way, a little self-conscious. I told her to forget about me and dance to the moon. Soon she was spinning and doing moves I envied. I could see where the ballet was paying off. But there was more: she has a natural grace. Her head tilts gracefully, just so; her toes point with strength; and her legs follow her body as if they were given a script and already knew what to do.

Should I be a dancer?

You can be anything you want, I said, as long as you follow your heart and dance to the moon.

No one needs to tell a parent that time flies. Downtown San Jose stays pretty much the same. The pigeons; those stone seats by the National Theater; the people selling bags of corn for a few pesos under the trees. And my child? Today Coco looks like she was replaced by aliens with a taller version of herself and a smaller version of me.

Those little red slippers? Her first pair of velvet red slipper I found at a used clothes store. She wore them so often she scraped the toes off so I had to color them in with magic marker. Now she won’t wear dresses. But she’s still got those chubby cheeks and squints the same in the bright sun.

Every day I’m torn between moving ahead and holding on. But I can’t stop the earth from spinning. Though goodness knows I’ve tried.