The warmth of the Costa Rican people is one of the pluses for raising young children here. My son seems to have that “extra” charm with not just the ladies, but with people from all walks of life. Where we go, he wants to either give someone a high five or a great big hug.

When I’ve traveled, my son is no different, he wants to do the exact same thing. He doesn’t differentiate between class, background, education, or looks. He just loves everyone. In Costa Rica, the response is a quick smile along with a lot of high-pitched (yes, sometimes even the men) terms like how cute; adorable; and what a love! For those who’ve grown up in a more “rigid” culture, it’s not easy to get cuddly right off the bat with kids. Yet, with Addison’s charm, he’s even gotten the shiest of peope to crack a smile and look up long enough from their important “texting” to give a high five.

I think in some ways he’s on a mission to make the world, no matter where it may be, a warm and welcome place.

Waking up in paradise, or anywhere, with the news that you have a special needs child can scare you to the core. After the initial fear wears off, the realization that so many tools exist out there to help us helps ease the tension. One of the greatest is healthy food.

I’ve written an article on Crazysexylife.com about my son’s journey to better health. As many of you know, he was born with Down Syndrome. I knew from the start, fresh, organic food would be a great help in his life.

I hope you stop in and read the article at: Crazysexylife.com. And with my story, I hope you can see that a more healthy way of life is out there for all of us.

*Note this photo was taken in 2002. That’s beans Addison’s giving a try. I believe he got a teaspoon or two in his mouth.

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.

The kids may get the “tag” of being different, but I tend to think it’s the parents who get a little goofy after awhile. I’ve never been stared at; giggled about; reprimanded; and questioned more than when I had my second child who was born with Down Syndrome. His special needs became my new way of being.

Making my son walk down a corridor can be as trying as climbing a mountain; grappling with officials over special medical equipment, disheartening; and that “sigh” of just-a-little-bit-of-impatience” I get from the person behind me when we are taking too long to load the car or finally make it to the end of the corridor sometimes scrapes on my nerves like nails down the chalkboard. I could harvest up an awful lot of anger, but I try to find a way out instead. A little, no perhaps a lot, of goofiness, takes the load of my non-stop frustration at the constant tug the “special needs life” pulls upon me.

We like to let it all hang out. I mean who doesn’t want to put on a wolf’s head and howl at the moon? You haven’t tried it?! It’s a guaranteed plan to tap into sanity - special needs or not.

Ever blink and wonder where it all went? It doesn’t take living abroad or in a mansion or jetting on a plane to realize one day, we’re all wondering where it all went.

Kids get the best of us by giving us the best of times. Don’t blink, for soon it will pass you by.

One of my favorite, easy, and excitable activities to do with the kids is go to buy flowers. When the rain begins, we make a dash to the market to find, fresh, blooming, fantastic, and oh so inexpensive, flowers to brighten up our stoop, garden, and inside corners of our home.

Coco was given the choice of two for her very own. She picked a small, dark purple pansie, and a petunia (neither of which I know the Spanish name for). We left, our cart brimming over, with eight, very large plants. The average price was $1.00 per pot, which in the States I recall would have easily added up to triple the price.

We’ll get even more bang for our buck as we spend another afternoon getting a bit muddy and deciding where they all should go. It’s so incredible how simple, yes a little messy, but wonderful the whole project is. Then, the extra bonus is we get to enjoy their beauty for a few months until it’s time to do it all over again.

(FYI: These flowers were found at EPA.)

I reached out and touched it. Didn’t want to. Had that squeamish reaction, and I squealed just like a child. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Funny thing is, those things we fear are never worse than we imagine in the first place.

The hottest pet may be the guinea pig. But forget not for a minute that these animals are - animals! We make hundreds of parenting decisions a day: What time to get the kids up; what to give them for breakfast; whether or not they need a bath depending on how funky they look/smell.

And we make mistakes along the way. In fact, I make them every day. I’ve regretted giving cupcakes and potato chips for dinner. I’ve beat myself up when I paid too much for yet another plastic toy that no one plays with.

And for what? To banish our guilt at our imperfection? Yet beware! The moment I said yes to one guinea pig, I had nine. Yes. Nine.*

And what may look cute and cuddly and lonely at the pet store comes home and needs to eat and eat and eat and eat. And be cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. And smells and smells and smells. And of course, poops and……

And of course we all know who gets to clean it!

So, be careful out there. You might want to go with that double scoop ice cream cone instead of the rodent.

*This is the last - last - rodent in a lineage of nine.

These tips can not be found in Sears or Spock. Rather, this is a look into the “not-so-often-reported,” yet “we-all-know-too-well” side of parenting. This is the third in our series.

A report, of sorts, on how to stay alive in the before, during, and after some of those very long days of parenting.

It’s time to roll up our sleeves and take a look at another deep thought about the ever challenging life we parents live. This video reminds me of the many years toiling away with the breast. Not an easy job. And it doesn’t matter, however we choose to feed a child, that delicate blob of skin and bones that comes into the world as our charge is the grandest, loudest, leakiest, noisiest, and somehow the most joyous thing we shall ever undertake.

Still. I’m glad I only had two!