I’m not an old shoe at parenting, but I’ve been around this block now for about eight years. When did we all decide that children need to have humongous birthday parties at barn-like locations with boats and slides and nets and rock climbing and zip-lines? The entertainment is non-stop; the music so loud it reminds me of being a misfit college student trying to act cool and talk to my friends over the loud band between bopping around on the sweaty dance floor.

There’s no doubt the kids love it. Who wouldn’t it? Since Coco is getting older, she isn’t invited to as many. So she gleefully jumps in the car whenever Addy’s got a gig. At the first few parties I sat stiff in a corner, hoping I wouldn’t have to speak Spanish. If I can’t hear every syllable, I don’t get what’s being said. So I spend most of the time nodding, smiling, and making a good guess at what I should answer. Then while the kids bounce or swing around, I have to keep telling myself to NOT eat another one of those fattening, yet yummy little bocas the parents always get. (I don’t think I’ve outgrown the misfit thing.)

The theme party then carries over to a large cake, mounds of presents (that are opened at home), pizza or hot dog for the kids, and of course the finale - the piñata.

I accept these parties now, like I accept the rain. There’s parts I don’t like, but the kids have a ball. Addy’s third birthday is coming up. And since he’s stuck with me as a mother, he’ll be getting the balloons at home and the scoop of ice cream for a cake.

We skipped the piñata, which disappointed Coco. I reminded her she still had a bag in the refrigerator from the last party/parade/whatever full of sugary delights. Addison couldn’t take his eyes off the huge butterfly Coco decided to get on her face five minutes before leaving. The traffic had thinned. It was 6:00 and time to get ready for bed.

Party animals. We’re just party animals.

I sat down to get the passports in order: Two for each kid - one from Costa Rica and one from the United States. One for me.

Where’s the one for me? Inside the little packet where I ALWAYS keep the passports locked up, mine was missing. As my heart began tapping hard enough to hit my rib cage, panic set in. My mind was already trying to figure out when I was going to go to the U.S. Embassy to get another one. Could it be issued on time? But I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning because Addison needs that special note because he’s a a special child…oh and how much will it cost…oh my, it’s going to be hours wasted sitting in the Embassy. The Embassy is…..is…..yuck. The people there really try being nice, but everyone knows it’s this necessary evil we all have to endure to prove we exist by getting forms and stamps and permissions and little books and signatures…..Oh dear, I’ll never get it all done.

So, I went to a fruit market. Although the worry-wart inside claws at me to look through my office just one more time, I know it’s better to remove myself completely and let the subconscious simmer, trusting the answer will bubble up. Addison needed agua de pipa - coconut water - which he drinks about four times a day. Every town has a market that feels like an adult candy store. Just the colors are soothing. And I tell you this about Costa Rica (yes, I know there are exceptions) but almost without fail, I get this warm, cozy feeling every time I am served by a Costa Rican vendor. This even happens at Taco Bell. I mean, those times when we resort to fast food, I find myself actually looking forward to placing my order.

The waiter at the cafe calls me joven - young lady (see if that doesn’t make your day!); the gas attendant calls me reina; the Taco Bell cashier call me amor. I suppose this should raise the ire of my feminist side, but why? There’s so much good intention behind all these little greetings, I’d be the one missing out. By the time I left the fruit market, the three women and I had bonded over honey and coconut. The Spanish flew out of me like a native. I waved as I left and said I’d be back. Tenga un buen dia!

My passport! It’s on a shelf where I set it with the good intention of then moving it to the safe place. My passport now sits all cozy next to the other four. Addison is flush with pipa, and I can get back to that packing.

Que dicha! Gracias!

It’s raining, and we’re going nowhere. These last three or four days resemble more of what the rainy season looks like in October or November in Costa Rica. Yet even then, we tend to get a little sunshine in the morning.

Not a patch of blue peaks through the sky. We are covered in a thick blanket of gray. A layer of fog hangs down from those clouds, steaming up the sidewalks and windows. The rain is a few feet short of turning into snowflakes. In Spanish, we say encapotado - we’re blanketed in overcast and cloudy. It’s a great word that rolls of the tongue just like water off my yellow raincoat.

And with a storm in the Pacific threatening to keep us wet with this driving rain for a few more days, we might have to turn to almost every inside activity we know: reading the dictionary, drinking hot tea, drawing, cleaning the house, scrubbing the battery in my car….oh, the fun never ends.

Hair salons are a really vulnerable place. We let someone bathe us; we sit with a group of strangers while wearing bibs; someone waves a scissors over our head, and we we try not to move; then we’re subjected to those hideous fluorescent lights that make our skin - regardless of color - look like it belongs on a corpse. Every detail in my face comes out. When I return from the shampoo sink, I look like my brother.

Since I’m not a guy, this is depressing. Back at the shampoo sink, the voices in my head debated at all the wonderful things the hairdresser is going to say: How amazing you look! You’re in your twenty’s right? I know exactly the style that is going to drive men - and women - mad!

For some reason, I really struggle with my Spanish in the salon. Translation is not literal. And I tend to use terms in English like: itsy bitsy, flowing, drop-dead layers of glistening beauty like the T.V commercials, and shimmering; words I can’t find completely grasp in Spanish. So, I stick with cappas: layers; and dedos which is: Do I want to cut off one finger width or two? See the challenge in this?

I left the salon puffy and with a lot less hair. A lot less. Maybe one dedo more than I wanted. Even with my hair dry, I still looked like my brother. This was not the magazine look I was after. The good news is I’ll be able to make this hair cut last for quite a while. Another bonus: I’ll be able to get some use out of all those hats in my closet.

Babble away. I can speak Spanish with an accent that sounds like a native. Flexible tongue I guess. On the telephone, even friends mistake me for a native speaker. But listen close and my pronouns bounce every which way in the sentence, and I swing from passive to active voice like a lazy monkey.

I understand a great deal of Spanish, but I get very nervous when it comes to getting every point correct. When someone at my kid’s school communicates something to me, I want to get every point and tend to listen with so much effort it almost hurts. When the person is finished speaking, I am then processing like one of those hand-held translators: arroz=rice; frijoles=beans; complacidos=pleased; emplazar=locate; dolar de cabaza=headache. It goes into my brain: I translate it in a matter of nano-seconds into English; then translate back into Spanish what I want to say.

That pause I need while the translator engages in my head tends to make people awkward. Some will start speaking English; some blink to pass the silence; some say the same thing all over again. I do have to swallow my pride when it is important to understand exactly what’s being said and ask the person to repeat themselves. I get extremely nervous with friends because most of them speak better English than I do Spanish, and I feel foolish and self-conscious that my Spanish isn’t more polished.

Occasionally, I completely fake it. Once, the gardener I had at the time came into the house before leaving for the day. My mother was visiting and we were sitting in the sala - living room - while my daughter took a nap. He paused at the door and went on for about 10 minutes. I put down my book and listened intently. I nodded in agreement and probably said: la verdad, which means the truth, kind of a way to say: You bet! Ain’t that the truth! I agree.

He left.

My mother asked: What did he say?

I said I had no idea and shrugged. Sometimes there’s absolutely no harm in faking it.

We hopped in the car and went to visit a friend yesterday. While we were there, these guys pulled up to the house and asked if anyone would like their car washed. What a bonus! Children play; mom’s talk; car washed - all in one shot. The task master in me was thrilled.

Car washing is a bit of an art in Costa Rica. Almost everyone has clean cars. Since there’s no salt on the roads, most cars retain a pretty good look for many years. How some rickety old trucks spewing out black smoke or those wobbly Datson’s with the taped together trunk pass inspection leaves me only to wonder what goes on during those RTVE* visits. Cars are so expensive here - usually at least 1/3 to 1/2 more than what you’d pay in the States, so most people take really good care of the vehicles they’ve got. Usually, my security guard makes a few extra colones by washing our cars. But, since he’s out of town, I jumped at the chance to get the sand and goo off so I could load the kids into the car without getting my clothes full of it too.

After a couple of hours, Addison was getting tired, so I packed the group up; got them strapped in their seats; started the car. I put the car in drive. It didn’t move. I’ve had the transmission go out on cars before and it is a dreadful thing - very expensive. Then when I put it in Park, it made a horrific clicking noise as if the motor was edging off the axle and about to fall on the ground. In less than ten seconds, I saw myself car-less, schlepping kids and car seats in taxis while I waited for weeks to get the transmission fixed. I saw money flying out the window.

I looked at the shiny, finely detailed black leather of the car and noticed the 4×4 knobby thing. It looked like it was in a different spot than usual because while driving, I can store all sorts of coins in front of it. Now, there was no spot for change. At that moment, my friend’s father came up to the window. Coco unclipped her seat-belt and tried to entertain Addison. There are three buttons with a diagram and a red dot on them. I had no idea what those buttons are for and in five years I’ve driven this car car around Costa Rica. I don’t like touching buttons I don’t understand. What if that clicking sound got worse? What if I make it worse? My car is in the “it’s-coming-up-on-twenty-years-old-and-we-need-to- keep-it-running” category. Though I haven’t resorted yet to duct tape, I am careful with this old girl my daughter has named Black Bear.

I called my “soon-to-be-ex” and he had no idea what to do. He added a little bit at the end, which further added to my angst: if you drive it in the wrong 4×4 mode, you could break (I forget what he called it) and it’s about an $8000 repair. Great. I was on my own. I took out the manuel; it was in Spanish; it’s a German car. I walked over to my friend’s father - I’m not sure why I gravitate to men in these situations - but I needed someone to bounce off. My friends and I double checked our Spanish. The G must have been a word in German because it didn’t match with the description. The N we all nailed as Neutral - must be the same in all three languages. And the S didn’t mean stop because it was correct 4×4 gear to drive in.

I pushed the knob hard and got it shifted to S. The clicking sound went away, we waved, buckled up, and head for home. Now I know what that knobby thing that held my coins is for; I had a good morning with friends; the kids played; and I drove home with a clean car. Check it all off the list - and more.

*RTVE is the name of the inspection all cars have to go through every year in Costa Rica.

One of the big benefits of learning a new language is that I have this ability to phase it out on command. In the age of cell phone conversations outnumbering face to face conversations, it is a relief to tune out that high-heeled woman chatting at the grocery store on her cell about which item she should bring home. In bank lines, I can be right in front of the guy with the that Bluetooth thingy strapped to his head and continue merrily singing You Are My Sunshine without being interrupted. It’s harder to tune out English. One time, in the States, I was standing in line at the Post Office and this woman was going on and on about how she got in and out of the shower and what trouble she was having navigating the tall sides of the tub. Should we ALL be subjected to this?

When I see people talking on their cell phones in a restaurant, I get sad. We’re loosing touch with eye contact, and voice and vibe contact. It takes so long to book that lunch date, why spend time chatting away with someone who’s not there? It’s hard enough to talk and connect when we are in front of each other let alone when an electronic devise is stuck to your ear.

Is it really that hard to make an executive decision on pasta?

Most mothers I know are task-master wizards. I fall in that group. In some ways, it is a requirement because otherwise our planet would fall apart. And I am not being metaphorical here. So it always takes me by surprise when the simplest of ventures can make me cry.

Banking in Costa Rica involves waiting in line. Since going through a divorce, I’ve had to go out and do all those things that once we, as a couple, had taken care of years ago. I needed a new bank account; credit cards; and checks. I’ve approached each banking task with great caution, carefully monitoring my actions, feelings and connections to money as I go. I’ve been a culprit and victim of financial chaos and am determined to never have that “happen” to me again.

This morning the line was short at my bank. Good time to get those checks. Checks are rarely accepted here in Costa Rica, but they can be written for such things as rent, school tuition, etc. I sat down in front of the well-groomed clerk. Although she had helped me open my account, she didn’t recognize me (must have been the new haircut*). Though this woman was young, her hair was pulled back tight and her brow furrowed when she spoke. It added ages to her soul. I began to stumble about in my use of the Spanish language. She corrected me several times and then just stared at me. I suddenly felt as though I was sitting in front of one of those stern nuns I’d had in grade school.

What did I do wrong?

that little voice said in my head.

I repeated what I had said and began to add hand gestures, which is a sure sign of losing a grip. The clerk was offering me no relief in my struggles.

The little voice, otherwise known as the bad witch, now sat right on my shoulder, said:

Stupida! You do not deserve such things as checks. What were you thinking?

Then, this other voice (we’ll call her the good witch), takes a bit longer to wake up because it usually goes to bed later at night, said:

It’s only some lousy checks for goodness sakes! Keep going or you’ll be a weiner!

After continuing along like this for a few more minutes, I realized we were stuck on a content issue. I wanted to know if it cost more to order less books of checks, or if I got a discount from ordering more checks.

No. The checks cost the same regardless of how many you order,

said the tightly wound clerk while tapping on the computer keys and avoiding eye contact.

See! You’re getting somewhere!

said the good witch in my head. I sat back in my chair and took a breath.

See that wasn’t so hard

The clerk looked up at me and said:

You have an account that doesn’t allow for checks. You’ll have to open another account to permit the writing of checks.

I gathered my bag and said thank you. The bad witch sat on my shoulder and chuckled.

See! Stupida!

My eyes welled with tears. I left the bank thinking I’d walk out with an order for a few checks and instead faced a demon in my soul. It has nothing to do with checks. This teller probably had a fight with her boyfriend before she left for work and is past due on her water bill, plus her dog has a cold. I’ve probably opened a hunderd checking accounts in my lifetime; I was caught off-guard and found a lesson at the bank. I wanted to know about my issues with money and boom! There it was. I don’t feel worthy, yeah…that’s it.

Guess what you bad little witch? I am.

I am.

*words still out on that haircut.