Home is where the heart is and the car seat is where the nap is. The lull of the car and the warm sun in back seat is too much for Addison. He conks. When we first started traveling, he took this luscious two hour nap on a bed. That was over last week when he decided not to participate in any sort of sleeping activity until 6 p.m. After dozing off for one-half hour, he woke up and proceeded to scream for two hours straight.

I give him tons of credit. He’s a champ, and he’s really putting up with a lot. He played quietly with all the toys grandma has in her secret chest for two hours while I installed the printer and wireless mouse (I so want that!) on her new computer. On the way home, he began this contorted yoga thing and fell asleep a few miles before I pulled into the driveway.

And there he stayed for another 45 minutes. When he awoke, he was not refreshed and again cried for awhile. He’s getting adjusted to our new schedule. Funny thing is, I’ll be throwing him back into his old routine in less than a week. Oh what we do to these kids. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

When the day starts, I know a lot of us wonder how we are going to get it all in. After too many activities and too many things to do and not enough time for myself, I got one more thing in by heading to the grocery store to get some essentials.

I wasn’t alone there. People crammed the check-out lane and scanned isle seven for the right pasta noodle. I guess this is a new wave of entertainment. I was a little disappointed when all the nice ladies that hand out samples of food and drinks were no where to be found. Those little cubes of food and tiny cups of juice can really jazz up a Saturday night at Auto Mercado.

I tipped the bag boy a hefty 500 colones (about a dollar), hoping it would make his night. The rain had let up and it was getting late - around 8 p.m.

We sure know how to party around here.

After a bunch of storms, there hasn’t been Internet for a few days. And the water was off all day. This is sometimes how it goes in paradise.

The first pigeon that tried to nest on our patio, failed. One day, she just disappeared. We found the two eggs alone after waiting for several days. The next mother had more success.

She roosted in the same nest and had, again, two eggs. They hatched. One day, one of them fell onto the balcony. We replaced it back into the nest. Days later, we noticed just one baby, which got bigger and bigger. In fact this youngster was so large their was hardly any room for the mother.

This morning the baby tried it’s wings at flight. He didn’t get far. He sat on the balcony next to the guinea pig cages. (Wonder what they thought.) The mother was calling in the distance. She returned to the nest and appeared a bit stunned that no one was there. The little one saw his mother and took a leap up to the green beam and back to the nest. They snuggled together and competed for room. He wasn’t ready. But that afternoon, I guess he was.

I went back to check and saw a pile of droppings on the guinea pig cage. The young bird must have sat there for a long time before taking the big leap. We never did find out what happened to that other baby.  Yesterady afternoon, we’d found a baby sparrow that had fallen out of it’s nest. I almost stepped on it. Despite our efforts, he didn’t make it either. I guess the ones that are still here, that have had the grace of making it, are the ones with the work to do: find seeds, worms, fly, soar, and strut along the cement with our heads held high.

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.