Afraid of not getting a parking space close to the school for the first-ever parent-teacher conference for Addison, I left ten minutes early. That’s strange, I thought when I pulled up and the building was pitch dark except for light over the front door. There were plenty of parking spots because the meeting was LAST NIGHT!

Valentine’s day had never been an overly sentimental holiday. I’d always thought my relationship went so much further than a candy-chocolate-commercial-driven holiday. I still remember the most romantic valentine’s I’ve ever received: it was a single rose from my high school boyfriend that said we’d be together forever. I can still remember the rose, just starting to droop a titch, when it was delivered to my homeroom. The note was tied with a red bow around the stem.

Coco holds all holidays in such high esteem, she just might start a new religion around it. She could be the High Pope of Every Holiday Ever Imagined. So I got a gift bag of decorated with hearts for Coco and Addison and the nanny. Addison pointed at the hearts as if I’d just invented flight. Then, Whoa! He got a look at the boxes of raisins inside and the apple, and I almost felt as amorous as I did back in high school.

Coco promptly pulled each item out of the bag and described each item with such joy, I wished everything was that simple.

I served up an efficient dinner; gave instructions to Coco to study for her exam while I was gone; and drove the five minutes to school where I sat in the dark. Well at least I can go home and have a glass of wine and read my book. When I opened the door, the baby was on the floor lying on a towel, his sister and the nanny hovering over him.

He’d thrown up. I took off my jacket and settled in. He threw up some more, and some more, and a bit more before finally konking out at 10 p.m. (I’m consistently amazed at how much food a child’s stomach can hold!) I have no idea if I gave him a food he couldn’t tolerate, or he got a bad bacteria, or it’s a virus. Most of the time, we parents never really know what our kids "get." Whatever it was, the treatment was the same: extract the bad and let the good come in.

In the moments when I miss the rose and the candy or the glowing candles, I am usually zapped back into the meaning of true love: action. It is a verb after all. Let the good come in.

Oprah sprung up on a search I was doing last night. So, I started poking around. Dr. Oz is the new corespondent of this decade for Oprah as Dr. Phil was in the past. I’ve seen a show with Dr. Oz and he’s vibrant and plucky. He’s determined to help us all conquer our medical demons so we can all live a full and happy life.

There was a test. So, I clicked and began answering the questions: How many times do you walk? Get the heart rate up? Have a talk with a friend? Eat fruits and vegetables? Take fish oils? Floss? Smoke? and on and on it went. I didn’t know what to answer about the sex question since that’s a null and void issue. I didn’t understand a few others because of the odd wording. (But with multiple choice, when in doubt pick B).

Then we came to the poop question: What shape is your poop? C - S - J - dripping water fountain - goat pellets? This is a question that makes anyone pause and think. I switched the answer several times because I just couldn’t decide. The problem was I needed a box marked: none of the above.

My score? Average. I am average. Get a move on! said the computer screen. Average cuts the cake, but if you continue on "as is" you’ll be pushing up daisies before you’re 70. Bravo for the call to action. I took the average label personally for about a minute (well, o.k. it entered my dreams and depressed me for the entire morning).

Someone in my family used to say: Sh__ or get off the pot. Ah, I’ve see we’ve come full circle. And,what shape is your poop?*

*although I know dripping like a water fountain is not good and goat terds are bad, which letter of the alphabet should it be? Oprah doesn’t offer the test anymore, so try this to see what mean you fall in.

As the season turns towards our hot months in Costa Rica, bathing suits go on sale; sunsets glisten; the moon’s visible at night; and my daughter returns to vomiting in the car on car trips. It gets hot in my car and the old air-conditioning has a hard time keeping the interior cool, especially during the noon hour.

Coco started turning white/green about 3/4 of the way through the trip over the windy mountain road. She shifted in her booster chair. I searched for a plastic bag. I guess my stock was low. During the rainy season, she throws up while traveling a lot less. In the side holder/thing in the door of my car I finally found a little plastic lunch bag. It was still full of little pieces of cereal from a the last trip we took. I handed her the bag. She held it in her lap.

Do you want me to stop?

This is where I feel torn between wanting to help her and getting to the destination because I know in the long run, she’ll feel better once we’ve made it to familiar turf. I scanned the shoulder and the only places to pull over were skinny strips of dried grass that looked like we’d fall off the cliff if I parked. She laid down on the seat and said she felt o.k. We forged on.

Then, she sat up and started barfing in the little baggie. What a sad sight. But after depositing what looked like all of her lunch, color returned to her face and she looked alive again. She sat up and stuck her head out the window like a puppy.

She handed me the bag of the contents from her stomach. It looked like an old bowl of cereal that sat in the sink for day. If I didn’t get rid of it soon, I’d loose it.

About a mile from our stop, I pulled over on a dirt road and dumped the liquid out on the road and tucked the bag back into the door of my car. I’m always amazed at how resilient kids are. I’m also always amazed at how much those little stomachs can hold.

After only two wrong turns and a few bumpy lanes of construction, we made it to our destination. The hotel is a paved wonder of flowers, gigantic morph butterfiles, and bubbling volcanic rivers.

My daughter claimed the biggest bed and the keenest end table. She unpacked her suitcase by throwing two items on the shelf and the rest on the floor. My son skimmed his legs back and forth on the cool ceramic tile after a long ride in the car.

Before suiting up to swim in hot pools of mineral baths fed from volcanic waters, my son proceeded to poop the moment we put on his swimsuit (notice I didn’t say diaper). The poop got on Coco’s swimsuit and that no-longer-clean ceramic floor. For some reason the smell drove my daughter to vomit. She ran from the little bathroom to the couch on her toes while her stomach lurched forth her lunch, which I just paid more than I cared for.

So, things were in order. Now that we’ve settled in after the traditional vomiting and passing of bowels all over the floor, we can dig in and really enjoy ourselves.

This is living.

Bananas are every where in Costa Rica. I mean, we grow them here. Drive out to the coast and you’ll get to see fields of banana trees plump with fruit waiting to ripen and be sent to far away lands to decorate an ice cream sundae or moisten quick breads.

Turns out Addison is allergic to them. To the best of our knowledge, that harmless looking yellow fruit landed me in the hospital with Addison limp, white, full of a dotty red rash, and that after a couple hours of stomach pain, enemas (I’ll save the torrid details) and vomit.

This is my second trip in two months to the emergency room. I’ve gotten to know this hospital too well. So well, I never get lost in the freakishly similar hallways; the doctors know Addison on a first name basis. And since he was born, I’ve spent more time giving thanks to modern Western medicine than I thought possible for an all-natural-organic-whole-food-alternative-medicine girl like me.

It turns out the chamomile enema and vomiting actually were the best things for him. In the hospital we just took some x-rays to be sure nothing was stuck in there like one of our guinea pigs or plastic toy cow. The doctor wanted Addison to eat some applesauce before we left to be sure he didn’t vomit again (because then it could be something worse than an allergy). After he slurped up the food, he scooted around the halls chatting to everyone. He had captured everyone’s heart, and I had regained mine.

In the past three years, there were many times I thought I was going to die. Not metaphorically, literally. I felt it would just be a matter of time until I was just skin and bones. Ashes to ashes dust to dust. Medical problems happen to every kid. Allergies, asthma, leaky adenoids, heart problems, and ear infections plague mounds of children, but with Down Syndrome medical problems are almost a certainty. This is part of the sorrow I faced when my son was born. I knew the pain had just begun. After a pregnancy riddled with agony, I received the news that my son had Down Syndrome when I was in again in pain; drugged from anesthesia; and it would be years before it ended. Not metaphorically, literally.

I remember a night so difficult, a night my son couldn’t breath, again. It had been a particularly bad stretch: months without more than two hours of sleep at a time. I couldn’t move my right arm because a muscle had snapped from all the hours of holding Addison and patting his back to help him breath; I ran to the toilet to vomit, but nothing came up. I choked and coughed and hobbled back to the bed; my son began to cry and I screamed out to the ceiling: Is this when I am supposed to die? I’m not afraid! It’s life that’s got me terrified. Take me. Death must be better than this.

I didn’t die that night. (Suppose you figured that one out.) And, there’s no wonderful ending to this story; an angel didn’t appear; no bells chimed. It took two years to end the misery of my sleep deprivation. It was difficult for anyone to understand. People would look at me and wrinkle their eyebrows and try as best they could to sympathize. But it was if I had AIDS: They knew it wasn’t catchy, but just in case it was better to keep "a distance." Someone told me depriving people of sleep was even against the Geneva convention. Torture.

Facing death is life from the inside out. But that’s the funny thing…we’re all facing death…at any moment we could slip on that bar of soap or get hit by a semi-truck or drown in the neighbor’s pool. But we’re a stubborn bunch, us humans. When people tell me that Down Syndrome children are dropped into our lives as angels - gifts of light - I wanted to kick them in the teeth. Not metaphorically, literally. I didn’ t ask for this! This isn’t fair!

But I did ask for it. I asked for a life of love; I asked for a life of music and joy; I asked for courage; serenity; and humor. And during the nights with this little boy, I found it.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

My daughter receives an allowance every week. I wrestled on the right amount and came up with $2 a week. This allowance has raised the bar in my
parenting/her childhood. Now, when she wants something I get to say:

Well, you certainly can buy that. Do you have
enough money for it?

It’s a monumental moment; as exciting as when she could buckle that
seat belt and go on sleep-overs.

The connection to the source of where exactly money comes from is a great source of
discontent in our lives. My money - my control - it actually doesn’t just "appear" in
mommy’s wallet. Avocados grow on trees, not cash.

When she decided she wanted a hamster because Hamster Monster Chase was the best game ever in gym class, I quickly defferred her want to her own pocket book.

We looked at hamsters (have you seen the testicles on these little bitty males??!!); we priced cages; then there’s the monthly food budget; tumbling balls (they must exercise you know);
and those little chips you throw on the bottom of their cages. Adds up.

Coco has managed to save about half of the hamster capital investment. This morning, she declared she wanted an iPod.

Quick to see my opportunity to tip the scales away from a eating, pooping, smelly rodent to a small piece of electrical equipment, I said:

Well, might have enough saved for an iPod or at least half. Geez…but that’s your hamster money.

Her reply was swift:

I think my guinea pigs are cute. I don’t want a hamster anymore.

Deal done.

Most YouTube films get hundreds, usually thousands of hits. Mine? Of the two films I’ve made, one got 20 hits (that’s up from and the other got 88.

This is not a call for millions to log on and watch my films, rather, I am just fascinated at what we watch and what we’ll spend time filming. AND – that someone else will spend time – the finite time he/she has on this planet – watching all of this.

91,361 people viewed: How to fold your bra.

Magic? Think Again got 85667 hits. It’s about water and whiskey trading places in a glass.

T-shirt folding got 171,448 hits.

Joshy, a boy with Down Syndrome got 9615 hits.

Mookie and Sam (EP2) got 1,204,040 hits.

I can apply logic to the films and guess to some extent why people choose to watch a women with big breasts take off her shirt and then fold her bra, but why T-Shirt folding? Why the millions of other films?

Though I don’t spend a lot of time on YouTube. I love it. I love that it exists and that each and every film is there. Someone spent the time creating. And, that’s enough for me.

We the people, not guys in a board room, are putting life and humor and sentiment and information in front of the world to see – accessible to make, accessible to see.

This morning I chased around small rodents in hopes of getting a little footage for our next film here at MotherJungle.

Between the poop, screaming baby, and unruly six-year old, there may just be something there that someone will want to see.

On the way home from theater practice, my daughter’s friend threw up in the car. The cake I’d made for class now sat on her skirt; and the booster chair; and the car floor. There was no place to pullover; we had a few miles left to wind down the mountain road.

I fished for wipees as we all choked back the gagging feeling in our throats.

The next morning, with the vomit episode fresh in her mind, my daughter was informed she’d be “going to the beach” with her father. Since he travels a lot, it was a good chance for them to spend some hours together between a business engagement and the hours waiting around. The pair would leave in the morning in our little cargo van.

Coco was torn:
Time with Papi VS the fresh image of her friend blowing chunks in the car ( and of course leaving Mami).

Since Coco could relate with her friend (she’s also thrown up on many-a-mountain roads), she was terrified she’d throw-up in the van. The wailing began the night before the trip. She cried her discontent until sleep overtook her. I figured she wouldn’t be going, and I’d be with the child once again.

In the morning Coco came to the table.

Mami, did you pack my snack?

This is something I so admire in this girl. She feels everything. But….and this may be the key could all learn a thing or two about…..she turns it around. Coco felt the fear of vomiting, missing her mother, her brother, and whatever else was creeping around her psyche; dove in; felt it; faced it; and now she was moving on.

That didn’t mean there weren’t a few more tears as she searched for her teddy bear and shoes.

I said goodbye to the pair. Coco sat in the car seat. Her face looked like someone had stamped red ink all over her face. Tears trailed down her cheeks.

I’m going to miss you! I miss Addison!

The van pulled out of the driveway. I could still hear her wailing at the top of her lungs as the garage door shut. My husband said the crying lasted to the corner…..and she arrived without all her stomach juices safely intact.

Just when I thought I had it made, my daughter threw up.

We’d gotten a movie early: she picked the only two in the video store guaranteed not to scare her. Connie the Cow and Bob the Builder. We had French Toast for dinner. I’d even made it with my homemade bread. The baby’s cold showed little signs of existing. He was "jammied up" and ready to go to sleep.

My computer was on, and I was going to sneak in a few taps at the keyboard (you know, a little "me" time) while Connie the Cow finished up and my son wound down with string of beads he twirled on the floor.

What was I thinking?

Mommy my stomach hurts! Coco cried.

Her and I are butting heads a bit lately because she orders me around. I really do understand her predicament: she’s short and only six, so it’s hard to get at things a lot of the times. But the tone lately…the tone. She’s forgotten that "special word." She also "cries wolf" when nothing is really needed except a attention.

I lost it when she was laying on the couch and yelled at me to: Shut the door! that I’d opened to the balcony. I looked back and saw not a six year in need, but an over sized couch potato sipping beers and eating potato chips who’d lost the remote while opening a bag of M&M’s.

Needless to say, I lost it a bit.

She spent a little time in her room; I went to my closet so I could get "jammied up." After I put down a list of demands (hoping I’d remember them because if she crossed the line, I’d have to enforce them). I turned back on Connie the Cow, and we continued on with some sort of an evening.

When she started screaming her tummy hurt, I closed the
bathroom door on her because I couldn’t bear another syllable
formed in the shape of a whine.

My throat hurts! she screamed.

Bed time, I said.

As I was helping her with her pajamas, up the vomit came. Loads of it. I saw all my hard work: the homemade bread; fresh squeezed juice; yogurt with applesauce on her skirt, bedspread and the floor - why bother?

I’m always quite amazed at how much a child’s stomach can actually hold.
We decided maybe two large cookies before supper was a bad idea. But this is the dilemma I often face: When do I say no to the cookies, and when do I say yes? The whining or the vomit?

Decisions, decisions.