Those Daily Surprises

Tuesday is one of my favorite days of the week, it means Tiangus! Market day, thrift store heaven, for super cheap IF you are brave enough to elbow in with the Señoras, which I am now. Tomorrow begins Isabel´s 6th rotation around the sun, her birthday...I had to find more pink frilly-ness for my beloved girl. My dear friend Stephanie and her almost 4 month old, Aidan, met me after I scored the perfect leotard that Isabel will have to go to gymnastics in, just to show off. My Stephanie presented me with a letter and a gift. I can´t tell you how much I miss hand written notes since I have no address. (I will get a U.S. address if everyone would send me two hand written notes a month. Okay I´m begging you, please send me mail, I´ll send you mail too. I miss the surprises of a mail box!)

Sorry to digress, Stephanie gave me a lovely letter thanking me for my presence in her life and at Aidan´s birth. What an amazing experience to hold my friend´s hand during birth. She held onto grace chanting "lovelovelovelovelove..." and style holding onto the birthing rope, and cursed like a sailor! I love her all the more for sharing those moments with me. Today, we were sitting down to eat carnita tortas, I am in tears from reading her beautiful letter and I open the groovy little gift bag. Inside are the most fabulous earrings of the mother of all mothers. Guadalupe. In crystal. Redesigned by our friend Lucia. Oh, the circle of women I live in, you are wonderful and amazing. Thank you for the message of love, I needed it and I am more than grateful for your presence in my life. Stephanie´s words and the lovely gift gave me all the strength to go on through the afternoon.

Holy shazzam, what an afternoon it was. I shelled out A LOT of pesos, for customs charges on our Land Rover parts from th U.S., which were still not in San Miguel at 3:30 Tuesday afternoon...the parts were supposed to arrive Friday afternoon, ah, the famous Mexican Aduanas. To wait it out we splurged on 2 for 1 crappy Domino´s pizza, this meanss I don´t have to make lunch tomorrow, hooray,(and it´s not fat-free and gross Elliott)! After pizza, we headed to Parque Juarez to play.

Parque Juarez is an adventure in itself, you never know when there will be a gaping hole in a structure or holes in the fiberglass slides which leave itchy legs. I managed to sit down for about 15 minutes before the first incident, Sebastian fell on his head trying to hang upside down. Fifteen minutes later, Roarke falls on his face from the exact same activity that made Sebastian fall and 2 minutes later Isabel scrapes her ankles hanging upside down, same activity that caused the other two injuries. Great, no one obviously pays enough attention to learn a lesson, why do I come out in public? I give my three children advice to learn from mistakes of others as well as their own and think the worst is over, except that gapping hole in the platform 9 feet above ground. Well, live and learn.

Settling in to talk with the great-grandfather of a kid Sebastian went to school with, suddenly I hear Roarke shrieking "MOMMY!!!" When you hear that you run, fast!
At the other side of the playground, my 3 year old has put his head between two bars and is stuck, WTF?! I have no choice but to hop onto the platform and try to help him as a Mexican woman is trying to talk him out of his tree, without success. Can I do anything but laugh at this point? These people do not know Roarke the way I do and this is so apropos but also unexpected, he would be the first one of my brood to figure out how to fix his problem.

Not so today! Suddenly out of nowhere, three men arrive to help me and my guerito out of this predicament. They tried prying the bars apart but finally they discover we can slide his body through sideways and he´s out. Just as quickly as the men came, they disappeared. Surely, I looked like a madwoman shaking my head and chuckling while Roarke is in tears and sobbing on my shoulder. Meanwhile, Isabel and Sebstian have run off TO PLAY. Can you believe that, leave your mother and baby brother in a potential crisis moment? Even though your skills at translation may be needed! How did I rear such selfish humans? Damn, I really have to learn the subtle nuances of the language better. How do you ask a person to cut the bars off your child´s head in Spanish anyway?

The last incident at Parque Jaurez was Sebastian banging his knee coming down the 9 foot fire pole. While his knee was badly bruised it didn´t require an emergency room visit for a broken leg, thank goodness. At this point, I´m done with the park outing! I just want my blasted car parts so I can go back to the country where we only have to deal with ant bites and espinas in the feet, city living is for the caged birds and that does not include my children (or me)! Also, I can see the circuitous route this is taking, injury line-up that is...Sebastian, Roarke, Isabel,Roarke, Sebastian...enough is enough, Donna Summers and I agree. We go get our ridiculously expensive package of Rush order car parts, 3 days late but here, and call it a day.

On our way home, Roarke fell asleep, Isabel too, all I could do was laugh. Laugh at the crowd that gathered to be a witness to Roarke´s illogical actions, the ease of getting him out when you have help and the looks on peoples faces...like, is your son retarded? No, he just likes to push things to the limit...ummm, scratch that, beyond the limit. I have to continually think outside of the box to accomodate this one soul on this earth. Somedays Roarke you are so frustrating I don´t know how to respond but today I have received bushels full of laughs from your antics.

Roarke did wake up later, drat! While dreaming, he became upset about his head getting stuck. Trying to calm him I said "There were three men that helped you though, they helped you get out." My stubborn, burro, of a son screamed at me: "NO!, I did it BY MYSELF!" Ungrateful, that was all I could think. Now I wonder if there isn´t a bit of self-survival and foreshadowing in that statement. Next time he sticks his head through the bars he´ll remember how to get out, by himself!

Motherhood becomes a blur all to often. I am oh...so grateful to Roarke for showing me today the ways we fail, and the ways we get up and keep moving in this life. To take chances seems so easy at three when you have an enormous safety net, at 38 taking chances and falling down seems insurmountable. We have to take chances at any age though, we have to keep falling down, moving foward and laughing. To give it all is what makes life worth living.