Piper to School -- La Vida Tranquila

the steps to Piper's schoolToday I walked my daughter up the hill to her school on the island of Utila. The stairs are cracking and steep, some as high as Piper’s skinny thigh. At the top, there is a huge mango tree that arches wide, casting shade over the crest of the hill. Often we have to stop and wait for the little boys at the top to stop throwing stones and chunks of wood at the higher branches to knock fruit down.

When we reach the high street at the top, we turn--and to be honest, catch our breath--and we look out over the main street, and the sea beyond it.

Then Piper chatters to me as we wind through the street above Town to Wisdom Paradise Bilingual School. There are houses with broken beer bottles cemented to the peaks of their walls, an effective if primitive security system, and others where chickens run wild in the fuschia bougainvillea. Piper talks about her classmates, who earned the most smiley faces, who sat on Time Out and why, how she showed her beloved Miss Nery to make healthy sandwiches of her snack, (raisins and peanuts) and she rattles off the new words of the day in two languages.

 “You know, you can speak to the Spanish kids in English, but you have to do it in a Spah-nish accent,” Piper tells me, spreading her mouth wide to form the vowels in the island dialect. She knows how to use the term “among you”, the island’s version of the American South’s "y’all" or our hometown Philly’s “youse guys”.

“Clean up clean up, all among you clean up,” she sings the Barney theme song, clutching my hand in hers. HerPiper and Bine in uniform, crazy hair day uniform is the school’s cheery yellow T-shirt with a logo of a red-roof schoolhouse on a rock in the sea, and a happy dolphin jumping in the baby blue wave behind it.

Of the ten children in her class who swing on the row of swings behind the colorfully painted fence, Piper speaks the least Spanish. Sometimes, this makes her nervous. Today, right before she follows her friends through the gate, a handful of plucked cherry hibiscus to hand to Miss Nery, she throws her arms around my waist and squeezes hard. She holds on for a moment, and then runs to join in.

The gate to Wisdom Paradise

In a few short months, we will go back to the States. I’ll walk Piper through the same suburban town where I grew up, to the same private school I attended. The trees will be grandfatherly oaks and silvers maples, spindly hemlocks and bushy Scotch pines. She’ll wear a different uniform, khakis and Land's End polos, her brothers in navy plaid ties, their bleached-out, shaggy island hair cut to dress code standards. It is a good school—they will come home with backpacks full of projects and tasks, enriched by their full days and friendships and activities. If they speak any Spanish, it will be at home with me, if we remember to do our Utila nights, when I cut a circle out of a plastic bag and make tortillas by hand with Maseca corn flour I order off amazon.com.

In our other life, there will be no mango trees, no scampering geckoes on our bedroom walls, no apple bananas ripening on the back porch, no cangrejos en la casa, no leisurely morning snorkel, the reef in front of our island house as familiar to them as their childhood neighborhood, with sea fans and swim-through coral arches as landmarks. We’ll leave behind friends, memories, and our handprints in the cement of the bottle cap trash-to-treasure art project we are creating.

Trash to treasure bottle cap project

In our other life, if we want to see the ocean, we will have to play hooky while it is still warm enough, Indian Summer and drive hours through the state of New Jersey to play in the icy, darker water of the Atlantic. Maybe we will catch a glimpse of the Caribbean in the background when we Skype with our friends back on the island.

Today, as I walked Piper up the hillside stairs to her school, our feet gritty inside our flip flops, I wondered aloud if she would remember this crazy, Bohemian island life, when we go back to the States, or later, when she grows up.

It’s possible. My husband says his first memories are of walking to kindergarten with his mother in Buffalo’s nastiest weather, the wind off the lake stinging his cheeks and blowing her long brown hair. There is a story, family folklore, of the time he cried all the way to school, because she had accidentally zipped her prickly hairbrush inside his snowsuit.

So it is possible that these moments of our island life are tethering themselves to Piper’s long-term memory, that she’ll remember how she smiled shyly and called out a quiet ‘hola’ to the cheeky boys knocking down mangos around us while we stopped at the top of the hill and looked out at the sparkling sea, the wind tangling our hair, before we walked back down the high road to home. 

¡Oja

la!, as they say in Utila. Would that it be so.  

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the view down the hill

Return to Utila

After five plus months away, we returned to our Vida Tranquila on Utila. In the meantime, we endured a Northeastern winter that witheld the worst of its punches, a hockey season, my Dad's heart surgery and a health scare with Hayden, which ended with a relatively seamless open-septo-sino-rhinoplasty at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. Needless to say, we were all breathing easier when we met up with Captain David in La Ceiba Immigration and he said to the kids, "Would you like to see your daddy?" We were delighted to be reunited as a family, flying over the skinny strip of sea back to Utila.

Flying over from the mainland

We fell back into our old patterns easily. Piper and Bine had the cinematic reunion her mother and I have been anticipating, complete with momentary hesitation, full-on crushing hug, and then a thirty hour playdate. These two little alphas had one terse conversation about which one said the shells hurt her feet en route to the 'dream lot', and then quickly lapsed into a game of fairies on the porch.

Piper and Bine arrange the fairies 

 I am fairly certain the only time they weren't holding hands was during their momentary spat and maybe during dinner. They dined a deux on chicken and waffles at Neptunes, chased the solar lights J installed on the dock, and I may owe an apology to Bine's mother for introducing her to the beingets with Nutella--sweet Bine picked up the plate and LICKED.IT.CLEAN. 

Piper and Bine to the marina

Same old, same old

The reunion of Piper and Bine was only rivaled by the one of the kids and Amigo, the resident mascot and surrogate perro negro for the Hoffspring. After worrying for days about whether their dog would remember them (the jury is out in my opinion--he might be this glad to see everyone) they had a love fest in the marina. They have come up with a game of chase and fetch on the beach with their darling dog that I don't think any of them will tire of soon. 

                                                                                                                                                                        It is amazing also to see the changes in Lobster, the project's other dog. Abused as a puppy and rescued to become part of the crew out on the South Shore, (and the Frick to Amigo's Frack) Lobster used to be too skittish to be touched. Now, he patrols proudly with the watchmen and is eager to have our loving attention.

As before, and much to the boys' chagrin, regular Spanish tutoring is on the agenda. Piper will also be attending a bilingual school called Widsom Paradise with her friends in Town. 

WHAT'S NEW

Neptune's RestaurantNeptune's! The former construction zone where the boys used to dash around playing tag has become an upscale restaurant. Neptune's at Coral Beach Village is an important part of the development we are here to create, complete with sandy beach, dock and marina, hammocks, palapa, volleyball and beach games and music. 

Piper doing some sunset swinging

We used to draw parallels between our life here and Little House on the Prairie. Now it's more like Swiss Family Robinson with an open tab at the tiki bar down the beach. Piper's sole vegetable consumption in the past week has been their hand-cut French fries and she has ketchup running through her veins. I am also in conversation with Jenny and Will and Brian about what we will be saying is "off the menu" when the little Hoffmans belly up to the bar (and by this I mean, the mac and cheese with the breaded topping Hayden can't get enough of, or the green bottled ginger ales Max and Camilo had me thinking were Salva Vidas complete with mock-stumbling on the beach.) 

wing man

Their habanero and pineapple margaritas are to die for, the boys are crazy for their Buffalo wings and I felt a tiny tear in my eye when I saw a special on their menu of a caprese sandwich this week. Cheese and fresh, locally grown tomato and spicy tequila at sunset on the beach, and I just might be in heaven. 

Because of Coral Beach Village's status as an eco resort, Neptune's only purchases fresh sustainable fish from local fisherman or the coast, and we cooperate with local law enforcement to put an end to reef poaching, because the true richness of this location is in the water out front.  

To the end of enjoying the ocean, we are also loving the newly installed ladder at the end of the dock, which facilitates the ease of everyone being able to get in and explore the reef. We continue to do our daily snorkel, finding everything from an enormous horse conch to spotted eagle rays to the most delicately patterned flamingo tongue shells. 

Max uses the ladder to show off a horse conch

One week in -- we are excited to be back, reunited as a family and enjoying our Vida Tranquila again!

cruising for whale sharksBeach bonfire before bed

Momstinct Part Two

Last week I wrote an entry on Momstinct, or the fine line between trusting your mother's intuition and simply spinning your worry wheels. The update is that two doctors have told me they do not believe what is going on with Hayden is a tumor but more likely related to the condition he was born with now causing ENT problems. We consult with the surgeon who did his early operations next week and feel confident that we are in good hands here at CHoP. We have expected further surgeries since he was little and are just so hugely relieved that the sky is not falling.

I'm not prone to panic, but I don't always have the best judgment when crisis strikes. My family jokes that I am the one who will stand paralyzed over a choking victim mentally debating whether or not this is really worth a call to 911, because I don't want to bother them, and what if I call, and by the time they get here, the person has hacked up the hot dog and is cheerfully eating a slice of watermelon? I'm the one who jumped up, in the midst of my throat closing over an allergic reaction to crab at a black tie function and quietly left the table, because I didn't want to embarass myself or my husband's colleagues. I figured it would be more dignified to die in the bathroom or at least the bar, which is where someone saw me and saved my life.

Because of this, I have married, made friends with and generally surround myself with people whose instincts I trust. They have been so valuable as I navigated the fears of last week. 

So here is what I know about Momstinct. It's real. It comes up when something is not right. I think of my friend Linda Davis, who diagnosed her own toddler's autism back in 1999 when it wasn't a buzzword, when she had only seen the movie Rainman, when her own pediatrician said it wasn't true. (Read her story here) Her momstinct was devastatingly correct. 

And I think about my friend Jess, who wrote in the comments on the original article that her eyes flew open at home the instant her nine-year-old tripped over a rope and smacked his head on a concrete floor. (But she notes that the image that came to her was a much more dire crisis--him running into the street and being hit by a car.)

Momstinct exists for minor situations, like the mother who looks up and realizes the house is too quiet,  and finds her toddler baby-powdering the living room. It exists as a warning--that guy who is just a little too friendly in the check out line? Have someone walk you to your car. It exists to steer us out of danger, like the creepy opthamologist who told my fourteen-month-old he loved her and kissed her on the lips at the end of an exam--we never went back and we reported him. 

This week, Momstinct sent us to the right doctors who will help us figure out the best path for Hayden. I believe Momstinct is real, that it serves a purpose, but like the boardwalk fortune teller with the bourbon breath and the fake eyelashes, my momstinct might not always be 100% accurate. 

* *** *

With thanks to everyone who has held us in our hearts as we navigated this past week. 

Hayden and I conquer the long trail to the top of Multnomah Falls

Comic Relief (with Partially Naked Celebrity Photo Warning)

I consider this a relatively family-friendly blog. Yes, I wrote a rant against TIME magazine's sensational Mom Enough cover and included photos of my breasts feeding my kids. And I dropped the F-bomb in yesterday's post on Momstinct, but it was in reference to my desire to keep the effing sky from coming down around my henny penny chicken little ears as I toe the line between worry and panic over what might be wrong with my son. I'm stressed, parenting solo and running on about six hours of sleep for the week. I'm still worrying. So far, Hayden is not responding to antibiotics. I'm listening to him snuffle and snore and trying not to think about the what-ifs.

I could use some comedy. 

Which is why tonight, while I wait for the worry mongers to start their mental chatter or exhaustion to kick in, I sent my sister a text promising I could cure or at least permanently curb our mild mutual crush on Adam Levine with only one nude photo. 

To be fair, this wasn't even a real crush. I knew who Maroon Five was. I'd seen Adam on The Voice. I liked the song Stereo Hearts enough to play it out for my kids last year. There' something dear and quirky about his smile. But then I read an interview in a trashy magazine where Adam rather smugly labeled himself a 'man-whore', and talked about his yoga practice and his skinny jean fashion choices and I thought, ugh. 

So when this photo showed up in my Facebook news feed the other day, it was a cold bucket of ice water on some dying embers. Click the link at your own risk, but don't say I didn't warn you. You'll never be able to hear him hit the high notes on Payphone the same way again. 

Right?!?!?! I get the worst case of giggles at the horrible UNSEXINESS of this painfully awkward attempt at sexiness. I don't know what's worse here... the Doc Martins? The mermaid tattoo? The black helmet? The soulful look? The tippy-toes-to-flex-the-calves? 

My sister, as she is so good at doing, promptly debunked the photo with an exposé blog pointing out that it's not even ADAM'S underfed and inked form draped over the bike palming the helmet covering his manparts. It's some Italian model.

I want to send this dude or Adam's publicist or someone a memo: MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT. Maybe this photo works for gay men, or for some ladies, but for me... just, don't.

I had a boyfriend in college. I am relatively sure he doesn't read this blog but even so I'm not going to name names. It was an honest mistake. He tried to send me some naked photos of himself. There was a really large... TEDDY BEAR involved. I'm going to stop right there. 

My sister and I debated the unsexiness of this Adam photo and why it doesn't work. I don't need Porn for New Moms. He doesn't need to be doing the dishes or changing a diaper or promising to send me out for drinks with the girls twice a week.

What is sexy in a guy? Capability. Honesty. Showing up. Quiet commitment. Intelligence. Good parenting. Passion (for almost anything). Kindness. Loyalty. Clever humor. 

Teach me something new. Surprise me. Take care of me a little. Make me fucking laugh. But not by posing for naked photos on a motorcycle. Or with oversized stuffed animals.  

As my sister said, this photo brings out the mom in her. It makes her want to say, "Oh honey, just stop. This isn't it at all. Put your clothes back on before you get sick." 

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Momstinct

Eleven years ago, our son was born with a rare craniofacial syndrome. It was a lot to manage in his early life, but maturity has brought the promise of easier years, and only some monthly appointments and the annual visit to the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, our checkup with the team of eight specialists remains.

In recent years, Hayden and I have come to regard his summer craniofacial team evaluation as a pleasant date. We take the train to the hospital, we visit with all the doctors who have seen him through surgeries and therapies, we eat sushi lunch in the atrium cafeteria, we pick up trash in the city when we see it and we leave with the assurance that all's well, see you next year!

But this past summer, there was a hiccup, a road bump at ENT. They saw something, tissue, bulging. A mass. We waited for an hour while specialists paraded in and peered up his left nostril. I grilled him—had he been hurt? Bumped heads with his little brother while wrestling? Maybe, Hayden shrugged. Maybe he had gotten hit in hockey, he said, but I wondered about his helmet, and the protective cage?

We were sent for a CAT scan; the results a relief. ENT said it looked like a hematoma, a swollen, severely deviated septum. We knew Hayden’s anatomy included asymmetry—as an infant we could not put a feeding tube up the left side of his nose. We were told to go on with our life...

“And keep an eye on it.”

Fast forward six months to last Christmas. Hayden was snorting, or as well call it 'snucking'; inhaling the snot in one swift sniff down the back of his throat frequently. We wrote it off—change in climate, allergies, a cold, a sinus infection. I didn’t do anything about it. I’d read articles about the burgeoning Superbugs, a result of overprescribed antibiotics. Whatever it was, his immune system was strong. I gave him Gummy Vitamins and Emergen-C; he would kick it on his own.

When you live with someone, you stop noticing things. But when we had my family over for dinner, or his friends gave him sideways glances during movies, we realized how often Hayden snucked. Thirty, forty, fifty times an hour. My husband worried he would be teased. We offered steam showers, tissues, Claritin and bribes of $5 at the end of every day if I only heard him five times. Hayden wasn’t bothered by it. He insisted blowing made no difference; it couldn’t come out that way. Anyway, he said all his hockey teammates were sniffling.

“It’s winter, mom!”

My husband travels out of the country frequently for work.  Last weekend, after Skyping with the kids, he asked if Hayden had been hit in the face or broken his nose?

"It looks swollen."

I said I had just noticed the same thing, a swelling, but only on the left side. I called Hayden over, pinching the phone between my shoulder and ear. It didn’t hurt him when I touched it--the swelling was spongy under the pressure of my fingertips. Hayden couldn’t recall any injury.

That night, I woke up with a start. In the dark, I rolled over and scribbled on my bedside journal – Hayden, snuffling, swelling, mass, DOCTOR!

I felt sick to my stomach when I read it the next morning. Worse, that prickling all over my neck was hives. Anxiety, the pinpricks of my hackles; my momstinct had been activated.

At first I ignored it. Hayden was healthy--look, there he was pestering his little brother and feeding his breakfast crusts to the dog! Crisis-mongering runs in my family; I didn't want to be some panicked Chicken Little. But something deeper shoved to the surface growling, "No sky's falling on my fucking watch!" I picked up the phone.

I called the ENT who had seen him in the summer. Even with a description of the symptoms to the nurse, they were swamped and couldn’t see him within the month. Throughout the day, I'd be making my kids eggs, or opening the mail and suddenly my guts would liquidate under a squirt of adrenaline.

Something is wrong with my son.

Years ago, I left the message board for parents of children with Hayden’s condition because they were full of doom and gloom—they warned not to get too complacent with kids doing well, urged us to be wary of the Other Shoe Dropping. I didn’t need people feeding that. To this day I can’t drive past the highway exit for the Childrens Hospital without feeling a primitive clutching in my chest, eleven years later. They had my son for the first few months of his life—there is still the totally irrational fear that they will take him back.

For twenty-four hours, I walked in a fog. I could not see Hayden when he recounted to me some plot twist in Hunger Games or begged off his math work; I could only see the bulging alongside his nose, hear the frequency of his sniffing. I whispered my fear to my sister. We were with him every single day. How had we not noticed this? I echoed it with my husband long distance. He is usually good at talking me down, but his mother was diagnosed with the cancer that ultimately took her life when she was younger than we are now. We wanted answers.  

I called his pediatrician and she said to come right in. He had no fever, was typically chatty and sniffly and snucking away and annoyed by my attempts to straighten his unruly hair while he swung his legs on the exam table. She looked in his nose and invited me to do the same. I saw it--a shiny, hot pink bulge of tissue that completely occluded the nostril, pushing out into his face.

 She said it could be his deviated septum, exacerbated by a whopper of a sinus infection. 

“For four months?” I gulped, because spring is just around the corner. I could not believe I had let it go so long. Where was my momstinct then?

“We’ll start with antibiotics, and I’ll call the ENT. A hematoma should have resolved itself since last summer. It should not have gotten bigger. He needs to be seen ASAP.”

All day, I reeled. Is this the beginning of a nightmare? My five-year-old called out ‘Heads or Tails’ while she flipped a quarter on the kitchen counter and suddenly everything carried meaning. I chose Tails, and if I was right, I bargained, Hayden would be fine, a simple sinus infection. The coin came up Heads, three times in a row. A sign? I panicked. Should I trust my momstinct, my waking in the middle of the night, the hives pulsing on my neck? Or was I simply a victim of worrying, because I come from a line of worriers, because my oldest started out his life in the NICU?

Because worrying is the other thing mothers do?

 I struggled not to fall into maudlin musing about the everyday—the little brother curled on the couch, head on Hayden’s shoulder while they played Minecraft, a photo from a friend of Haybes celebrating his first hockey hat trick. Would these moments be filed away under Before in a schism of diagnosis?

At the end of the day, Hayden’s pediatrician called while he was out skateboarding in the driveway with friends, the picture of health in the golden late afternoon light. She had spoken to the ENT.

They want me to watch carefully for the next two days, to take photos of his face. They want to know if the swelling responds to 48 hours of antibiotics. If not, the ENT will schedule an emergency appointment with Hayden, and it will not be because of a sinus infection or a deviated septum.

So I wait and wonder, swinging wildly between Everything is fine! to Disaster is upon us! I try in vain to take my pulse, to find out deep down how I feel. Do I scratch the hives on my neck and sink glumly into my faith in mother’s intuition, or cling to my general Pollyanna optimism?

Can a mother’s instinct, tainted by a mother’s inherent worry, be wrong?

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