This summer, my mother (Nana) and I took the boys on a trip to visit family from my childhood hometown of Sonora. While we were down there, I realized that the entire time I lived there, I was only 90 miles from one entrance to the Mexican border. For some reason, this suddenly became extremely important for me to do and to share with my children because passports for American citizens will soon be necessary for this simple visit to a town on the other side of the river. I have a passport, but I’m not exactly in a rush to get one for each of my children… not to mention someone broke the friggin’ beautiful butterfly formation in the living cave, the Caverns of Sonora, that I visited in my hometown so many times as a child. So taking them now was sort of like a day late and a dollar short. I’ll take them later to see the partial butterfly… you don’t need a passport for that! Anyway, I digress… Nana was persuaded and took us down to Ciudad Acuna for a “learning field trip”.
Driving from Sonora to Del Rio, I gave the boys a rough overview of Texas, the United States, the Rio Grande River and Mexico. When we arrived in Del Rio, the moment of anticipation was upon us. We found the border, parked my mother’s huge SUV and arranged for a taxi ride. Juan, our driver, agreed to drive us across, let us walk around the shoppes for 30 minutes while he waited, then give us a tour of the city before driving us back over the Rio Grande for $40 US. Not too bad, right?
I have to say, I was immensely impressed with the boys and their interest during this field trip. They noticed so many little differences that I didn’t have to point out. They were polite and tried to incorporate Spanish words they had learned on Dora the Explorer and Diego in their conversation. When it was time to leave and we were stating our business, declaring our purchases and showing our ID to the Border Patrol, the kids clammed up like little criminals! We stated that we wanted the kids to visit before a passport was needed. When the officer looked in the back of taxi van, I thought “Great…” because they were acting so WEIRD and I had the most ridiculous answer in the universe. I casually asked if he needed to see their birth certificates… only because Biscuit could pass as a blonde headed Mexican with his huge brown eyes and dark tan. The officer chuckled and said he assumed they were mine unless they started screaming that they were kidnapped. For a split second I just KNEW Wrangler would try it. 
So, the field trip was a raving success, of course. The boys bragged about it for days.
One afternoon when we were back home, Biscuit and Wrangler called me out in the back yard. They wanted me to see what they had built. So, I’m looking down in this 5 gallon orange bucket from Home Depot and there’s two mounds of dirt and a puddle of water between them. On one mound of dirt sat a little frog they had captured from the yard. I said, “That’s nice boys. You made the frog a home. Did you find him some dinner, too?” and irritated, Wrangler says, “Mom! Don’t you get it? The frog is sitting in Mexico and when he swims across the Rio Grande River, he’ll be in the United STEAKS!”
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