I am going home.

Tomorrow, my daughter and I will fly south to Miami, to visit family and build sand castles on Miami Beach.

I always day dream about palm trees, big puffy clouds and the calming sound of surf for days before we leave. From all these miles away, I can taste the thick, sweet Cuban coffee and the Colombian arepas I love so much. Going home makes me happy.

Mothering is of extremes.

Last week, my daughter put on a shiny gold tutu and melted my heart as she showed off her ballet moves and her fabulous, free-style "wiggle-wiggle-pop."

Then, for a few nights going she has broken my heart when she has cried and told me she is afraid of dying.

A large red envelope with a big heart and my name on it came home from school with Maria this week.

Inside were Thank You notes from the children with whom I have been reading this school year. It made my heart swell.

"Yo me gusta espanol'' one 5-year-old wrote out phonetically and with backwards Ys and Ss. The card had a house, a tree and a pencil-colored heart. Sweetness, total sweetness. A few were drawings of me, which completely cracked me up.

Once a week since the winter term started, I sat at a tiny table in Maria's classroom and listened as the 5- and 6-year-olds read to me in Spanish. My job was to help them learn and pronounce the sounds as they read, and to teach them the words they didn't get. It's a Spanish-immersion classroom and while the majority of the children are non-Latinos with little exposure to Spanish outside of the school, I was constantly amazed by the power of little brains to learn a second language. It was a blast for me to see them twist their mouths around a little to make the sounds of Spanish. The best, perhaps, was watching as the reluctant readers got bolder about giving it a shot, being OK with saying it wrong and then getting it right, as the weeks went on.

Maria and I spent a sunny and warm afternoon this week potting and re-potting flowers and herbs. It was the first real chance we've gotten during what has been a rainy and cold spring in Nashville. She smelled the basil and mint leaves, she played with a worm, she watered, and over-watered, the wooly thyme.

By the end of next week, she will be out of school and it makes me all sunshiny and warm inside to think we will have more days like that, days just puttering around like we did when she was a toddler. We used to spend countless time looking at just one worm wiggle in the dirt. It was glorious.

We have few plans for the summer -- a couple of week-long camps, and a trip to see the Abuelitos in Miami -- and I'm feeling good about it. The rush rush of our days has taken a toll. I have overslept a lot these last couple of weeks, and she is absolutely miserable in the morning. We're tired. I look forward to letting her sleep in as long as she wants.

Before our daughter was born, it was tradition that my husband and I donned costumes for our annual holiday photo. One year we were Elvis and a Dolly-wanna-be in front of a car with a giant chicken on its roof (we live in Nashville, remember) and another year we dressed up as Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera (I am Latin and moody, remember). For the Frida shoot, I painted on a unibrow and wore a headband of silk roses that I meticulously created with the help of a glue gun and patience.

On Friday, I gave that headband to Maria, who was participating in a Cinco de Mayo event at her school.

Her eyes grew so wide when I pulled it out of its place in storage. "Mama, it is beautiful,'' she said breathlessly.