Sometimes I feel like a sponge. Anytime anyone throws a morsel of wisdom at me I soak it up and wipe it all over my life. Take ten years ago, for example, when Joe and I bought our little shack in Laguna. It was 500 square feet with rats living in the rafters. But we had vision, an ocean view and a plan to grow.

“Enjoy it while you can,” our neighbor told us as we were moving out of our rental and into our shoebox, “because the bigger the house, the farther apart you grow.”

He was a wildly successful trader with two gorgeous children he got to see every other weekend. Those where terms, apparently, of his divorce from the previous year. But I held onto that statement as we drafted plans for the new, bigger house a couple of years later. I’d squeeze down inches on the architect’s drawings, which translated into square feet, which translated into home offices, exercise rooms…

Personal space.

I can’t exactly blame our neighbor for ruining my life. How could he have known we’d have two sons who hang, slobber and whine all over me all day long? How could he have known I’d be working from home, exercising at home, doing four loads of laundry a day at home?

So I upsized our bed, finally – to the biggest California King on the market – in order to secure one, tiny sliver of a corner to call my own. It’s a Tempur-pedic, which promotes the ultimate in personalized comfort. You climb in, sink into position, and stay there until someone throws a sippy up at your head. So last night when I was awakened by ten feet in my bed (excluding my own, four were the cat’s), kicking my chin, my ribs, my boobs, I panicked – I raged.

“Why is everybody in my bed?” I yelled.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, they all purred, in unison.

So I stomped into my four-year-old’s bed, which was wet – undoubtedly why he moved into our bed.

Then I tried my seven-year-old’s bunk bed, kicked my foot against something metal, cussed and martyred my way onto the living room couch, where I finally had peace, quiet, and a nostril full of a moldy, smelly…sponge.

Yes, our house is so small I can smell a sponge in the kitchen sink. Which is a metaphor for my life, obviously. For without an original thought – without thinking for yourself - you are destined to a lifetime of cleaning up everyone else’s mess.

As well as your own.

There are moments in life that sort of change everything, aren’t there? “Life changing moments,” as they’re so aptly named. I’ve had several, myself. When my son was diagnosed with a class 3 brain hemorrhage, for example. Or the phone call from my friend’s husband informing me that she had died. Those kinds of circumstantial things – events. There you are, minding your own business when, WHAM! The phone rings with news on the other line that takes you on a journey you hadn’t asked for. We often romanticize these moments into sonnets of perpetuated self-preservation or salvation…but the truth is, these moments are all lessons in having control over very little. We don’t necessarily become better people because of them; we simply become more prepared for the next one.

But there’s a moment I’d like to share that involved no phone, no tears, no doctors…just a refrigerator. It was my brother’s “overflow” fridge off of his kitchen, where he and his wife keep their beverages and homemade pizza dough. I went to open it and right at my eye line was a quotable magnet with the following saying. “Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.” Think about that for a second. Think about these quests we’ve all been on to scratch that imperceptible itch, or these trips to faraway lands to find peace…to “make sense of it all.” Think about how, even now, we rationalize new careers, new friends, new paths to the people we love with the promise of “finding” ourselves.

Think of all what we’ve compromised for a personal gain that never really pays off.

That moment at the fridge was a life changing moment for me (as they so often are.) Because that little magnet told me what no one else had ever been able to.

Stop looking, it said, and simply become the person you want to be.

My husband and I invented the game “Celebrity Basketball.” We were at a Lakers Game when we got the idea, and it’s pretty basic. For every celeb sighting you get points: 2 points for a b-lister and 3 points for an A-lister, according to Joe’s rating system. But according to my version, the more obscure the celebrity, the more points you get. I mean, Jack Nicholson? Come on, who hasn’t seen him - two points. But Matthew Modine…he’s a three for sure.

“But that’s not Modine,” Joe told me after I pointed him out.

“It is. Pay up.”

“How do you know?”

“The bangs.”

“Cynthia, the fact that, a) you even know who Matthew Modine is, b) you can spot him across a stadium, and c) have analyzed his hairstyle should be a penalty. But here’s your damn quarter.”

The real reason I can spot Matthew Modine across a stadium, of course, is because he represents all I want to be and exactly who I’m not. He’s low profile enough to be cool, and popular enough to get third row seats at a Lakers game.

I am neither of those things.

Sure, there was that one time I was recognized in a Target bathroom with shit all over my hands as I changed Benji’s diaper, and then again by my dentist after I asked (cried) for a prescription for Xanax.

But not exactly third-row-seat status.

So when I received an invitation to the set of Jim Henson Company’s new PBS program Dinosaur Train – an invitation for my children to be included in one of their episodes, I accepted. Despite the fact that my kids are somehow in higher demand than I am and they don’t even like basketball.

But, hey - if they’re my train to Modine status, Toot, Toot. I’m aboard.

When we arrived to the set, Jim Henson’s daughter, Lisa – now the CEO of her late dad’s production company - greeted us. We were then introduced to the creator, the writer and, finally, Dr. Scott – the paleontologist whose purpose on the show is to get kids outside to learn, to explore and to grow.

It was a beautiful thing to see such commitment to our future generation, using science as a backdrop to their lives. Seriously, after yesterday, I’m convinced that the Jim Henson Company is a better mother than I am. And Dr. Scott is probably a better father than Joe. Every nanosecond of film they shot, animated, and voice-overed made my kids more informed human beings - more sensitive, more aware.

Look, I get unsolicited vibrators in the mail, personalized diaper bags, jewelry with my kids’ names on them, all with the hope of a little mention on here, which, of course, no one reads anyway (my web guy can substantiate this). As I think we’ve covered - on a scale of me to Matthew Modine, I am, well…nobody.

But despite my no-big-deal status, I’d like to think that I’m the real deal, so I’m here to tell you there’s a new team in town. And Dinosaur Train is all-star, all net and on all day September 7 on PBS.

All aboard or I’m calling Jack.

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