ChiKat

I was right. My son had a massive screaming fit around 2 AM. I think his throat is sore from the dry air on the flight and the pollution here. He's developed a cough that kept waking him up at night. When he woke-up in the Pack-n-Play, he apparently became possessed by demons and the only thing that would exorcise them was sleeping in our bed. I'm sure the other hotel guests are delighted that we are here.

We are staying at a very nice hotel in La Paz, Bolivia. We requested a crib for our room. Several hours later, a Graco Pack-n-Play arrives. I have traveled to Colorado, Michigan, Champaign-Urbana and now Bolivia. In every hotel, the crib is always a Graco Pack-n-Play.

Does Graco market to hotels? Do they go hotel door-to-door selling their wares? There are other Pack-n-Plays on the market, but Graco, in my admittedly limited experience, seems to dominate the hotel crib market.

Maybe it's a marketing ploy. My mother saw the Pack-n-Play at the hotel in Champaign-Urbana and immediately wanted to buy one for her own house.

If it's a marketing ploy, I am not surprised at the coverage in the U.S. But I have to admit, I'm surprised the Graco folks have made it all the way to Bolivia.

My son, of course, could care less. He laughs heartily at the very idea that he will actually sleep in the Pack-n-Play. I have no doubt that by midnight, he will have screamed and squirmed his way into our bed. Ah, family vacations.

We survived the three-hour trip to Miami AND the five and a half hour flight to La Paz. Oddly, my biggest challenge on the flight was my son sleeping soundly.

On the flight to Miami, my son was VERY awake. Not screaming or fussing. Just wide awake and happy. He was delighted with his airplane experience and occasionally made an EAR PIERCING shriek of joy that rattled the entire aircraft.

He slept the entire flight from Miami to La Paz. That portion was a red eye, so I was exhausted and needed to sleep also. However, we kept changing altitude or cabin pressure or something. Whatever was happening meant that the pressure kept changing and my ears kept popping. To prevent my son from having a problem with his ears, all I needed to do was keep his binky in (with a binky, babies keep swallowing, so they continually relieve the pressure in their ears). My son chose that moment to decide, for the first time in his entire life, that he didn't want to sleep with a binky and he kept spitting it out.

I would slowly drift off to sleep, only to hear a quiet "plink, plick" as the binky was spit out of his mouth and rolled down the plane. I'd dive under the seats, fish out the binky, wash it off with a diaper wipe, and then try to force it back into my son's mouth. My son, without waking up at all, would clench his jaw and refuse to accept the binky.

I contemplated just letting him sleep, but my ears hurt enough as it was – I knew it would be disaster if I let my son's ears get all clogged with pressure and not be able to fix the problem. So I'd pry open his mouth, shove the binky back in and he'd finally accept it.

Five minutes later, I would hear, "plink, plink, plink" as the binky fell out again.

Repeat 500 times. I am exhausted. But we have arrived and my brother was waiting for us at the airport with flowers for a greeting. It is delightful to see him. If I could just sleep for about 60 hours, I will be in mint condition!

25 containers of baby food
2 packages of wasa crackers
1 loaf of rye bread
1 jar of peanut butter
2 bags of goldfish crackers
500 animal crackers
Raisins
56 diapers
276 wipes
Toys
Clothes
A very, very heavy suitcase

We are ready for our South American adventure! 10 days, 2 countries, 1 little boy.

Off we go…

We drove past the dream house – it is in much better condition that we thought. It has an eviction notice on the door, which makes us suspect that the bank owns the property and wants to get rid of it, which explains the low price. I'm sure it still needs work, but it needs much less work than we were expecting.

It is two houses from the Eisenhower…which means that the traffic noise is INSANELY loud. There is a constant roar.

I grew up a block from I-55, so the noise didn't faze me, but within five minutes my husband was twitchy. I really think, despite being a city boy his entire life, my husband really belongs in the country with no neighbors for 100 miles. I'm sure he would take that as a compliment.

I know this makes me sounds like a total patsy, but the eviction notice made me sad. I felt that by thinking about buying the home (for such a great price!), I was taking advantage of someone else's misfortune.

All in all, the dream house wasn't totally perfect, but we are going to see if we can set up an appointment to view the place. I still don't think it will be available by the time we sell our place, but it has been on the market for awhile, so maybe there really is a chance that we can own this home.

90% of me is convinced it's not going to work out because selling our condo will take awhile. 5% of me is convinced that my husband will go insane from the traffic noise so the dream house really isn't a good fit for us. The final 5% thinks we will LIVE THERE FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES. No pressure or anything.

Remember when I said there was a house in Oak Park that I loved? This is what it looks like:


It's not perfect. It needs work. And by the time we sell our condo, I doubt it will still be on the market (in my neighborhood, condos rarely sell in fewer than six months).

But still, when I'm having a bad day, I open up the real estate listings, check out that picture, and I'm filled with hope. I love the lines of the house, the symmetry. I love the potential.

The rooms are a terrible size, I've never been inside the home, it needs a ton of work. Did I mention how much work it needed?

But still, I have an irrational love for that house.

I am a terrible dog owner. My vet wants my dog to weigh 85 pounds. Every year, rather than lose any weight, the dog gains five pounds. He is up to 110 pounds. He weighs more than my MOTHER. I am horrified by this.

Since having my son and my husband taking the CTA instead of walking to work, the dog doesn't get the two walks a day we used to be so good about. But he still gets once good, long walk each day. It's not making a difference. He also eats decent dog food, and gets very few table scraps.

In other words, we aren't treating him terribly. But labs are prone to being chunky anyway, and we're not helping matters.

I have to improve things soon, otherwise people are going to start mistaking him for a horse.

It has taken WEEKS for our alley to be paved. They totally over-hauled the entire alley. At the end of the alley, there is now a stamp carved into the pavement designating the alley as a City of Chicago Green Alley.

I had no idea what this meant, but it turns out we have a FANCY alley! The grading, pitch and material of the alley all help facilitate drainage into the ground rather than the sewer system. In addition, the alley is made from recycled materials. The handbook even shows pretty plants along the alley, but I don't think we are getting *that* nice of an alley.

I'll just be happy if they actually finish the alley. The entire alley is paved, but the connecting ramp from our lot to the alley is just a gaping hole that my little VW Golf cannot traverse. So I've been parking on the street along with everyone else from the alley for the past two weeks.

Having the alley closed to parking has meant there is hardly any parking on the street these days. Yet the nearby University insists that the new 800+ bed dorm isn't going to impact street parking at all. Give me a break.

My son was born with black hair and blue eyes. My husband and I both have dark brown hair and brown eyes, so the black hair wasn't a surprise. The blue eyes were a bit of a surprise, but lots of kids are born with blue eyes that change to a darker color after a few months.

Rather than having those blue eyes turn brown, but son has gone the opposite way. His blue eyes are still the prettiest blue ever, and his hair has gone from jet black to light, light brown with streaks of blond in it.

BLOND.

Who does this child belong to?

I have two bad qualities that I am trying to change.

The first is that I can be very judgmental. I try to be laid-back and open-minded. I try to be calm. But really, those aren't my natural qualities. Worse, if I say something snide or point out something funny about someone, my husband often laughs. So I think we have been encouraging each other to be more cynical and judgmental.

I don't want to be that person, so we've both been trying to be nicer people. (So far, my husband says we are becoming boring, but hopefully we will adjust to these new-found higher standards).

My other bad quality is my concern about what other people think about me. I want to be confident in my decision and not care what other people think. But I really care what they think. It's so ridiculous.

When I was pregnant, I distinctly remember talking with a group of friends and agreeing with them that there was no good reason to leave the city. There was no reason why we couldn't raise children in the city. Of course, this was at a time when my husband had an easy 10-minute stroll to work. Not needing to drive or depend on the CTA made this neighborhood so much more livable for us.

I do remember at the time saying that the Chicago Public School system worried me, but that was my only concern. And there are magnet schools! So la la la, we'll stay urban forever!

Now that I want to move to Oak Park, I am actually *embarrassed* to tell my friends. Like I've sold out or something. I've compromised my integrity and become one of *those* people…suburban people. Next I'll be driving a mini-van and making cookies for a bake sale.

This is my decision with my husband. We're trying to figure out what's best for our family. I can't believe I care that much about what some friends think of my decision.