ChiKat

We are officially going to Bolivia and Peru! We'll see Machu Picchu and hike to elevations of 16,000 feet. I am pretty excited, and so is my husband. We agonized about this decision. Giving the yellow fever vaccine to our son worries us, dragging him to 16,000 feet when he is barely a year old worries us…and taking him on a 8+ hour flight TERRIFIES us. But our love of travel, and our determination not to become hermits just because we have a baby, has won out.

We are now the proud owners of a baby backpack, a stroller that coverts to a car seat for the airplane, and a passport for our son.

The entire time I was getting passport photos taken of our son, the photographer kept saying, "I have NEVER had to take pictures of a BABY for a PASSPORT…who takes a BABY out of the COUNTRY? I've just NEVER had to do this before." I was both totally exasperated (because TONS of people take their children on trips) and totally embarrassed because he IS a baby and we are the terrible parents dragging him away from his safe home.

But even the CVS photographer couldn't keep us from checking out Incan ruins.

We don't leave for another two months, but I'm already trying to figure out how we haul all of his stuff onto a plane. I am so excited about this trip!

I picked up a second client for my freelance writing, so that is where I've been this past month. Sorry for the lack of posts.

I just found out an old friend of mine is attempting to hike the entire 1,000+ mile Appalachian Trail, which I think is pretty amazing. You can track his progress on his website.

In other news, this week's Newsweek has an interesting article about Michelle Obama. I really respect Michelle and her commitment to her family. She sounds like a pretty amazing woman. The article says that she wrote her thesis from Princeton on the racial tension on campus. According to Newsweek, Michelle said:

"Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton," she wrote, "it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second." (Today, Michelle says, not quite convincingly, that she can't remember what was in her thesis.)

What I find most interesting is her unwillingness to discuss the racial tension. I went to U of I in Urbana-Champaign. There were tons of students from all different ethnic backgrounds, but when I look back on my time at U of I, I was friends with whites, Asians and Indians. There was a huge divide between the black students and everyone else. I have no idea how to bridge that divide, but I can't image not talking about it is going to help.

At the same time, when Michelle said that she has never felt happier about America as she does right now, Bill O'Reilly jumps all over her for being so negative, so pessimistic. To the conservatives, suggesting that America isn't perfect makes you a terrorist. So I can understand why Michelle wants to keep the focus on political issues and leave the hyper-sensitive issue of race off the table for now.

I just hope, if Obama really does win the whole kit and caboodle, that we as a country are strong enough to talk about race and make real changes.

I updated some of my favorite links on the left. I've added some Chicago blogs, like "The Chicago Schools" and "Hype Park Progress" which are both pretty amazing.

I also updated "About Me". It's always fun to spend some time being self-centered enough to think of 100 tidbits about yourself.

Man, I am really wasting my son's naptime today, aren't I?

One of my big concerns about the South America trip is that I have been talking my husband into going on the trip. He loves the idea of the trip, too, but he is often in love with the *idea* of things and not the *actuality* of things.

I'm the one that usually plans trips and drags us out the door. Then he has a great time.

I think this trip will be the same, but if something goes wrong, I will feel like it was 100% my fault. We aren't making these decisions together. I am talking him into the decisions. So if something goes wrong, like the very likely chance that my son will get a headache from the high altitude, I will feel like it is my fault. If something serious goes wrong, like a bad reaction to the Yellow Fever vaccine, I will be buried under the guilt that I will pile on myself.

When we made medical decisions for our son before, like deciding about circumcision, we both believed very strongly in our opinions. I feel like we split the responsibility for the decision-making equally.

With this trip, my husband knows how much I want to see my brother, so I think he is letting me talk him into things that he isn't really comfortable with. That makes me feel the weight of responsibility even more.

At the same time, if I don't drag us out the door, I'm fairly convinced my husband wouldn't leave the condo until our son was 18.

On a day-to-day basis, my husband is much more daring and adventurous than me. He barrels down the mountain on his snowboard, zipping through the trees with no concern at all. I snow plow down at a snails pace.

But when it comes to our son, my husband is much more protective. I guess since I'm already so cautious, I don't feel the need to be MORE cautious just because I have a baby. My husband, on the other hand, has had to make some pretty big lifestyle changes to accommodate the pace of a baby. I think his pendulum swung from thrill-seeker to safety-net, but maybe it's still needs some fine-tuning because no matter how much I bundle that child up, my husband is always hovering with an extra blanket, an extra hat AND the suggestion that we just stay inside.

Ugh. My dog just threw up, which caused my son to burst into laughter. While I raced to get paper towels to clean up the puke, but son tried to beat me to the puke so he could play with it.

Gross.