Holy Effing Crap!

I've been counting down the sleeps from triple digits. I've been busting my budgeting butt to the point where I think about the difference between the groceries I really need and the yummy things I simply want. I've been planning and saving and booking and reading my lonely planet. I've been printing off confirmations illegally at work amidst assessment rubrics and study booklets.

I bought a neoprene cover with velcro accents for my DSLR. I bought a new 4GB memory card. Both off ebay, sent from Taiwan. (See budget butt - above)

We have our passports. We have our backpacks. We have our travel insurance. We have our flights, accommodation, internal flights booked. I bought The Bean new thongs. We have shorts. T-Shirts. Wife Beaters. Bathers. Hats. New sunscreen.

I even have one of those little against your skin, skin colour baggy things to put all the passports and stuff in.

Organised doesn't even begin to describe it.

We are, in all essence, ready to go.


And now, SHITTING MYSELF!!!

The Bean gets sick if someone looks at him before they sneeze. I get panicky when The Bean gets sick.

What if he gets sick and I get panicky and there's no one there that we know to help?

What if it rains the WHOLE time?

What if he gets tired and we don't get to see anything?

What if I get tired but he still wants to keep going?

What if, and in all likelihood this is more a when rather than an if, he chucks a huge mental spaz tantrum in public and I get hugely embarrassed and people stare and I shout and the embarrassment, panic, anxious cycle spirals out of control?

What if I turn to take a picture and someone steals him away? I don't speak Vietnamese. Who would I ask for help?

What if he hates it?

What if I hate it?

What if, two days in, I just want to come home?

What if I'm a crazy person that just wants to come home?

What if all the things that I love about travelling, now terrify me?

When I was pregnant with The Bean I said, 'I'm gonna take this baby all over the world. It's going to experience things rather than want to own things, purchase things. Even if it's just the two of us and a backpack we'll have adventures and it'll see the world and learn that people are from different places and have different ways of thinking and all of that is amazing and special and true and life.'

What if I'm not strong or brave or rich or sane enough to actually go through with it???

Things The Bean has said:

The Bean: It's not raining anymore, Mama. Can we go to the big zoo?
Me: Not today babe, you're still sick.
Tears.
Beginning of tantrum.
Me: Why don't you go call your Papa and tell him it's not raining anymore?

Calls Papa.

TB: Papa, it's not raining anymore.
Papa: Hahahaha
TB: Papa, can we pleeeaaasse go to the big zoo now?
Papa: Um...

Gives the phone to me.

Me: Dad, you said it. He remembers things like that.
Papa: But that was days ago.
Me: You are not allowed to say things to a Bean describing some distant future. 20 minutes before you want to do something is the maximum.

The Bean at the window: MAMA, THE SUNSHINE'S OUT!!!! Let's go!!!!!!!!!