Tomorrow, as many have of you have seen on every news channel in the country, Barack Obama will be coming to Springfield to either announce or present his running mate. 

This is big time for Springfield, even bigger than that cold, bitter day in February 2006 when he arrived to announce his presidential bid.  This will definitely be written in history books to come, especially if he wins the Presidency. 

My dilemma:  Do I take my 3 year old and 4 year old to go see Obama?  Now I know that they will not understand what is going on, but to be a part of history is not only important, but exciting. 

I have tried to take them to other events that I feel are significant, such as the parade to send the troops off last July.   Once again, they did not quite understand, but we do refer back to that occasionally when we see a soldier.  My proudest example of the impact of that event occurred on Memorial Day this year.  My family has a Family Reunion every Memorial Day Sunday at Manner's Park in Taylorville.  There is a very large pavilion that we have our dinner in and usually there are other groups there also.  One group that was there was a family that was celebrating the return of their son from Iraq.  The father announced to anyone that would listen his pride and joy that his son had returned safely.  Paige, my four year old, turned to me and said, "I want to go say Hi to the soldier."  She remembered that we went to the parade and the soldiers were leaving.  She understood that this was a soldier that had come home.  So we went over to say Hi and Thank You to this particular soldier.  As it turns out, he was one that we sent off the previous July in the parade in Springfield.  Paige made the connection, shyly said Hi, shook his hand and, very quietly, said thank You.  I cried. 

But back to Obama.  He is scheduled to speak at 2:00.  Security doors open at 12:00.  It has been recommended that if you want to be there, you should arrive no later than 11:00.  The weather is predicted to be steamy hot, or storming.  So, that is three hours of waiting to possibly see Obama and his running mate in the hot, humid, stormy weather, with a three year old and a four year old.  sounds like a lot of fun.

I think I will forgo this event and head to the Mackinaw Valley Winery instead.  We'll watch it on the news, I am sure.