Packing. Ugh!
It’s a big job, even if and maybe especially if one is not planning to take very much.
My husband, daughter and I are going to meet my family in Hawaii for a multi-family multi-generational vacation in honor of my parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary.
It should be easy for us to pack our tiny bathing suits, flip-flops and sun-dresses into rolling carry-on suitcases, except that we are taking a side trip to Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park and the website says we need sturdy soled-shoes and long pants. We might visit the snow covered mountain, Mauna Kea, and on the way home we will spend several days in Seattle, which is famous for rain. I think we need coats! How can we prepare for all that in carry-on luggage?
Another complication for us, since we are planning on carry-on luggage, and we’re not allowed more than 3 oz of anything liquid-ish is this; how can I possibly get enough of our favorite brands of sunscreen to Hawaii. Do I buy it there? What if I can’t find our favorite brands. We can’t use just any sunscreen. I tried that once and My Kid had an allergic reaction that led her to the conclusion that she didn’t like to swim in the ocean because the combination of sunscreen and salt water burned her skin.
We leave a week from today. My days from now until then will be all about packing. Ideally we will have a packing dress rehearsal this weekend and I will finesse the details and do the necessary laundry to finis the job after the weekend while my kid is at soccer day camp.
I’ve been to several other mom’s apartments this week. The ones with multiple children and multiple-day packing projects. I’ve seen these projects. The twenty piles of pink and purple t-shirts and shorts. Two, three, even 4 or 5 piles for each kid; Packing for 3 kids to stay with relatives in Europe. Packing for 3 kids to live on a sailboat for the summer. Packing one kid for camp from a prescribed list and requiring a name tag attached to every single item of clothing. (Do they really mean a label on each and every sock?) Packing for 2 kids to visit multiple relatives on multiple continents with appropriate outfits for each child for both urban society and back-country hiking. Aghhhh!
During the last week of school one of the moms on the playground commented that she was wishing school wasn’t over so soon (On June 28!) because she wasn’t done packing.
This summer when she’s not clowning, Kathie is packing in Brooklyn.
This was an original NYC Moms Blog post.