Packing Planning

I don't know how many other people plan to pack before they do it, but I do. Sometimes days (or in this case more than a week) in advance. Otherwise I forget all kinds of important things, and even with the advance planning and adding things as I think of them, I'll still forget something. I'm not sure I've ever arrived anywhere in my adult life without having forgotten something. Often something both obvious and important -- toothbrush anyone?

At the moment, I'm obsessing about what to pack. My mother-in-law has asked us to pack light. I like to pack light. There's a library where we're going and she has access, so that will help. She's planning to borrow toys from some of her friends, though I don't know how much *that* will help -- my kids seem to have rather unusual toy preferences. She has a washing machine, so I can probably manage to minimize the clothing. Which means that most of our luggage will be taken up by kid stuff, or more properly, stuff for the kids to do.

On top of that, I need to fit a lot of plane-friendly stuff for the kids to do into the carry on luggage. We've never flown so far before or so long. I'm honestly not entirely sure how many airs we'll be spending in the air without doing a whole bunch of time conversions and it's probably better that I don't figure it out in advance.

So far my packing list looks something like this:
Books (lots and lots and lots)
Games (card games for the plane)
Craft supplies (stickers, paper, colored pencils, markers, kid safe scissors, tape, who knows what else)
Small toys (Transformers have been requested, but not by 'Parkle Girl)
Knitting (what? Is there anyone who travels without knitting?)
DVDs

Oh yes, and Blue Blanket. I learned the error of my ways the one and only time I checked Blue Blanket (being afraid of leaving it on the plane) and the luggage was delayed. I may tie Blue Blanket to 'Parkle Girl, but we will bring him. Actually, considering the depth of the relationship 'Parkle Girl has with Blue Blanket, I think tying them together is superfluous and possibly redundant. I just have to make sure that she doesn't start disrobing, the better to feel Blue Blanket, since she's been wearing him a lot recently.

And for the rest of the trip we have:
Bathing suits
Water shoes
Shorts and T shirts
Sunscreen (lots and lots of sunscreen)
Homework (you pull your kids out of school for almost two weeks, you bring the homework)
Digital cameras and journals (see above) plus the battery charger for same
More games
Birthday presents for 'Parkle Girl. This would be the year of large birthday presents acquired or planned before the idea for this trip was even hatched. Those are staying home.
More knitting (what? it's almost 2 weeks -- I could go insane if I run out of knitting, and since I understand that we'll be pretty isolated, it's best to be prepared. In fact, I've been obsessing about the knitting for weeks.)

Time to start the real list.

Warping the Space-Time Continuum

Yesterday morning, I left the house at some unknown time after time X (where X is the time at which it is necessary to leave the house in order to get Universe Man to school on time). The traffic was normal, the kids were more or less well behaved, but I was stressed because if Universe Man is late, there’s a snowball effect because the traffic gets worse by the minute, which can result in Mr. Personality and ‘Parkle Girl being late. Mind you, nobody much cares if she’s late, but still.

Today, we left the house at time Z + 7 (where Z is the time necessary to leave the house to get Mr. Personality to his before-school piano lesson). As we made the left turn, he reported that he had not packed his piano books, which meant we needed to turn around and get them, resulting in us leaving the driveway (for the second time) at Z + 10. In spite of this, and the fact that it is known that it takes a minimum of 12 minutes to get to school, we arrived at school at time P + 1 (where P is the time piano lesson starts). A measly minute, but still, it was real.

I’ve been trying to repeat this feat all day, but alas, it appears that it only works while driving kids to school.

I suppose I should take what I can get.