Travels with Charlies

We are going away for a few days and the children are old enough to help with packing but they still need some direction. So before we leave I tell them to get all their clothes out for how ever many days we will be gone. I have them pack an outfit with socks and underwear all in one stack and they should have as many stacks as days plus how ever many jammies they need.

My daughter is right on, I walk into her room and she has each outfit, including socks and underwear, in several little stacks, all totalling the number of stacks that I dictated. I take the stacks of my daughter's clothes and place them directly into the suitcase.

I move into my son, Max's, room and he, on the other hand, has one gigantic wad of clothing in the center of the floor. I look at Max and ask him if he'd like his clothes packed in the suitcase that way. He looks at me with that almost grin that he gets when he is not being fully truthful and says, "Yes." I explain that we will be away for a while and there is no way for me to tell if he has enough clothing, socks and underwear. He laughs, looks up from his DS for a second, or is it a nano-second, and says, "So?" My other concern is that sometimes the outfits don't match. Actually, matchy match is not that important to me but I do not want to be party to the clash that often happens (not the band but the look) if outfits are not at least passed over with a mother's eye.

I would let it slide but I'm sure that you know how it all becomes your fault when things do not work out and cause an uncomfortable situation. And I, for one, do not want to be sharing a car with a little boy who has to wear the same pair of underwear all week long! So I make him divide the wad into stacks, we change a few things around and pack up.

They are both getting a little better about doing a few things to help with getting ready for a trip. When mommy and daddy both work, we can use all the help we can get.