Amylynn loses her mind. Part One

Read the next paragraph in a sing song voice.

I’m going on vacation in three days. To the Caribbean. HA!

This week I plan to regale you with stories of my trying to prepare Sassy and The Bandit for vacation. It’s not going smoothly. Honestly, did you expect it to? I certainly didn’t. I did not suffer delusions about this.

My house isn’t small but it’s loaded with stuff and there isn’t a single bit of unused space. We do not have a spare bedroom so we don’t really have a staging area, per se. I have been collecting various things for the trip and stacking them in the little area around my desk in the office. It’s almost like I’ve been erecting a little fort in there.

As I’ve been collecting clothes, specifically dresses and little suits,  I’ve been hanging them from the book shelves. Finally this week I hauled out the suitcases so I could start migrating clothes in that direction. Ava is flabbergasted that that is as far as I’ve gotten. If this was her trip, the bags would have been packed for a week. She also irons every single item of clothing before it goes into the suitcases – so obviously she’s nuts. I’m not nuts. I understand the limitations as presented by my children.

I was 100% certain that the minute I started putting clothes in the suitcases, they would be in there rifling around. THEY FIND IT COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE TO LEAVE THINGS ALONE. Ava says that is because they are not sufficiently afraid of me. I’m certain that is true, even while everyone else in the world does hold me in a certain amount of fear. I can’t understand it. She says it’s because I’m not crazy enough, that they know that underneath the bluster and threats, there is a perfectly reasonable person in there. Well, if they’re not careful they’ll suck all the reasonableness out of me.

Of course, the chaos I predicted came to pass.  Sassy’s completely packed suitcase was open this morning and being rooted through. The bigger problem so far has been the negotiation with The Bandit on what he can take with him and what he can’t. Having never been to the Caribbean, and being six, of course he has no real understanding of what clothes he needs. It’s getting chillier here so I guess it makes complete sense that every time I open his suitcase to put more stuff in there, I find down coats, wool ski caps, mittens, and such right in there along side his swimsuit and water shoes.

Yesterday, I removed among other things : several handfuls of Army men, about ten thousand matchbox cars, the Monopoly board game (even after I told him NO BOARD GAMES) and – this is my favorite – his Captain America suit.

Apparently, one never knows when being Captain America will be useful while on a cruise ship in Grand Cayman.

To be continued…..