I have mentioned in a previous column about how sometimes travelling away from home can make a person miss their city more than ever. To me, this adage has never been more accurate.
I am writing this column sitting on the Skytrain in Vancouver on the way to Science World. I am not travelling lightly.
Currently in my possession, I have with me the following items (and people): my husband, my two children (an infant and a very excited and overtired toddler), my two nephews (aged 15 and 13), my sister-in-law (age not required), a car seat, a stroller, snacks for the children, two baby blankets, eight toy cars, three baby toys, an over-packed diaper bag and my giant sack of a purse.
At one time, my purse was small and cute. Now, my purse weighs as much as my infant daughter and contains an assortment of necessary and wholly unnecessary items.
Throughout my life, I have been a reader and, like most avid bookworms, I usually will carry a book (or two) with me wherever I go.
For most people, smart-phones fill the boredom gap between appointments or waiting for a bus or sitting on the Skytrain.
I think that because I love to read, I get nervous about the possibility of having spare time and potentially being bored. Looking out around this wild variety of people on the Skytrain, there are only a handful of people just sitting. Most people are texting, reading or chatting with a friend.
Since I had children, my reading time has been drastically reduced but I still have a little anxious voice inside of me that strongly encourages me to pack for an afternoon outing as if I were outfitting my family for the zombie apocalypse.
My husband and I have had a number of discussions on this trip about the amount of stuff we have packed for eight days in the mainland.
My packing philosophy includes every single weather scenario that I can imagine, packaged food and fresh fruit from home, distraction items for the toddler for the car (which we haven't let him use because we are forcing him to "look at the mountains and the buildings, dammit!"), an entire bag of knitting that I haven't even touched except to show off my project to my other friends who knit and no less than a suitcase for each person in our household.
So we have four large suitcases, a bag for my knitting, a bag for incidentals (potty seat and toys for the kids), another bag for the toiletries (because they wouldn't fit in one of the four suitcases), a play pen for the baby, a garment bag with my husband's suit for the wedding we are attending, a cooler for the food I insisted that we bring, my Kobo e-reader, my iPad, our two cellphones, the GPS and all of the associated chargers, and, a headache. This doesn't even take into consideration any items that have bought or acquired throughout our trip.
Every single time we open the hatch on the van, something falls out and I think it's my husband's sanity.
I, however, feel prepared for most contingencies.
During one of our discussions about the amount of stuff I've packed for this trip, my husband told me that if we really need something away from home, we could just buy it.
This hadn't even occurred to me. That advice seemed a lot more sensible after an entire bottle of baby shampoo emptied into the largest suitcase filled with the rest of our clean clothes.
We miss you Prince George and are looking forward to coming home.
