Traveling with Children: it’s one of the 7 levels of purgatory.

David took it upon himself, for the first (and quite possibly last) time, to create the packing lists for our recent trip to Colorado. Every single one of them. (Except mine and Nina’s. Because when embarking on travel with a toddler, it’s truly in one’s best interest to leave the details to moi.)

The kids were presented with their lists, and reacted just as predicted. (Clarification: just as I predicted — not David, who has yet to be indoctrinated into the Hell is Packing for Seven dimension.)

The responses came swiftly and loudly. So swiftly, in fact, that I was convinced they were reacting without having read a word.

Henry: “DAD! I’m not packing this much stuff!”

David: “Henry, we’re going for a week. You need at least two pairs of pants.”

Henry: “Yeah, well how do YOU know I’ll need underwear?”

And in began George, who hadn’t even read his list — because he can’t yet read words other than SpongeBob and Frappaccino.

George: “Whatever, Dude, I’m not taking pants.”

David: “George, it’s supposed to snow while we’re there. I think you’ll need pants.”

George: “No.”

I decided that I wasn’t going to care what they had (or didn’t have) in their suitcases (or soup cases, or shoe cases — if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, the details are here). What I knew was what I had in my soup case, that being 5 packages of ear plugs, a fully charged iPod, and 3 bottles of Motrin.

*Photo courtesy of purdywurdy