The day before we leave on a long trip, I always have a moment when I don’t think I’m actually going to get it all done.  Today is no exception. I haven’t yet started packing (although frankly, I’ve packed us up so many times that I could do it with one hand tied behind my back). I still have to type up instructions for the friend whose son will be taking care of my garden. The mail and papers have been stopped, but I forgot to take the car in for an oil change yesterday and so have to take time out to do so this afternoon. I need to e-mail our itinerary to friends and family. And did I mention that Tommy’s last Little League game, which was rained out, got rescheduled for this evening?

Of course, I will get it all done. I always do, usually more efficiently than I expected to. And as you can tell from the photo above, I have done the single most critically important task, which is assembling the in-the-car supplies for the kids.

My favorite part of any trip we take is that Zen moment when we pull out of the driveway. At that point there’s nothing more for me to do. What’s been forgotten has been forgotten; what will die in my garden will die; and if there’s a light left on or a piece of food left out on the counter, well, that’s just how it goes. Our trip lies before us waiting to happen. And usually it takes the children at least ten minutes before they ask for a snack or how long we will be in the car.

Tomorrow we hit the road for what I’ve dubbed Slowcation 2009.  We will be spending the night in Ohio, with a planned arrival in southern Wisconsin late on Friday afternoon. I will be blogging from the road, keeping track of how much money we are spending and how many miles we cover per day going a maximum speed of 60 mph.

In case you’re wondering, the supplies above, which will be invaluable since we have no DVD or portable video-game player, cost me 60 dollars. We also spent 30 dollars making a CD on iTunes and checked a bunch of books out of the library. I’m yet to purchase our snacks, but I’m thinking I’ll manage to get us on the road for around 100 bucks. Not bad when you consider that we’ll be driving 850 miles over the next two days!

I’ve always been a list-maker, but having kids kicked that up to a whole new level, especially when we travel. From the very first trip we took with Tommy when he was six weeks old, I made very careful lists in of exactly what we needed to bring – bottles and blankets and binkies and nightlights and extra diapers. My diaper bag was a black backpack that was great for traveling and from our very first trip it was always my job to plan and execute all of the packing (Matt’s job has always been to make what I pack fit in our little car). I prided myself on how well-organized it was and on how I always had a clean change of clothes, wipes, extra sippy cups, and lots of books and toys in its well-stocked compartments.

I definitely still endorse list making and careful packing as a tactic when you travel with kids, especially babies and toddlers who require a lot of gear, and especially if you’re going away for a long time. When I was packing for our trip to Arizona this week I made a quick list to ensure that we didn’t forget Teddy’s nebulizer, meds, and all-important Lovey Bear.

But I realized something important on this trip. My boys are now 4 and almost 7, old enough to know what they’d like to read and play with and what things might be most critical to amuse them on the plane. So they packed their own backpacks. The Easter Bunny may have magically provided some perfect new toys and travel games that gave them great ideas, but each of them came up with their own critical items like extra chapter books about Ben Franklin and a collection of small plastic dinosaurs.

The title of this post may be a bit misleading, because I’m not actually advocating that the kids get the final say about everything that goes into the suitcase. And obviously it only applies for those of you who have kids like mine who are past the toddler stage. But involving your children in the packing process not only helps get them excited for the trip, it gives them some ownership and makes them willing and eager to carry some of the load when you are schlepping through the airport.

And it’s also a way to give your children some independence and control over their own experience – and begins setting the stage for when they can actually pack (and even take trips) on their own. You’d be surprised what your kids are capable of. Maybe next time we’re traveling I’ll teach Tommy the virtues of writing a pre-packing list.

Monday dreaming will return next week at it usually scheduled time. And I probably won’t do much live blogging on this trip – I plan to just relax a little and enjoy my vacation. I’ve got other posts scheduled throughout the week though, so please come back. And I will definitely be sharing the whole scoop on Arizona when we return.

I’m really not all that into travel gear. You might even call me somewhat antigear. After lots of traveling with infants, toddlers, and now school-age kids, I’ve come to realize that there really aren’t that many things you need to have a successful trip. Not that we travel in a way that I would call light, but our bulk tends to be books, toys, and shoes not special containers or gadgets that are supposed to make things “simpler”.

Lately though I’ve been thinking about our car, which is small, and all of the stuff in the backseat. This tends to be an overwhelming pile of books, papers, crayons, plastic snack cups, and who knows what else. And I’ve been thinking about a multi-day driving trip to Wisconsin with two bickering children. And I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s time to invest in a piece of gear that might help to contain things a little bit. I’m contemplating a purchase like the Tuffo Family Car Organizer. Think of all those cute little compartments filled so neatly with markers and magazines! And the blissfully happy children who can immediately locate everything their hearts desire!

Or at least no stuff on the floor, maybe?

Or at the very least not an overwhelming tide of childhood randomness sliding in between the two front seats whenever the brakes are applied?

(It does occur to me that perhaps a future post about the absolute essentials that I carried with us for 13 months might be a good idea. Stay tuned).

Today we embarked on an entirely different trip than our recent one to Paris: our annual 3-week sojourn in Vermont where my father and stepmother live. We have done this every summer since Tommy was born save the year he was two, when we had just returned from our 13 months on the road and were in no mood to go anywhere for a while.

Unlike our trip to France, which was all new territory for the boys, this trip is full of traditions. Per usual, the excitement started early in the week when I packed a few boxes and shipped them ahead (a trick I learned while we were traveling for 13 months, this is what enables us to go away for so long in our small sedan). A few days before we left, I filled a grocery bag with treats such as sour-cream-and-cheddar potato chips and licorice and a stack of new books for the kids. The past few times we’ve done this drive Matt has made a CD of great 1950s hits–Elvis, Chuck Barry, etc.–to listen to in the car. This time it was my turn and I stayed up late on Friday night searching iTunes. And then suddenly it was the day before departure, with its annual scurry to pack and buy sunblock and get haircuts and mow the lawn and get the bike rack on the car, which, since it happens only rarely, is always a challenge.

In the past I’ve always made lots of packing lists, but after our trip to Paris, I just didn’t feel like it somehow, so I didn’t. The boys are getting older and for the first time we are traveling free of almost all baby gear – no diapers, wipes, swimmies, or potty or booster seats. Matt did make the clutch decision to bring the stroller, although I’m still not sure how he fit it in the trunk – after years of family road trips he’s gotten to be kind of a magician with that space. We left the backpack carrier, so Teddy is going to have to do some hiking.

This is what the car ultimately looked like, pretty much as it always looks when we leave on this trip. Simplification didn’t really help much, but I felt psychically lighter, as if it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I forgot something. Of course, at some point Teddy’s legs are going to reach the ground and we’re going to lose that valuable space behind the passenger seat, but I suppose we can address that problem when the time comes.

I’m pretty old school when it comes to road trips. I don’t believe in videos or electronic games and am very happy that the children successfully amuse themselves as I did when I was young: with books and coloring and songs and looking out the window and of course, because they are after all human children, bickering and poking and angling for more snacks. I’m not sure my CD, full of Motown songs, was such a hit, although I was certainly happy listening to “Stop in the Name of Love.” When the New Jersey Turnpike got too boring, I read them a chapter of Runaway Ralph, pausing so that we could admire the George Washington Bridge and try to glimpse Manhattan through the haze of heat and pollution, just like we always do. We stopped for lunch in Danbury, Connecticut at Rosie Tomorrow’s, “our” restaurant ever since we discovered it one day when we were caught in a traffic jam a few years ago. The boys love this place, which is full of old fairground artifacts and an electric train that circles above the bar, around and around the piano player who is there at Sunday brunch playing a jaunty if disjointed mix of Chopin and Cole Porter. They serve you too much food her, not bad but not especially good, but the French fries are curly and there is a fortune teller in a booth like in the movie Big. It’s always a winner.

To make the drive more manageable, we stop in Northampton, Massachusetts and spend a night or two before going on to Vermont. We always stay in the same hotel, and as the years have passed, we can mark Tommy’s growth using the small indoor pool. The first time he couldn’t stand even in the shallowest part and had to be carried around; now he can jump in one end and swim to the other without assistance, which he was doing ten minutes after arrived. And after swimming, as we always do, we staggered out to dinner and the boys almost fell asleep in their food much to my irritation (will I ever learn?). Then there was, as there always is, the giggly excitement of getting them settled into bed, both on a the fold-out couch (for the first time this year Teddy isn’t in a Pack ‘n Play) and the one, two, three reprimands to settle down. In the morning, they knew, there would be a first breakfast of Fruit Loops at the hotel followed by a dip in the pool and then The Backyardigans and a second breakfast at our favorite restaurant Sylvester’s. Always the same, our own set of traditions for the boys to tell their children about some day. A journey into the familiar, just as important in their childhood as visiting the unknown.