All In A Mom-day's Work

by Lucie Bouchard Antoniazzi

Forget me nots

For some reason, I have become the official packer for my household when family trips come along. This is a big responsibility! Not only do I have to fit everything for the five of us into the limited number of suitcases that we can carry, but I also seem to be responsible, or should I say, “blamed,” for everything that is left behind.

This year, I am on a mission. After such incidents as the missing asthma inhaler on the trip to Niagara Falls (1998), the missing sandals on the trip to Italy (2003), and the missing beach sandals and asthma inhaler on the trip to Virginia Beach (2005), I am determined not to forget anything as we prepare for two splendid weeks of fun in the sun in Southern California. I am making a detailed list of forget me nots which will be checked and double-checked as I pack. The problem is that, just as the tiny blue flowers by the same name often overtake any open space in the garden, my list is threatening to overflow off the page.

Traveling used to be so simple before we had kids. Rudy would pack his stuff; I would pack mine, and whatever we forgot we bought on the spot. Sometimes we even left on a whim, with a small overnight bag containing a couple of changes of clothes and a bathing suit. We escaped to wherever the road took us…no reservations required. Ha!  Try doing that with a family of five who expects a comfortable bed to sleep in at night. 

Maybe I am over-reacting. If we forget anything, we can get a replacement wherever we’re going, right? Umm…not necessarily. 

Take the asthma inhaler example in Niagara Falls. It was Nick’s inhaler, and he was 18 months old at the time. He had been using an inhaler since the age of four months and was up to a 125 mg dose, very strong for his size and age. No doctor would prescribe that dose to a baby without access to his medical history. We decided it was best to cut our trip short and come back home.

A second problematic replacement came when trying to find sandals for our 6-year-old in Italy after leaving his brand new “bought especially for the Italy trip” sandals in his closet. At home, we can find kids’ shoe stores in every mall…NOT in Italy.  Actually, finding a mall in Italy was close to impossible, let alone children’s shoe stores. In every city that we visited, we searched for stores that sold kids’ shoes – any store! I swear! Small children in Italy must go around barefoot! We were finally successful on day nine of our trip. We came across a shoemaker’s shop on the main street in Assisi that had gorgeous leather sandals, just perfect for a boy, and very reasonably priced, although at this point I think we might have willingly forked over a small fortune for them. Poor Nick had endured endless hours of walking in 40 º C (104 º F) temperatures with socks and running shoes on his feet every day.

Though I must admit that finding beach sandals at Virginia Beach when we left Vanessa’s at home was a piece of cake, we ran into problems when trying to get Nick a darned asthma inhaler. We took him to an ER clinic, but the doctor would not prescribe 125 mg, saying that was much too strong a dose for an 8-year-old. We ended up with something like 45 mg which did little to ease Nick’s wheezing in the middle of the night.

For the sake of saving time (and paper), I’ll simplify my mission. My list of forget me nots will include only prescription medicines and items that cannot be easily replaced if we forget them. That should trim down the list to a manageable level so that we don’t leave anything important behind. 

Now all I need to do is remember where I’ve put my list when the time comes to pack.

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