california!

You know what? Packing for a trip for one grown up person is so easy it's almost like not doing anything at all. It's that easy. So easy that I can do it while watching Toddlers & Tiaras and also so easy that I don't even have a two page checklist! I also don't have 85 Ziplocs to contain baby medicine and applesauce and sippies full of milk that never fail to leak into the bottom of my bag, I don't have to take out a pair of shoes (or two) to make room for a second pack of diapers, and my carry on? It's SO LIGHT it's almost AIR. I can even take my laptop! And USE IT on the plane if I want to, because not like I have anything else (takeoff pressure change poo diaper changing, Valium popping, profuse sweating) to do! And my suitcase is pretty much all packed and there's still room in it, you guys. Enough room that I'd go buy myself more shoes to take along, just because I COULD, if only I had a Nordstrom at which to do such a crazy thing. Or hell, a DSW would do right about now. Alas, our shoe pickins are slim up here in the woods, and I don't want to take hiking boots or bright white elderly people tennies on my trip, so my husband and credit card can breathe a big sigh of relief and my suitcase will just be light, for a change. So light I won't be holding my breath and trying to tip the side of my jumbo-stuffed suitcase off the side of the scale at the airport in fear of busting over the 50 pound mark and being fined $1,500 and my (fictional) thirdborn child for my bag packing gluttony.

I'm leaving for California in the morning. Just me, my lightass suitcase, and three of my oldest, bestest friends. We're finally taking the girlfriend trip we started talking about taking when we were still sweet little innocent (HAHAHA!) college girls and had no idea the logistics that would go into taking such a trip as adults (child care, cha-chingy airplane tickets, work arrangements, etc etc etc). But we always said we would do it, and now we're doing it, and it's going to be fab. And I'm not going to Super Target, I swear! Just the sweet sweet frivolous mall. And the beach. And restaurants. Where I can have a drink or four and nobody's going to scream at me to cut their food into teeny tiny pieces FASTER, unless one of the girls has one too many drinks, in which case how funny would THAT be?!? I'll take pictures if it happens.

It goes without saying that by about day two, the little people will be missed like I'd miss an appendage, but I'm choosing not to focus on that. And hello, they're pretty cool with some uninterrupted Mommo/uncle/auntie/daddy time. And even if they do miss me a little (they will, right? They'll notice I'm gone?), it will be good for them to have mama come back a little more relaxed and so excited to see them that I'll squeeze them to teeny tiny toddler pieces. For days on end. Because I'm totally going to miss them. A lot. But that's why God made margaritas! AMEN AND HALLELUJAH AND SUCH!