July 9, 2025

Packing Prison

A Super Mom of 5 girls who is a friend of mine once texted me that she could not attend something I was hosting because she was in “packing prison” and oh what a prison it is. I am currently there myself, trying to pack for our family vacation while catching up way too much work and other loose ends related to support for my parents for our time traveling. It will be the first time any of our four children are flying on an airplane and my first time flying in 20 years since our honeymoon. We are excited for an adventure and all of the sight-seeing and memory making we plan to do. And a bright spot today was that we found out that Mom does not need to continue the nutrition monitoring bloodwork for which the orders were all screwed up. So no need to keep making phone calls about that. The one phone call my mom made was returned today with the good news. All of the calls I made were apparently for nothing this time as none of them were returned.

Weirdest thing ever though, as I was rushing out of my driveway to take my daughter to art camp this morning I received a call from someone naming a doctor and stating that she was calling from his office and that he is a chiropractor and that I left a message. I was extremely confused and stated that neither myself nor any of my family members have called a chiropractor and she read me back what was supposedly my phone number that she just called me at. I politely informed her that that is not my number (it was not even close). So then there are random wrong number calls. You just can’t make this up.

We are working on figuring out how many suitcases to take and plan to pack all 6 of us in each suitcase and just pull the suitcase we need for the couple of nights we are spending at each location along the way, but we must pack so that the suitcases will fit in the rental vehicle (we practiced with my sister-in-law’s vehicle as it is very similar to what we have reserved) and we have the bag fees per bag from the airlines to consider as well. We will have only a couple of specific spots to do laundry so the packing itself is an adventure.

I will detail my plan for support for my parents, our dog, and our home while we spend this time away in another post, but know that if it is a huge ordeal for you to step away not only from your professional life, but also from your day to day personal responsibilities living the sandwiched life.

And I will end with this. My husband an I frequently remind each other that this is a Trip, not a vacation (a fact that I know many blogs have written about before as it is SO relatable), because the kids will be along, fighting, and complaining and we will just be parenting in another location. But we are definitely thankful that we have the privilege of going and we know we will be grateful for the memories as we look back.